Relief that house still standing, but anger at council

They had minutes to evacuate, but Ryan Topperwien knew he had to make sure his most precious belongings would be safe.

Although it was tough to leave their College Rd, Edgecumbe, home last Thursday morning, Topperwien packed up his son, Chace's, belongings - bed and chest of precious possessions - and stacked them on top of their kitchen table.

Chace died of leukaemia in June 2012 aged 3. Since then Ryan, and wife, Keri Topperwien, have been determined to help other families in a similar situation so set up the Dream Chaser Foundation, a charity supporting children and their families dealing with cancer.

Ryan Topperwien pictured with some of the furniture he stacked high before evacuating his Edgecumbe home. Photo / Alan Gibson

Ryan Topperwien arrived at their West Bank Rd this morning to get access to his home for the first time.

He wasn't too sure what to expect - given water was bubbling out of the ground behind his house when he left - but was pleased to see it still in one piece.

However, evidence of the flood's fury is etched around the side of his house where contractors have laid a tonne of dirt to plug the small breach in the stop bank which borders the rear of their section.

Although their house appeared to be fine, Topperwien and other residents he'd spoken to were angry at the way the council had dealt with the incident."

My wife was on the phone to them at 8.25am and saying 'is there an evacuation notice' and they said 'no'. I was driving down Rata St (at the same time) and the water was flowing down through all the houses."

Topperwien said he'd just left work to do an errand when he noticed about 10 missed calls from his wife about the flooding.

Arriving home, he knew they had to get out straight away."

I was like 'what are you guys doing mucking around, we need to get out now'."

But before he left he piled up Chace's belongings to higher ground and they fled - hoping for the best."

Chace Topperwien who died of leukemia in 2012.

The only stuff that I really cared about was Chace's ... he passed away in this bed so I wanted to make sure that it was alright, so I put it up as high as I could. "That chest has all of his stuff in it. Everything else we can replace."

Police and council granted the Herald brief access to visit Topperwien inside the cordon today. He was busy emptying the fridge-freezer when the Herald arrived."

It was all pretty fast to get out of here. It hasn't been looted so that's good."

He was unimpressed that despite floodwaters streaming through local streets neither council or civil defence declared an emergency in the town."

How are we supposed to know what's going on when they're the ones supposed to be protecting us."

There was no alarm at the fire station. They could have had that just going constantly. That would give people a bit more of a heads-up, 'oh shit, something's going on'."

Everyone's pretty pissed off. They just haven't done that well in communicating with the public, you always hear things from other people. They need to definitely work on their emergency plans."

Ryan Topperwien came home to this scene after evacuating his Edgecumbe home ealier this week. Photo / Alan Gibson

He said he was lucky that both of their families had driven over in anticipation of a flood to help them out."

The first thing I did was come up and look at the stop bank. You could see [water] at eye height. It was about 100ml from [the top] of the concrete barriers and so it was about the same height. I was like, 'we got to get out of here'."

However, despite the shambles at council, he was pleased with the amount of police that had been sent to patrol the area."

Our house is quite safe and I feel that it's safe. We're obviously not going to be staying here for a while and I'm quite happy with leaving and hoping that it will be quite safe."It could have been a lot worse. We're pretty well off. There's a lot of other houses further down the road that have a lot more damage and I think a lot of them won't be recoverable."