Waihī Beach flooding: Damaged pensioner flats may not be safe for months

It may be months before residents of flood-hit pensioner flats in Waihī Beach can move home, the local council says.

The seaside town is cleaning up today after 60mm of rain fell in an hour yesterday and caused flash flooding that forced up to 50 people from their homes, including elderly residents rescued by firefighters when the water reached their windows.

The Western Bay of Plenty District Council’s pensioner housing on Beach Rd was one of the worst-hit areas, with 11 of the 19 units flooded.

The council’s Civil Defence duty controller Peter Watson told the Bay of Plenty Times this afternoon an initial inspection suggested some of the flooded pensioner flats would not be safe to live in for months.

Watson said there was flood damage to personal belongings, carpets, walls and electrical appliances, but the council would know more when its rapid building assessments were completed.

Until those were done, it was not clear how long the pensioners would be unable to stay at their flats, he said.

“It’s going to be a while before some of these people can get back into their homes, and we don’t yet have a timeframe for when they can go back.

Flood-damaged Beach Rd in Waihī Beach on Tuesday. Photo / Alex Cairns

“Flooding reached as high as windowsills in some places, so it won’t be a simple matter of cleaning up and drying out the units.

“The initial inspection suggests they won’t be safe to live in for a while yet, possibly months... we are planning for up to several months and working through the necessary logistics.”

Watson said the council has done assessments on the residents’ welfare needs to see what they needed long-term, including finding alternative accommodation.

Some were staying with whānau and others in self-contained units at a local holiday park again tonight - accommodation that was available for another fortnight.

”We’re working on longer-term plans should they be needed.

”We are committed to ensuring that everyone who’s been evacuated has somewhere warm and dry to stay for however long they need it.”

There will be security at the units again tonight and the council will secure them with fencing tomorrow.

Watson said the goal was to get the residents back into their flats and their normal lives as quickly as possible.

He said Western Bay Mayor James Denyer was in Waihī Beach yesterday and this morning talking with those affected.

Watson said they were the “number one priority” and the council had people on the ground to look after them now, and get their homes sorted as quickly as possible.

It had organised skips and people to help those affected remove the damaged items from the units.

Watson earlier said it appeared to be a very localised downpour that caught everyone by surprise.

“A lot of locals said they had never experienced [a downpour] like that before. It’s pretty hard to predict the weather to that level in this country with the radar systems we have.”

‘Heavens just opened’

RSA Waihī Beach club manager Mel Gearon was at the office when there were a few “claps of thunder” and the “heavens just opened”.

“It just flooded all these places.”

She said authorities were able to help get pensioners out of the flats with the water waist-deep in some of the homes, she said.

Gearon said it was not uncommon for water to build up around the flats but, to her knowledge, this was the first time the water had gone through them with the same volumes. She said firefighters helped rescue some people while others just walked out.

Some residents were also reluctant to leave and eventually left with the water knee-deep and authorities telling them they needed to get out.

The power had not been isolated yet, which increased the danger, she said.

Part of the reluctance was due to trying to salvage personal belongings such as hearing aids and phone chargers.

“They left with the clothes on their back.”

Fire and Emergency received a report at 2.03pm of a car stuck in flood waters at Waihī Beach.

She said the pensioners were all “pretty good”, considering, and locals had helped them as they would with anyone in need.

“More than 50 per cent of our population is 65-plus and they’re all sort of involved in groups or clubs... they’re all sort of known to each other.”

Her phone had been inundated with people offering their homes, manpower or anything else needed.

Gearon said it was lucky the water drained quickly and there was no silt as seen in Hawke’s Bay earlier this year after Cyclone Gabrielle.

The Western Bay council today said in a statement the Trig Walkway was closed while an assessment was carried out and the Trig Walkway carpark was closed due to severe damage.

“The walkway bridge near the surf lifesaving club has been severely undermined and a structural engineer has been called in to undertake an assessment. Again, please stay away for now.

“We are also getting a geotechnical engineer to assess the Earth Dam.”

The council said if residents needed to report any damage to us, please ring them on 0800 926 732 or report it via Antenno App.

‘Some people were crying’

Jack Kayes, 11, said they were at school and the rain did not seem that bad until about 1.30pm.

“It started getting heavier,” he said, before the thunder and lightning started.

He said everyone was “freaking out” and “some people were crying”.

He said the fields were flooding and he was also nervous.

By the end of the day, the rain had cleared but “everything was flooded” and they were wading through water.

Waihī Beach resident Sue Lemon said she could not get to her home near the surf club for about two hours and went back to work.

“It was the pensioners that have come off the worst... they need to be relocated into other areas, which is sad.”

She said there were other properties badly affected at the north end.

Flooding in Waihī Beach. Photo / Alex Cairns

She had lived in the area for 34 years and said yesterday was the most rain she had seen there in such a short time.

“It was a lot of rain.”

She said while their backyard had some flooding, she was more concerned for the people across the road who were hit “quite bad”.

She said the water dispersed quickly but left a bit to clean-up for the community.

She said the water had also damaged the road near the roundabout and there was debris and mud lying around.

A staff member at a business, who would not be named, said yesterday was “a terrible experience”.

He said there were three staff members in the business at the time.

Below the store is an underground garage where all the stock is kept, which has flooded before so a system was installed to pump water out.

Flooding at Waihī Beach.

”It didn’t cope well,” he said of the system.

The staff went to the garage and saw a bit of water and started trying to move as much stock as high as they could hoping the motor would kick in soon and the water would be drained.

”The tank was so full, the motor didn’t cope with the amount of water that came in.”

Within five minutes, the water had filled the garage up to the height of a pallet.

He said it was too soon to know how much stock had been lost, but it didn’t appear to be as much as previous flooding. He said most of the clean-up happened last night and it was lucky there was no damage to the store.

He said it was “lucky” the rain stopped, “otherwise it would have been a disaster”.

- Additional reporting by RNZ