Auckland floods: Small business claims offer to supply sandbags for council ignored

A small business owner claims his offers to supply Auckland Council and Civil Defence with sandbags have been ignored.

Kyle Dransfield, owner and operator of the Sandbag Store in East Tamaki, told the Herald his business can ramp up production to make over 10,000 sandbags in a day.

“You only need three across your front door and you’ve saved yourself several thousand dollars worth of insurance claims from flooding,” Dransfield said.

“The maximum you’d pay for one sandbag is $8. If the council bought 20,000 of them, if they had a stockpile and they gave them out, you would have such a positive impact, the public would be a lot happier.”

Dransfield said he has tried to organise a contract with the council three times, but he was unable to speak to anybody who was interested or had the authority to make such a decision.

“You get the runaround,” Dransfield said. “You get put through to people that never get back to you, or you’re told ‘it’s the roading contractors that are going to do this’.”

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown gives a media briefing at the Sunnynook Community Centre on the devastating Auckland floods. Photo / Dean Purcell

The only “success” Dransfield has had was with the Coromandel District Council who he said took his name and organised a stockpile of sandbags.

“I used to be involved in road contacting, and actually, if sandbag supplies are not in their contract they don’t do it - [contractor] have no obligation to store sandbags,” he said.

“If we knew there was going to be a disaster, and we had a relationship with the council, they could come to us and say: ‘We’ve got an emergency and we need 10,000 bags.’

“If we were given enough warning we would be able to get them out there. We can produce about 500 of them an hour,” Dransfield said.

Residents in Clover Park, Henderson, have had their homes and livelihoods destroyed by the "biblical" floods on Friday night. Photo / Hayden Woodward

He said four people are needed for the industrial manufacturing of sandbags and it is faster than filling them one by one.

Dransfield said he sometimes questions the sustainability of his business given the limited need for his product.

But he is reminded of its worth in times of disaster and when his customers’ properties are spared from floodwaters, Dransfield said.

“The problem is, it’s a low margin item, it’s not an exciting business to be in, nothing happens until we have a disaster and then we sell thousands of [sandbags].”

Dransfield said his most loyal customers were older folks who prepared their properties before any major storm.

“We’ve got to keep doing this for Mildred and Arthur, who come in here and say, ‘thank goodness you’ve got some sandbags!’

“If only we were able to speak to somebody [at council] who was a real person and who could make real decisions.”