Families evacuated, roads closed as flooding hits Gisborne suburb
Heavy rain overnight caused severe surface flooding in the Gisborne suburb of Mangapapa, forcing some families to leave their homes.
Tairawhiti Civil Defence says heavy rain caused drains to flood and creeks to rise to about 2m, causing severe surface flooding across the suburb.
Police have been going door-to-door checking on people.
Fire and Emergency has closed roads in and around the areas from Lytton High School to Winter Street.
Gisborne mayor Rehette Stoltz said severe downpours started at 3am, and three hours later it was still "absolutely pouring".
"The rain woke everyone up in Gisborne," Stoltz told Morning Report.
"It's rain I have not heard in my 22 years in Gisborne."
MetService has extended its orange heavy rain warning for Gisborne City to 1pm.
Stoltz said city creeks were overflowing and flooding people's homes.
The Matokitoki Stream which ran through several neighbourhoods had received so much rain it was causing flooding in the city, in areas not hit by Cyclone Gabrielle, she said.
Gisborne Civil Defence said 15 households were evacuated overnight.
The latest deluge, following Cyclone Gabrielle, was likely to have caused damage to properties and stormwater inundation, Gisborne District Council chief executive and Civil Defence spokesperson Nedine Thatcher Swann said.
"We just haven't had a break in this weather to get in and remediate everything.
"The ground is saturated, we're watching our rivers, and the our creeks are behaving in different way.
"It's pretty big for us here."
Overnight about 40mm of rain fell over two hours, she said. It was a surprise that flooding was concentrated in Mangapapa, which had not been affected by flooding in recent years.
"I guess this is part and parcel of what we'd be expecting as our climate changes. We're seeing rain fall in concentrated areas and in different parts."
Hawke's Bay
More rain fell overnight in Hawke's Bay with reports of flooding in some areas.
MetService has issued an orange heavy rain warning for the Hawke's Bay district of Waiora district to 2pm.
A section of State Highway 5, the Napier to Taupo road, at Te Pohue has slipped away.
Civil Defence issued an update saying the road was completely impassible an an assessment would take place when it was safe to do so.
The section that slipped away is about 30m in length and is near the effluent ponds at Glengarry Hill.
Napier Mayor Kirsten Wise urged people to avoid driving through flood waters.
She told Morning Report updates on affected areas in the region were still coming through, and had been advised State Highway 5 was impassable.
"We're particularly encouraging people to avoid driving between Napier and Hastings if possible," she said.
Unison struggles to reinstate power infrastructure
Several communities in the region remain without power.
Unison representatives will meet with people in Puketapu today, and Tangoio and Tutira tomorrow, to discuss the situation.
Incident controller at Unison Jason Larkin told Morning Report networks destroyed would be replaced, but infrastructure washed away by river flooding would probably need to be build differently.
Larkin said there were currently 2700 customers without power, with about 2500 of those being in rural areas. A large generator was being used to supply a limited amount of customers, while crews worked on restoring lines.
"We've got crews out there working around the clock ... and we're looking at all available options," he said.
"There are areas where the network has just been really washed away by these these torrents of water and logs, and it's going to take some time to rebuild the supply to areas like Patoka. We're looking at options like local generation and we're now generating at a number of sites. North Puketapu is one area."
The generator brought into the area last week was started up by crews who managed to access the area last night.
"Our challenge going forward with that site is ongoing fuel supply," Larkin said. "But we're working on that with Emergency Management, with council and regional council, and hope to have a solution to see fuel flying into that area from this afternoon."
At full load the generator will give power to about 400 customers, using about 4000 litres of fuel a day.
The reinstatement of a temporary crossing at Rissington would allow tanker access to bring fuel in with two 2000 litre loads per day, Larkin said. Safe storage at Patoka was also being looked at.
"There are areas where it's going to take weeks, if not months, to repair and rebuild the network," he said.
The company was assessing the needs of communities, and knew some communities were more resilient than others, he added.
But bebuilding destroyed infrastructure would be a unique challenge.
"The flooding lower down in the rivers has been a bit of a game changer. It took out the main connection to the national grid at Redcliffe, but also took out some of our key supply lines out to these rural areas. We will be rebuilding those," he said. "We will probably have to do it differently...
"Even rerouting them down the side of the road at the moment there is about 3m high piles of silt on the side of the road because that's what's been needed to clear those roads for access."
Heavy rain overnight caused severe surface flooding in the Gisborne suburb of Mangapapa, forcing some families to leave their homes.
Tairawhiti Civil Defence says heavy rain caused drains to flood and creeks to rise to about 2m, causing severe surface flooding across the suburb.
Police have been...
Heavy rain overnight caused severe surface flooding in the Gisborne suburb of Mangapapa, forcing some families to leave their homes.
Tairawhiti Civil Defence says heavy rain caused drains to flood and creeks to rise to about 2m, causing severe surface flooding across the suburb.
Police have been going door-to-door checking on people.
Fire and Emergency has closed roads in and around the areas from Lytton High School to Winter Street.
Gisborne mayor Rehette Stoltz said severe downpours started at 3am, and three hours later it was still "absolutely pouring".
"The rain woke everyone up in Gisborne," Stoltz told Morning Report.
"It's rain I have not heard in my 22 years in Gisborne."
MetService has extended its orange heavy rain warning for Gisborne City to 1pm.
Stoltz said city creeks were overflowing and flooding people's homes.
The Matokitoki Stream which ran through several neighbourhoods had received so much rain it was causing flooding in the city, in areas not hit by Cyclone Gabrielle, she said.
Gisborne Civil Defence said 15 households were evacuated overnight.
The latest deluge, following Cyclone Gabrielle, was likely to have caused damage to properties and stormwater inundation, Gisborne District Council chief executive and Civil Defence spokesperson Nedine Thatcher Swann said.
"We just haven't had a break in this weather to get in and remediate everything.
"The ground is saturated, we're watching our rivers, and the our creeks are behaving in different way.
"It's pretty big for us here."
Overnight about 40mm of rain fell over two hours, she said. It was a surprise that flooding was concentrated in Mangapapa, which had not been affected by flooding in recent years.
"I guess this is part and parcel of what we'd be expecting as our climate changes. We're seeing rain fall in concentrated areas and in different parts."
Hawke's Bay
More rain fell overnight in Hawke's Bay with reports of flooding in some areas.
MetService has issued an orange heavy rain warning for the Hawke's Bay district of Waiora district to 2pm.
A section of State Highway 5, the Napier to Taupo road, at Te Pohue has slipped away.
Civil Defence issued an update saying the road was completely impassible an an assessment would take place when it was safe to do so.
The section that slipped away is about 30m in length and is near the effluent ponds at Glengarry Hill.
Napier Mayor Kirsten Wise urged people to avoid driving through flood waters.
She told Morning Report updates on affected areas in the region were still coming through, and had been advised State Highway 5 was impassable.
"We're particularly encouraging people to avoid driving between Napier and Hastings if possible," she said.
Unison struggles to reinstate power infrastructure
Several communities in the region remain without power.
Unison representatives will meet with people in Puketapu today, and Tangoio and Tutira tomorrow, to discuss the situation.
Incident controller at Unison Jason Larkin told Morning Report networks destroyed would be replaced, but infrastructure washed away by river flooding would probably need to be build differently.
Larkin said there were currently 2700 customers without power, with about 2500 of those being in rural areas. A large generator was being used to supply a limited amount of customers, while crews worked on restoring lines.
"We've got crews out there working around the clock ... and we're looking at all available options," he said.
"There are areas where the network has just been really washed away by these these torrents of water and logs, and it's going to take some time to rebuild the supply to areas like Patoka. We're looking at options like local generation and we're now generating at a number of sites. North Puketapu is one area."
The generator brought into the area last week was started up by crews who managed to access the area last night.
"Our challenge going forward with that site is ongoing fuel supply," Larkin said. "But we're working on that with Emergency Management, with council and regional council, and hope to have a solution to see fuel flying into that area from this afternoon."
At full load the generator will give power to about 400 customers, using about 4000 litres of fuel a day.
The reinstatement of a temporary crossing at Rissington would allow tanker access to bring fuel in with two 2000 litre loads per day, Larkin said. Safe storage at Patoka was also being looked at.
"There are areas where it's going to take weeks, if not months, to repair and rebuild the network," he said.
The company was assessing the needs of communities, and knew some communities were more resilient than others, he added.
But bebuilding destroyed infrastructure would be a unique challenge.
"The flooding lower down in the rivers has been a bit of a game changer. It took out the main connection to the national grid at Redcliffe, but also took out some of our key supply lines out to these rural areas. We will be rebuilding those," he said. "We will probably have to do it differently...
"Even rerouting them down the side of the road at the moment there is about 3m high piles of silt on the side of the road because that's what's been needed to clear those roads for access."
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