Westport residents urged to evacuate after Westland dodges 'weather bullet'

Thursday, 3 February 2022

Buller mayor Jamie Cleine explains the preparations the council is making before the town is potentially hit by flooding.

Westport residents are being urged to leave their homes as significant rainfall, which has caused slips and power outages further south, closes in.

Buller mayor Jamie Cleine said preparations for mandatory evacuations from Westport were under way and could happen on Friday morning.

“That decision will be made in the morning, so today is about being very clear that that is our plan and establishing the resources and the planning to make sure that we're ready to go in the morning.”

Buller’s emergency operations controller, Bob Dickson, said people should self-evacuate to friends and family outside of Westport, if possible. Roads were still open, so people could still head east or south.

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Buller mayor Jamie Cleine says a decision on mandatory evacuations will be made on Friday morning.

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An evacuation centre for Westport residents had been set up at Greymouth Baptist Church.

Contractors work on a stopbank for the Buller River in Roebuck St, Westport.

Dickson said Westport residents should avoid travelling north towards Karamea as significant rain was forecast for northern Buller.

Cleine said the worst of the weather and potential flooding looked likely to happen overnight Friday and into Saturday, coinciding with high tide about 2am.

Many of the homes behind the stopbank are already red-stickered from the floods in July 2021.

Some modelling suggested the weather would be worse than the July floods, while some modelling suggested otherwise, he said.

Authorities were planning for a scenario worse than July, Cleine said.

A slip has covered the south approach to the Mahitahi River in South Westland.

In the case of mandatory evacuations, the main centre would be at the former Holcim cement plant on Cape Foulwind Rd, just out of Westport. The local health board and St John have set up there too.

Cleine estimated the site could handle more than 1000 people.

Brook Ingham clears blocked drains in Westport on Thursday.

A break from wet weather in Westport on Thursday had been “absolutely valuable” to help prepare, Cleine said. Only 11.4mm of rain had fallen in Westport as of 2.30pm on Thursday, according to MetService.

“A lot of people have got together, a lot of sandbagging has happened, which really didn't happen last time until it was sort of too late,” Cleine said.

“We've had the benefit of time.”

Marcus Shenker is spending his birthday waiting for water to flood his Snodgrass Rd home, which has not yet been repaired from the last flood in Westport.

Meanwhile, further south in Westland, the local Emergency Operations Centre said the district had dodged a bullet.

Local controller Simon Bastion said there were no “significant” reports of flooding or damage in the district following Wednesday and Thursday’s heavy rainfall.

Joy Willman, 74, left, and Jan Woodcock, 67, load sandbags onto a trailer in Westport.

Still, State Highway 6 in South Westland would remain closed until at least 6pm after the rain caused several slips, cut power, phones and internet, and closed schools.

Work was under way to clear slips north of Haast and between the two glacier towns, Franz Josef and Fox, although progress will be dependent on weather conditions, Waka Kotahi West Coast maintenance contract manager Moira Whinham said.

About 3000 sandbags are distributed along the Kawatiri Coastal Trail by the Buller River bridge on Wednesday morning.

The next review on opening the road would happen at 6pm. While the weather had eased over South Westland overnight, MetService's red alert remained in force with more rain forecast.

Heavy rain is on the way for the West Coast of the South Island. Here's MetService's latest video on the wet weather ahead.

A Chorus spokesman said a fibre outage affected both landlines and cellphone services between Bruce Bay and just north of Harihari. Last September, Westland residents were left without access to 111 due to a fibre outage.

The network was restored by 12pm on Thursday.

The Waiho River was being monitored very closely and several families living on the south bank were given the option to stay in the Franz Josef township overnight Wednesday.

The Waiho River rose to 7.3 metres after 523 millimetres of rain fell in the 24 hours to 5am Thursday. The northern banks of the river have stopbanks, but the Government is proposing to buy out the southern farmland to allow the river to fan out.

“The rivers have run high, but we have only had reports of the Makaawhio breaching its banks and this was not a cause of serious concern,” Bastion said.

“We did not have to issue any mandated evacuations in any part of the district, although some people chose to evacuate in localised areas.”

Rivers bursting their banks, flash floods and more intense cyclones – how climate change is making floods more extreme.

Bastion said he hoped MetService's red warning – reserved for the most extreme storms – would be downgraded in Westland. Some staff and volunteers were being redeployed to Greymouth and Buller, as the heavy rain band moved north.

A Westpower spokeswoman said power was out for 257 homes near Fox Glacier because of a potential slip or washout of a power pole.

“Crews are deployed in the area to resolve outage as soon as they are safely able to subject to road access.”

South Westland Area School, Haast School, and all schools in Westport were closed on Thursday and Friday.

Police dealt with several weather-related call-outs across the West Coast overnight, a spokeswoman said.

Mike Stevenson works to protect his sleepout at his Snodgrass Rd home in Westport, which flooded last July.

Search and rescue were devising a plan to rescue two trampers who were reportedly trapped at Cassel Flat Hut in the Karangarua Valley in Westland. The pair were “safe and well”, but the nearby Karangarua River had flooded, trapping them at the hut, the spokeswoman said.

St John West Coast operations manager Nils Walzel said significant resourcing had been drawn from Tasman and Canterbury to support the affected areas.

Buller mayor Jamie Cleine signs a state of emergency ahead of severe weather.

“It is a significant operation for St John, so far involving at least 60 of our people … and around 21 of our emergency response vehicles – 11 of which have been deployed to support evacuations of residents.”

A temporary health centre had been set up in Carters Beach, and some North Island operational managers may also be called in to help, he said.

“It is an extremely busy time across our emergency ambulance service, as we are also preparing for the expected surge in Omicron cases across the country.”

Heavy rain has caused surface flooding and minor slips in parts of South Westland.

Most of Westport was clear of surface flooding on Thursday morning. People continued to fill sandbags on the banks of the Buller River after 3000 were distributed along the Kawatiri Coastal Trail on Wednesday morning. About 8.15am, some contractors were working to remove debris from a drain near Victoria Square, where a bit of water had pooled over some car parks.

MetService forecast 51.6mm of rain would fall in Westport on Thursday, less than half of the 124.6mm that fell on Wednesday.

In a Twitter post on Thursday, MetService said about 123mm of rainfall was recorded at Westport Airport between 9am Wednesday and 9am Thursday, making it the wettest the area had been during that period in February since records began in 1944.

The previous record for Westport Airport was 114mm on February 7, 1963.

Cleine declared a state of emergency for Buller at 2.35pm on Wednesday in anticipation of any problems.

The West Coast Regional Council is planning a $10.2 million stopbank system for Westport, but the Buller town is no more protected than in July when the Orowaiti River burst its banks, leaving 70 homes red-stickered and 393 yellow-stickered

The heavy rain was expected to continue falling in Buller until about 11am on Friday. Another 300 to 450mm could be expected on top of what had already fallen.

The Buller River at Te Kuha reached 5.9m on Thursday morning after 188.8mm fell in the 24 hours to 5am Thursday. In the July floods, it reached 12.8m.

The most significant rainfall was recorded at the Tuke River inland of Harihari – 530.5mm in the 24 hours to 5am.

About 484.5mm was recorded inland from Haast, while Hokitika Airport recorded 48.6mm and Westport received 124.4mm. By comparison, 158mm of rain fell in Westport during last July’s major flood.

The rainfall was “substantial” and would “still be ticking up”, MetService meteorologist Tui McInnes said.

“While these numbers are already pretty high, we’re going to expect them to keep climbing.”

Four New Zealand Defence Force trucks and one support vehicle with 10 army personnel arrived in Greymouth on Wednesday evening. An NH90 helicopter would also fly south to be ready to help, a spokesperson said.

West Coast District Health Board incident controller Philip Wheble said O’Conor Rest Home in Westport evacuated 68 residents on Wednesday. Some residents went to stay with family, while others were moved to facilities in Nelson-Marlborough, Greymouth or Christchurch.

Buller Medical was open, but the health board was looking at setting up two sites for urgent care in Westport.