Nelson resident evacuated twice in two days by floodwaters, slip
Friday, 19 August 2022
Maggie Gray is hoping it’s a case of third-time lucky after being evacuated from two Nelson homes in two days.
Gray was first evacuated about 3.30pm on Wednesday from her own home, which is at the bottom of a shared driveway off Nile St near the swollen Maitai River, when the rapidly rising waterway started to inundate her property.
“When it started coming into my house, my neighbour helped me get out,” Gray said. “We were being told to get out.”
Gray’s garage was still dry at that stage but as she drove along the driveway towards Nile St she hit “deep water”.
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“I kept driving out to the street.”
Gray spent that night with friends in their home along Cleveland Terrace, on a hill above the Maitai River.
She headed back to her house on Thursday to “survey the situation” and lift more possessions from the floor in case the river rose again.
The water had flowed into the garage and the lower level of Gray’s home, which included a guest room and storage area. It reached the top of the lower of two steps separating the lower level of her home with the main upper level.
“It was 10cm to 15cm away from it being high enough to flood the whole house.”
While the water itself had receded by Thursday, it left behind a “thick, deep slick of muddy river silt”.
Gray returned to her friends’ home on Cleveland Terrace to stay Thursday night but the household was woken at 4am on Friday by police and other emergency services personnel.
“They told us we’ve got to pack up and get out.”
A large slip was moving down from Atmore Terrace above Cleveland Terrace.
“It’s a slow-moving thing but it’s coming,” Gray said. “A couple of cars had already been pushed off the road.”
The emergency services personnel were cool, calm, collected and “very professional”.
“I think they’re amazing.”
Gray and her friends went to Gray’s home, but with more heavy rain predicted, Gray had made arrangements to stay with another set of friends on Quebec Rd across the city. Police had also told her she could not stay in her home.
“This wild weather, it puts a knot in my stomach I can’t get rid of,” she said. “We don’t know what to expect.”
Gray said she had lived in properties along the share driveway off Nile St for 24 years – her current home for the past 21.
She had never seen the Maitai River as high as it was on Wednesday.
“It has breached our neighbour’s yard maybe four times but their yard is 2m lower than ours.”