Flood victim counts her losses - and her blessings

Sunday, 28 August 2022

Maggie Gray at her families home in Nile St that has been yellow stickered after water from the Maitai River flooded part her of house and destroyed much of the garden.

Maggie Gray has just finished washing the dishes when we arrive at her yellow stickered house on Nile St.

They’d been left behind when she hurriedly evacuated on Wednesday as the river rapidly rose.

She ended up being evacuated twice, after her friends’ home on Cleveland Terrace was put at risk by a large slip.

“I don't know when Civil Defence will actually let us live in our houses again,” she says.

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Nelson resident Maggie Gray has been evacuated from her own flooded home in Nile St and then a friend's home in Cleveland Terrace after heavy rain caused flooding and slips.

“I have water but I'm not using the toilet because I don't know that the sewage problem has been worked out yet, which was one of the conditions for us not occupying now - the five houses on this lane anyway.”

Firefighters worked on the street on Monday and when one man arrived and asked if there was anything he could do, Maggie “sent him away to people who were more in need”.

“When they came, I was shovelling the mud out of this plaza myself, just so that I wasn't continually dragging it up to my front door … that gave me something to do. I have to do something so that I'm tired by nighttime, or I don't sleep.”

Maggie Gray surveys her sodden guest bedroom in Nile St.

Maggie was expecting an insurance assessor to arrive last week. Her guest bedroom slash storage room is wet and muddy, but the main part of her house is okay.

She was grateful her neighbour helped her evacuate.

“If I had ventured in the car from my garage down the lane and got in that deep water, I would have freaked out and I probably would have stopped driving and then that wouldn't have been good either. He helped me a lot.”

An avid gardener, about half of her plants survived the onslaught of water.

“Destruction is never easy to deal with, and the feelings run deep. You feel violated by Mother Nature, but it's all repairable. I have good insurance. And the neighbours – we're all looking after each other. So who could ask for more?

“Everybody feels like they're in it together.”