Auckland floods: Unprecedented rain not an excuse for poor management, expert says

Sunday, 29 January 2023

Auckland mayor Wayne Brown and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins speak to media regarding unprecedented flooding in Auckland.

Calls are being made for an inquiry into Auckland’s emergency processes after severe flooding left four people dead and thousands of homes damaged.

A state of emergency was declared late on Friday after more than 249mm of rain fell in the city in just 24 hours – well above the previous record of 161.8mm.

The wild weather also left hundreds of travellers stranded and thousands of homes without power. Damage was also experienced in Waitomo, Tauranga and other parts of the North Island.

Massey University director of disaster management Professor David Johnston said a 2018 independent report reviewing the response to a significant Auckland storm that April should be considered a smoking gun.

* Auckland floods: Who's who in the disaster response

* No mayor to declare? - Emergency powers delegated in Tauranga says law professor

Emergency services evacuate residents from Camphora Place in Henderson following a huge downpour that caused mayhem across Auckland.

During the 2018 event, heavy rain and winds of up to 140kph resulted in power cuts for thousands of homes and affected many businesses.

Johnston said the report that followed, conducted by Rimu Road Consulting Limited, aimed to identify ways to strengthen Auckland Civil Defence and Emergency Management’s ability to respond to natural disasters.

Johnston believed the report would be exactly the same if it was recommissioned now.

Auckland’s emergency management system was not fit for purpose – rather it was proving to be a good example of what not to do, he said.

MetService meteorologist Angus Hines said the heavy rain was well forecast.

It was mentioned in the agency’s severe weather outlook early last week, and was reflected in multiple severe weather watches and warnings from Thursday morning onwards.

Auckland Emergency Management deputy controller Rachel Kelleher said heavy rain was not unusual at this time of year, but the intensity of Friday’s event escalated rapidly, and localised rain rates were unprecedented.

Johnston said scientists had known for decades that such severe weather was coming.

“The 2018 report outline what we need to do to get ready for the next one, so this notion that we were overwhelmed has no basis in fact.

The aftermath of a train derailment in Te Puke in the Bay of Plenty that spilled logs from a freight train into flooded farmland.

“It becomes problematic because if you start defending that line we don’t learn anything.”

New Zealand academics had been contributing to world best practice on weather warnings, but those practices were not being followed in places like Auckland, he said.

Professor James Renwick, a weather and climate researcher at Victoria University, said Auckland’s flooding showed it was time to review New Zealand's preparedness for extreme weather events.

A slip destroyed a house in Tauranga on Sunday.

“These events are becoming more severe and more common. The sort of thinking our agencies have about emergencies now could be well out of date.

“A lot of our infrastructure is based on the sort of climate we had 50 years ago. Our response planning could be the same.”

Renwick said it was “time for conversations to be had”.

“We need to pump things up, and this is the opportunity to do it. It is easy to get excited when something happens, and then forget.”

Johnson said part of Auckland’s problem was its super city council set-up, and tensions between Auckland and central government agencies.

Auckland mayor Wayne Brown said in a pre-election speech that he would tell the Government its role was not to tell Auckland what to do, “but to fund what the city does”.

“Building a co-ordinated response is about trust and working together,” Johnston said.

“If you’ve got a pre-disaster context that is challenging, do you think it’s going to work out on the day?”

Brown has copped a lot of criticism over the delay in declaring a state of emergency – including from National leader Christopher Luxon, who believed the declaration should have come earlier. Brown said he signed it at 9.27pm, but it wasn’t publicly announced until 10.18pm.

Johnston said a declaration could have been called as soon as MetService issued a red warning. Preemptive declarations had been issued before for emerging threats, like on the West Coast in August 2022 when heavy rain was forecast after a previous flooding event.

Brown did not hold a press conference on Auckland’s situation until 11.14pm on Friday. He said he declared a statement of emergency as soon as he was given the go-ahead to do so.

“My role isn’t to rush out there with buckets, it’s to be here ensuring that the centre is well-organised and that we are taking appropriate steps at the appropriate time – not rushing into them in response to noise outside,” he said.

Luxon also called for a comprehensive review of how local and central government agencies handled the emergency.

“But that’s really for another time,” he said in Auckland on Sunday.

Luxon said the main focus over the next few days should be emergency housing and supporting insurance providers.

“People have had their whole house destroyed and many have headed to community hubs and evacuation centres.

“Getting them settled and feeling good and safe and hopeful again is really important,” he said.