Family of three living in cabin a month after losing everything in Auckland floods

Sunday, 26 February 2023

Catherine Beggs, left, with her daughter and granddaughter. All her granddaughter’s toys were destroyed in the flood.

One month on from Auckland’s devastating record-breaking rain, some of those affected are still picking up the pieces.

Catherine Beggs and her family were forced to swim to safety in waist-deep water on the night of January 27.

They returned home the following day to find they had lost all their personal belongings in the deluge - including their recently renovated home in Mt Roskill.

Beggs said the renovations cost about $35,000 and were only finished in November. Now, she was facing an additional cost of $60k-$70k to repair her flood damaged home.

Catherine Beggs said her entire kitchen would have to be rebuilt.

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Inside the cabin is a queen-sized air bed and one single bed along with a kitchen.

“Instead of thinking of retiring I'm going to have to carry on working,” the 65-year-old said.

Beggs, along with her daughter and four-year-old granddaughter, now live in a small cabin on the property.

The council has already red stickering 175 homes in Auckland after the flooding.

The family hasn’t stayed in the house since the night it flooded as “everything had been destroyed”.

“We spent three weeks staying at other people's homes and then the cabin came last week,” she said.

“I tried to find private accommodation, but we wanted to be close to the house and everything was too pricey. Then I came across this site on the web, about cabins for hire.

Uatea’s house has now been yellow stickered with the couple moving into a new home on Sunday.

“It was delivered to the property within a week. We've got hot water, and a portaloo.”

Although Beggs has rented the cabin for six months, she said she is unsure of when repairs on her home would be completed.

“We are still waiting for the moisture level in the house to come down. We’ve got five big commercial fans and one big commercial dehumidifier in the house, but we’ve been told It could take two weeks to dry out.

Seve Uatea’s house was inundated by floodwaters.

“Of course the weather has continued to be awful so that’s not helping.”

Having survived three Auckland floods in 10 months, Beggs said it felt like she had been, “to hell and back”.

”I went through a stage last week of being angry. Everything I had planned for after my 65th birthday has been put on hold.

“You begin to wonder what has gone wrong, but I’ve just had to accept what's happened and no one could control it.”

Safunga and Seve Uatea also had to swim to safety when floodwaters swept through their West Auckland home on the Friday night when it flooded.

They had since been staying with extended family in Ranui.

Uatea said it has been good to live with her cousin, but she is looking forward to the new Kāinga Ora home her and Seve were due to move into on Sunday.

Their previous Clover Drive house is now yellow stickered, she said, after rushing water had covered the Kāinga Ora home in mud. The force of the mud moved one of the family's cars onto a fence.

'I miss my house, I stayed there for 9 years,' she said.

Uatea said she has taken Thursday and Friday off on leave this week to deal with the admin work the flood had created.

She is currently borrowing her cousin's car, but said it was good that insurance was going to cover her own car which was ruined in the water.

'Sometimes I feel stressed, there's so much to think about,' she said.

Those affected by the Auckland floods who have a current, or expected future need for temporary accommodation, are encouraged to register with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment by visiting the temporary accommodation service website or calling the Government help line on 0508 754 163.