Just minutes to evacuate as rising waters breached Nelson seawalls

Thursday, 1 February 2018

With just minutes to get out, families hastily packed and evacuated with the help of the Fire Service.

Locals and tourists had just minutes to grab what they needed before being evacuated as heavy rain flooded some Nelson streets.

The remnants of a tropical cyclone have brought deluges across the country, hitting the South Island hardest on Thursday.

This mum was left sheltering her 12-day-old baby from the rain after being evacuated from her home in Tait St.

The rain combined with high tide saw fast-rising waters inundate coastal areas.

A camp ground and houses along Stafford Dr and Tait St, Ruby Bay were been flooded, with residents having to leave their homes fast. One house at Broad Sea Ave was understood to have come off its foundations.

It was ankle deep at the shops at Mapua Wharf.

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Emergency seervices evacuate families from homes in Tait St, Ruby Bay during a storm surge and king tide that has inundated many homes in the area

Broad Sea Ave resident Chloe Patterson said the sea wall had been breached at around 10.30am, and had spilled through to seaside properties and neighbouring streets by the time high tide arrived just before midday.

'We had about five minutes … but we managed to barricade all our walls before the water even came into our yard, but once the wall was breached it just flooded in because along the sea wall it all filled up before it could get to the [flood] gates and then the waves started coming in and impacting the fences.'

Mapua Wharf was inundated with by a storm surge.

'The fire brigade came down and evacuated everyone.'

'We had a similar [event] a couple of weeks back but nothing like this - we're actually moving in a couple of days so great timing.'

Fred Robertson lives at the end of Tait St - the house closest to the sea wall.

He said it was chaotic and devastating given houses on the street had only been flooded six weeks ago..

There was at least a metre of water in his house as high tide approached at 11am.

'It's just a pond down there, absolutely amazing what's happened.'

Ian Morrison was a guest at a Bed and breakfast on Stafford Dr. While the main house on the property was high enough to avoid any flood damage, a separate cottage at the back had suffered around two feet of water through it.

'There's a bit of water damage to a bach down the back.'

'We were down at the wharf looking at the water and when we got back you could just see the water coming through and it was just getting deeper and deeper.'

'It's gone down about two inches but its still reasonably deep.'

'Even one of the neighbours was saying this is the first time since 1950s that this has happened.'

'The people that were staying in the house put the back have left - they had enough.'

The evacuees gathered at the civil defence post at the Hills Community Church.

Three Civil Defence centres had been set up at the church, Collingwood Area School, and the Honest Lawyer at Monaco. There had been self-evacuations of about 20 to 30 people from Collingwood, Mapua and Ruby Bay, and people had also been evacuated from Monaco.