Lower Hutt bridges to close, Wellington council shuts facilities as more rain forecast

Monday, 20 April 2026

Specialist fire crew are on standby on Monday night ready to deal with any further weather chaos as the Wellington region remains under a red heavy rain warning and a state of emergency.

Fire and Emergency region manager Bruce Stubbs said shortly before 5pm that specialist resources including teams with enhanced rescue and water capability response were prepped in the Wairarapa and Hutt Valley.

MetService is forecasting 100mm to 150mm about the eastern hills and Hutt Valley and lesser amounts elsewhere, in addition to the rang that has fallen today. A regional state of emergency remains in place as most of Wellington, Wairarapa and the Tararua Ranges are under a red heavy rain warning until midnight Tuesday.

The Hutt River is rapidly rising and the Kennedy Good and Melling bridges will be closing this evening.

All Wellington City Council public facilities are closed on Monday evening and will be closed on Tuesday 21. The Southern Landfill is open for storm debris if necessary.

Meanwhile the search for missing man Philip Sutton, who who was reported missing from his flood-affected home on South Karori Rd on Monday morning, has finished for the day. Police will resume their seach as soon as conditions allow.

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Fire and Emergency said since 3am it had responded to about 200 calls about flooding, flooding in properties, and landslides.

The Wellington Civil Defence Emergency Management Group, which includes mayors, confirmed a regional state of emergency at 1.30pm. The declaration allows powers that would not normally be available such as forcing people to leave their homes, access to resources and the ability close roads.

Emergency officials are advising people in low-lying or flood-prone areas to move elsewhere for 24 hours with heavy rain warnings for Wellington, the Kāpiti Coast and Tararua Ranges until midnight on Tuesday.

People using buses had been urged to leave the city early and harbour ferries have been cancelled for Monday and Tuesday.

The Hutt City Council is warning local river levels are going to be high, especially around Waiwhetu Stream, Black Creek and the Hutt and Wainuiomata rivers. Harcourt Werry Drive is going to close from 4pm. The council had closed the Riverbank car park located next to the Hutt River, asking drivers to move their vehicles immediately and they could still exit until 3pm.

'The river levels are looking such that we may need to think about closing bridges,' the council's chief executive Jo Miller said in a video posted to social media.

The neighbourhood hubs at Eastbourne, Stokes Valley, Wainuiomata, as well as the Walter Nash Centre and the War Memorial Library are open for shelter.

Wild weather overnight

Meteorologist John Law said a slow‑moving band of rain sat over Berhampore between 3am and 4am on Monday, dumping 77mm in a single hour. The station’s average for all of April is 127mm, and the previous highest hourly reading since 1996 was just 27mm.

Ohiro Rd, between Brooklyn and the south coast, has suffered some of the worst damage with rocks, silt and debris strewn across the road and multiple slips. A car was washed - badly damaged - into the river mouth at Ōwhiro Bay.

Island Bay Pharmacy owner Duncan Sutherland said the shop had 20cm of water through.

“I could see stock floating on the security cameras.”

Fire crews – “thanks to them” – prioritised the pharmacy as a core essential service and pumped the water out, meaning he could stay open.

Mark Owen from Waka Kotahi NZTA said the incident, and a similar one further north on Saturday, showed how sudden weather could be.

“With more bad weather to come, the ground already saturated, and more thunderstorms in the forecast, there is a real risk of similar incidents today and tomorrow. Drivers need to be ready for them,” Owen says.

He urged people to watch forecasts before travelling. “A small mistake may have serious consequences.”

FENZ said crews were called to flooding and landslides in Vogeltown, Mornington, Newtown, Berhampore, Kingston, Island Bay and surrounding areas.

Station officer Josh McAlpine said firefighters had been in Island Bay, pumping knee-high water out of multiple houses.

They had been in Adelaide Rd for about an hour working to get water out of a building next to McDonald’s that had been “completely flooded”.

He said there was a lot of debris in drainage systems. Combined with a sudden downpour it was a recipe for disaster.

Both the Porirua and Hutt City councils had activated their emergency operation centres.

Mike Mendonca, the Porirua controller, said clean-up was ongoing on Monday and crews across the city were clearing drains in preparation for further incoming weather.

Sand and bags were available to self-fill at the council nursery in Sievers Grove.

The Hutt City Council closed the Riverbank car park located next to the Hutt River, telling drivers to move their vehicles immediately and they could still exit until 3pm.

Te Whatu Ora Health NZ earlier confirmed flooding in parts of the Wellington Hospital car park but said services were running as normal. It was preparing for further impacts.

Wellington Water confirmed the amount of rain meant the Moa Point sewage treatment plant, badly damaged in February 4 flooding, discharged untreated and unscreened wastewater 5 metres off the south coast overnight.

Wellington mayor Andrew Little, who lives in Island Bay, one of the suburbs most affected by the rain, said it had caught many unaware.

“Certainly we got no warnings. I wasn’t aware of any communications apart from the usual weather forecast.”

He had woken up around 3am to see water running along his back path, “which is what happens when it rains heavily.

“I expected to hear about some flooding in the morning but this was pretty heavy and it was sustained, so the level of rainfall and the extent of it certainly took me by surprise.”

How better to calculate risks associated with the increasing numbers of unpredictable weather events was something that needed to be looked at, he said.

“We seem to get warnings of things and do a lot of preparation, and not much happens and then we have incidents like this, where there's no warning and then it hits us.”