Oamaru woman stuck at house due to flooding after trying to evacuate her blind nephew

Monday, 6 July 2026

An Oamaru woman is stuck at her sister's house due to flooding as she tried to help evacuate her two nephews - one who is blind and the other in a wheelchair.

Raylene Mulligan, a local of more than 50 years, said she had never seen flooding this severe.

At about 3am, Mulligan drove to her sister’s house in North Oamaru, hoping to evacuate her nephews.

'My sister messaged and said she had water up to her backdoor. I very carefully made my way to her house … and here I am!

'I just thought I needed to get them back to my place where it's safe but unfortunately I was a little bit late.'

Mulligan said she was now stuck there with them in the house, due to flooding outside.

She said as she drove to her sister's house the water was up over the hubcaps of her truck.

'The front yard is knee high in water. So there's no way I could push a wheelchair to even get to my truck.'

She said with more warning from the council, she might have been able to get them out safely.

'I knew there was a weather warning, and I'd been keeping an eye on the council website and there was nothing so I thought we must be all right.'

She said the state of emergency declaration should have come hours earlier.

'Anxiety was pretty high, to be honest.'

Meanwhile, Oamaru grandmother Sonya Rigg said she got a call in the early hours that her grandchildren' s room was flooding.

'It was just absolutely pouring down.'

She arrived to see the lower part of her son's home covered in water.

She took her four grandchildren home while emergency services arrived to pump out water.

However, she said getting back to her house near the CBD was difficult, having to negotiate through different streets to avoid flooding.

'It was pretty rubbish.'

She was too frustrated the council's State of Emergency declaration came on Monday morning, saying people were choosing to evacuate hours before.

'The amount of water around here, the amount of damage to properties is just ridiculous.'

While the fire brigade worked to pump water out of a Nen St resident's home, she said her driveway was filling up again.

Dana Turbucz Lucaci woke up at 4am and couldn't walk down the stairs to the lower level of her home.

'It gave me a fright, I mean really, up to our knees. I've never seen water like that.'

She ran a beauty salon from her home and said her equipment was underwater. She had cancelled on her clients for today and the next few days.

Even with emergency services using two pumps, and Turbucz Lucaci's own pump working, the property appeared to be flooding again.

'It looks like now the driveway's halfway full again, so it might be round two.'

She was optimistic, hoping sunshine would come soon.

'You can't fight weather.'

Oamaru's Merv Roper said he woke to fast-moving floodwater millimetres from entering his home.

He said his property was surrounded by water and his sinks were blocked, but he counted himself lucky.

Roper said the water picked up a heavy bag of cement from his garden and carried it about 40 metres.

'Eighteen years living here, I've never seen rain like this, never,' he said.

'I never, never thought it would come like this. We're just fortunate that it didn't come inside. Another quarter of an inch and it would have come right through the house.'