Burying stock, scraping mud: Heartbreak for Ōhura locals after the floods

Monday, 20 April 2026

Simon McKenzie is one among many left to deal with flood damage in rural Ōhura with little help.

Ōhura locals are burying lambs and scraping mud off their floors in the wake of floods that forced many to evacuate in the night.

The floods came without warning, locals say, but the isolated community has a ‘get stuck in’ attitude as it takes stock of the damage. Many in the flood-prone town don’t have insurance, and even the local postie has lost her vehicle to the floods.

Local farmer Helen, who didn’t give her last name, spent Sunday faced with the harrowing task of dealing with drowned stock.

“It’s not the commercial side of it that is devastating. It’s the fact that these [lambs] are yours and you are responsible for them, and there was nothing you could do to save them.”

Half of the paddock they’d been in had flooded. She and other workers on the property waded into chest-high water with dogs in a bid to save them, she said.

“But they won’t swim in the right direction once they’re in it … they just go pile into the [flooded] corner against the fence.

“We were out at 8pm and then again at 3am trying to get them.”

A local farmer, Helen, was left burying a mob of lambs almost ready to be sold after they couldn’t be retrieved from the floodwaters.

In the end they could only save a small portion of the mob of lambs that were just weeks away from going to the works. She estimated that was a $40,000 loss.

Helen said they hadn’t cared about their own safety in the flood, they just wanted to save the lambs. The paddock they were in hadn’t flooded since the 1998 floods and had been the “safe paddock for storms” for the past 70 years.

Local resident Mike Crowley helps fill Brendon D'ath's car with petrol after he was redirected to Ōhura to get back to New Plymoth and ran out of fuel.

Debris from the floods collected in a resident’s garden.

“It’s horrifying, now we’ll just go dig a big hole to put them in … That’s a year’s worth of work gone into these lambs. Sheep and beef is the main source of income for any drystock farmer.”

Alongside livestock loss, the gravity-fed water supply had been wiped out as well as several fences. She said there had been no support from the community and township, and did not expect any.

The streets of Ōhura were quiet on Monday morning as residents started weeks-worth of clean-ups.

NZ Rural Post delivery driver Donna Bevan stands outside her home in Ohura sifting through belongings.

Judy, who lives across from the Mangaroa Stream, said the force of the water sounded like a ‘logging truck’ as waters swept up over her fence and gate to surround her house pictured above.

The floods left the town coated in a boot-sucking layer of silt and mud across roads, shops and through homes, leaving them smelling of rancid water.

Simon McKenzie had recently moved into an older house in the township and was peeling mud off the floors after ankle-deep water soaked through the entire property.

Donna Bevan’s three vehicles were flood-damaged and are expected to be written off.

Donna Bevan’s property, like many others, was covered by waters up to chest-height in the Saturday/Sunday floods, but she stayed put in her house.

“I’ve just been scraping it off and then I’ll get a mop and air it out … I was just sleeping and then the noise of rushing water woke me up. I was like ‘holy shit, I’ve got to get out of here’ and went straight to the neighbours who were higher.”

Several slips blocked roads into the town and roads were covered in bumper-deep water.

Rambo stands outside his house, that had above-ankle deep waters flowing through it early Sunday morning, leaving his house sodden. He said he was glad no one had died though.

He reckoned he hadn’t got any alerts on his phone and this was his first time dealing with a flood, which was “pretty scary”. He had no house insurance, a commonality amongst those in the flood-prone town.

Down the road, Donna Bevan, the local postie, had lost three cars to water damage, had fridges tipped over from the garage flooding and “weeks worth of clean-up and stock-take”. It was fair to say the post wouldn’t be delivered any time soon with no vehicle.

“At 10pm, I came out and went yeah it’s fine and then by 1 it was all different.”

She said the waters were chest-height and “fast-flowing” across her property and the cars were already lost, so she stayed put. It would be the worst flood she had seen since 1998.

“Usually, they go around door knocking or the bridge alarm goes off, but this time there was nothing … Everyone is a bit devastated, but they are also all into it and getting on with it.”

Many residents said a local who lived close to the Mangaroa Stream that burst went door knocking, but all residents the Waikato Times spoke to said emergency alerts did not arrive until after the flood’s peak.

Mike Crowley, who spent Sunday and Monday filming the floods and helping stranded travellers with petrol, reckoned the Ōhura Bridge siren wasn’t repaired several months prior and had not gone off.

Crawley’s friend stopped by at midnight to tell him about the flood, but Crawley didn’t take him seriously as no alarms or alerts had gone off. He reckoned if the bridge siren had gone off he would have been up warning people and opening gates for stock.

Horizons Regional Council confirmed the bridge siren was disabled months ago after unexpectedly going off and there was a plan to replace it. The work had not been completed before the flood.

A contingency plan was in place including phone calls to registered Horizons members, door knocking, social media and mobile alerts.

Ruapehu Mayor Weston Kirton said “it was quite concerning to learn of this at this stage” and wondered why it had taken so long for the regional council to tackle the siren. He added that there had been “plenty of notice of rainfalls” prior to the floods and that the council had other river sensors to monitor levels.