1News Pacific Correspondent Barbara Dreaver gives her opinion on the floods in regards to South Auckland.
“My mum is 73 years old and she was in that rain helping to clear drains of rubbish and clay from neighbouring sardine can houses being built, helping her neighbours all females, no warnings of heavy rain (red zone) till it happened, last minute call for state of emergency after everyone nearly submerged in thr homes. The streets have been a mess berms and local parks not mowed and you uz have the nerve to tell people how to look after there property? You cant even look after a suburb.”
“Clear out the drains, we got women going around doing it on the street, if they can surely others can, council is hopeless, ladies pulling out rubbish bags full with their spades. Thank goodness for them. Most are solo mums who waited for their children to go to sleep.”
“I was in this last night alone trying to get to my sister and her 6 wk old baby sitting on their dining table."
“Our community is amazing but it feels like Mangere were an after thought you know a bit like the Titanic..the first class get in the boats first & once the ship has sunk & the silence is deafening they send back 1 boat to save those they left behind”.
Just a few of the many comments from a community who quite rightly have felt abandoned by pretty much everyone for the 24 hours following Friday’s floods.
On Saturday we visited the devastated, now unliveable, home of one Māngere family who were trying to clean up and salvage the little of their sodden possessions that hadn’t been destroyed. Others in the street were in the same predicament.
"You’re the first people we’ve seen," they wearily told us and community group BBM who were there to see what they could do to help.
Like other Pasifika, the Moungavalu family had seen the advice not to call 111 unless life was at threat so they didn’t because they felt there were others who would be worse off. That’s just the Pacific way – putting others first.
But their lives were at risk and when they were told by police to evacuate at 9pm, they used the fence to hang on as they waded through chest-high water while holding children.
When an aunt came to get them, they were standing in the torrential rain trying to shelter under a tree. The aunt now has 19 people in her home but “you know family – we help, do what we can". Luckily the community itself responded quickly – social media came to the fore like Māngere 275, which worked the night putting up the latest information along with posts from the public with offers of help and emergency accommodation.
It’s hardly surprising BBM's Dave Letele has called for Auckland mayor Wayne Brown to resign. That’s because Letele, along with other community groups like the ASA Foundation, were first on the ground out south to help, advise and provide assistance before anyone else.
There was barely any acknowledgement Māngere was facing a serious problem. The absence of elected officials and immediate assistance in the suburb spoke volumes.
"They don’t even know we’ve been hit by this out here. You’re the only media we’ve seen. We’re not important out here," one resident told me.
The mayor blaming other people to save his political skin and his refusal to accept responsibility when he is at the top of the ladder shows an embarrassing lack of leadership. It’s weakness of the worst kind and trotting along to evacuation centres and homes damaged by the floods doesn’t even begin to cut it with a community that is a victim of his – and his council’s – failure.
There are some elected Pasifika in positions of power who were frustrated and did what they could. Councillors Josephine Bartley and Alf Filipaina, to name a couple. At the Kelston evacuation centre yesterday, where I was volunteering for a few hours, Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni met a family from Māngere who had been evacuated there with only the threadbare clothes they were wearing. She gave one her jacket before going to the car and getting her husband to take off his t-shirt to give to them.
Sepuloni also spent the day overseeing teams to provide housing and assistance, and an Emergency Management information centre has been set up in Māngere to get help where it’s needed. Building inspectors are out and about in the suburb today assessing damage – maybe the council would like to check clogged drains while they are at it – but at least work has begun in the forgotten suburb.
There’s no doubt there are people all over Auckland in dire straits; it’s not just about Pasifika by any stretch of the imagination. Lives have been lost, homes destroyed, businesses impacted and this isn’t to take away the hardship that many now face. What it does highlight is how some communities were left behind even before the floods hit.
It highlights the simple fact that they deserve better.
SHARE ME