An East Auckland family, including their three cats, were traumatised yesterday as a blocked drain flooded a cul-de-sac, leaving one of the cats swimming to safety and the family wading through water to get to their property.
It came after torrential rain across the city triggered Auckland Council to issue an emergency phone alert and declare a state of emergency.
Christina Teikamata told 1News her daughter, Shalom, rang her at work about 12.30pm and said the house was flooding.
"She said she couldn’t leave the property as there was a lake on the road. The emergency alert then went off at that time on our phones, so I rushed home from work trying to navigate flooded roads."
Teikamata said she couldn’t park near their house as "the road was undriveable".
"We had to wade to the house."
She said the family cats were also "traumatised".
"Isla got trapped under the house crying while a river gushed under the house. Ginger, the other cat was on the fence and jumped off, swimming down the driveway. All three had to be calmed down."
Teikamata said the garage "is caked in mud and clay is covering our things."
"We removed absolutely everything from Shalom's room that was floating and soaking wet. The flooding was rising in the pouring rain.
"We lost bedroom furniture, bedding, photo albums, mattresses due to mud and being water logged."
She said her landlord and friends worked on the drain outside and unclogged it from rocks, clay and leaves.
"The flooding went down within two minutes. I never knew a blocked drain could do so much damage."
She said an Auckland Council representative turned up at late last night, after she'd called them.
"At 10pm a council truck came out and checked the drain. He said he had been all over Auckland that day as drains were blocked."
An Orange Heavy Rain Warning and Severe Thunderstorm Watch (later Warning) were issued well in advance of the expected arrival of the weather system.
An unpredictable event
Teikamata said she was in tears this morning, listening to the radio where she said she heard it alleged the council had overreacted in its response to the weather event.
"I heard on the news this morning that it was said the city council overreacted with their emergency response and that there wasn’t much flooding. Well we were very impacted," she said in tears.
It’s becoming a familiar scene in 2023. (Source: 1News)
Auckland Emergency Management Duty Controller Parul Sood said in a statement today that the severe weather event that hit the region, demanded an acute response.
"It was a very different weather event to that which hit Auckland on 27 January and almost without warning, escalated very quickly and brought record-breaking rainfall to the Auckland region.
"With an Orange Heavy Rain Warning issued almost 24 hours ahead of the rain event, we were able to work alongside our partner agencies (including MetService and Fire and Emergency NZ) to warn Aucklanders to prepare for bad weather and have a plan for evacuation, if needed."
The Emergency Mobile Alert (EMA) system is a national system managed by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and available to civil defence and emergency management groups (e.g. local and regional councils) and emergency response agencies across New Zealand.
It comes with guidance on the circumstances when the EMA system is to be used. This includes considering whether there would be public support for using an EMA and whether there was a risk of creating "alert fatigue".
"In this instance, timely weather prediction and forecasts were a key element of consideration in the decision to issue an Emergency Mobile Alert," Sood said.
"We also acknowledge the fact that Aucklanders have been through a lot this year, experiencing multiple severe weather events and having understandably heightened concern for weather events so soon after the January floods and Cyclone Gabrielle.
"An Emergency Mobile Alert is issued when there is a threat to people’s lives, properties are at risk, or swift action needs to be taken.
"The Emergency Mobile Alert was issued at 12.06pm on Tuesday May 9 to ensure sufficient time was allowed for people to prepare and make a plan following the advice of official sources, and to provide a sense of security and preparedness to the public.
"It’s important to note that the EMA followed numerous updates to Aucklanders via our own channels, by MetService and through the media," Sood said.
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