THE Kāwhia fire brigade was kept busy at Aotea Habour village on Tuesday, as the heavy deluge of rain in just two hours saw flooding of homes and roads. PHOTO SUPPLIED
THE deluge of rain that started just after 3pm on Tuesday afternoon caught most King Country residents by surprise. Metservice said around considerable rain fell, in the 12-hour period finishing at around 4am. Accompanied unusually by thunderstorms which saw power cut to some parts of the region, the rain saw a number of buildings in both Te Kūiti and Ōtorohanga face consequential leaking and in some cases flooding. The Mangaokewa Stream rose rapidly in the late afternoon and early morning, in some areas to the point of the walkway. Te Kūiti fire chief Phil New said the brigade attended one site at the service station in Rora St where it had flooded and they required help. “Other than that though, we didn’t didn’t get a lot of callouts.” The fire brigade in Kāwhia was kept busy however, with flooding in Aotea Harbour village, and Kāwhia’s roads had issues with falling rocks and streams breaking their banks across roads. Other areas which saw flooding included the Huiputea Drive area under the rail overbridge which was completely submerged during the first heavy downpour flooding in many areas saw roads closed, as parts of them gave way under the pressure of water or slips. Some, such as Kawautahi Rd in Owhango, had to be closed as did Mangaorongo Rd in the Ōtorohanga district. In Waitomo, there are a few damages/slips in the network, WDC communications manager Jenelle Burnell said, leaving the following roads closed as of yesterday morning: Tumutumu Rd; Pukerimu Rd has a significant slump and will be closed for some time. Soundy Rd should be cleared relatively easily. Neville King from Ōtorohanga Fire Service, said while they had a couple of callouts, building water leakage seemed to be the biggest problem Ōtorohanga had. This included the supermarket, the King Country News’ office and a few others. John Law from Metservice said it had been a very active few days of weather across the North Island. “The heaviest rainfall recorded was at a station in Hauturu which reported 78mm in the 24 hours until 8am yesterday. “In just one hour the station reported 32.5mm, to put that into context we think about heavy rainfall as being more than 6mm/hr. “Rainfall totals at Taumarunui reached 42.8mm.”
