Clean-up commences after region hit by flooding

Marlborough Weekly reporter William Woodworth looks back at the weekend’s flooding events.

Marlborough moved into full clean-up mode after three days of heavy rain created flooding havoc across the province, the region drenched by more than 300mm of rain.

MetService set a Heavy Rain Watch on Wednesday, which was followed by an orange Heavy Rain Warning on Thursday morning.

Much concern and emergency resources were focused on the township of Spring Creek, and its compromised stop bank protecting it from the engorged Wairau River.

After being weakened by the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake, then the July 2021 floods, concerns of a stop bank failure were significant enough to put a pre-emptive evacuation in place.

Residents of Dodson, Hathaway and March Streets in Spring Creek, as well as part of Ferry Road, were asked to evacuate on Thursday before 9am Friday morning when the Wairau was predicted to be at its highest volume.

The announcement of a region-wide State of Emergency on Thursday meant a Civil Defence Centre opened at Stadium 2000, while Tuamātene Marae in Grovetown also opened its doors. Marlborough Mayor Nadine Taylor and Minister for Emergency Management and Response Mark Mitchell visited Spring Creek on Friday morning.

The evacuation order remained in place until Saturday, as the Wairau River’s flow rate was predicted to go over evacuation levels again on Friday afternoon.

Friday afternoon also saw the Awatere River hit 100-year flood levels - which both Council staff and long time residents near the river said they had never seen before. Another stopbank having a piping failure at the Wairau-Waihopai River confluence meant a ‘prepare to evacuate’ warning was sent to Lower Terrace residents in Renwick out of caution, while the Pelorus River burst its banks and caused much flooding damage through Canvastown and Havelock.

Elsewhere across Marlborough, rain gauges at Tunakino, Rai Falls and Onamalutu Hilltop Road measured over 300mm of rain since last Wednesday, while parts of Blenheim’s stormwater and sewerage systems were overloaded.

The township of Wairau Valley was cut off until Sunday thanks to State Highway 63 being washed out at both the Andersons Floodway Bridge and in the Bankhouse area west of the Waihopai bridge.

Valley resident Deb Schollum said the flooding had left much to fix, but also showed people’s community spirit.

“We live up on a hill so had no water around our house, but we farm in the Centre Valley and the creek has come out of its bed and made its own arrangement.

The Wairau Valley chat page response has been amazing, looking out for everyone in the neighbourhood and checking on people.

Water on the State Highway is unusual here, and a few houses have had water through them but you look at Tapawera for places that have really been hit.

“The biggest change was Thursday night into Friday morning, with the highest point of flooding here Friday morning.

“It was up there but not with the big ones we have had – 1993 or 1921 were probably worse but every flood here affects different areas – the amount of water at the Waihopai Bridge was huge this year, but 2021 it was the Branch River overflowing.

“I went down today into town for the first time, and they’ve done a marvellous job of repair at the Waihopai because that was a mess - we lost power Friday night with the Waihopai Bridge blowing out but it was back by the morning.

“We’ll have 700 to 800 meters of fences to fix, and the waterways that have made their own arrangements need to be put back, but all of the stock were safe with plenty of notice to move them”.

Due to the washout of State Highway 63, a group of year 10 Marlborough Boys’ College students on a camp were evacuated into St Arnaud township.

“A big thanks to the Rotoiti staff who helped keep the boys entertained, helped out with the camp and got the boys back to Blenheim too,” said MBC principal Jarrod Dunn.

“Civil Defence, along with the Defence Force, gave us the regular updates and help with putting a plan together to get the boys back to Blenheim.

Marlborough District Council Rivers team manager Andy White was in Spring Creek midday Saturday, coordinating the continued efforts of emergency responders and Defence Force staff in taking over public cleanup jobs from locals.

He says that thanks to Spring Creek residents evacuating early, Civil Defence was better positioned to respond to developing circumstances elsewhere.

“This weather event has been extremely unpredictable since we started taking notice of it and running models on Monday and even thought there was extreme ambiguity in the numbers, we’d much rather be safe than sorry.

“Having Spring Creek residents evacuate early meant we had police cordons in place keeping homes safe and swift water rescue teams on standby, while still able to reallocate resources and respond to events like the Waihopai stop bank piping issues that was threatening parts of Renwick. Our largest Wairau River predictions came out with 4000 cumecs which it didn’t quite reach, and our overnight monitoring team said it has performed remarkably well for the state it is in – there’s been no seepage, but we’ll be able to better assess what state it is in over the next few days.

“We’ll be across the region to hear out and deal with those problems in the coming weeks and months, but we will have the Spring Creek stop banks fully repaired by June 2027.”