“But that [early] one was worse because as well as pushing the Orowaiti up into that end of town the Buller River actually burst out and flowed directly into Westport – it came close to it this time but didn t quite get there.” Niwa was getting valuable data from the flood warning system set up recently with funding from the Government as one of the regional council s shovel-ready projects, Measures said. “This allows us to integrate our river-monitoring with weather forecasts and rainfall data and get projections as early as possible to the Emergency Management Centre . it can only become more valuable with time, as we build up data and experience.”
By 6pm on Saturday, almost half of the residents in the West Coast town of Westport had been evacuated in what Buller mayor Jamie Cleine called “an evolving situation”. Cleine said just over 2000 of the town’s roughly 4500 residents have had to evacuate their homes. About 8:30pm on Saturday, an alert was sent to residents in Westport by Civil Defence saying those that had not yet evacuated should shelter in place.
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An emergency alert sent by West Coast civil defence on Saturday evening said Westport residents who had not yet evacuated their homes should shelter in place. Lisa Gregory, who was working in the Emergency Operations Centre, popped back to check on her Gladstone St property on Saturday afternoon, but like many in the area, knee-high water meant she was unable to get inside.
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When two West Coast rivers flooded on the same day in 2019, the Waiho tore down a bridge and cut off local communities for 18 days, and the Fox eroded a landfill, exposing 135 tonnes of rubbish that contaminated beaches more than 100km away.
A flood on the Rangitata River during the same year severed road, rail and power connections along the east coast of the South Island and cut a 25km path to the sea through prime dairy country.
We shouldn’t be surprised when our rivers break their banks that’s just a river being a river. Current management practices in Aotearoa treat rivers as static, in the hope of making them more predictable.