Source: Radio New Zealand
Flooding around Akaroa, Banks Peninsula on Tuesday. RNZ / Nathan McKinnon
Banks Peninsula has been hammered by nearly 10 times the average monthly rainfall in just 48 hours, MetService says.
The deluge has left the peninsula cut off, with slips and flooding blocking State Highway 75, the main road between Christchurch and Akaroa.
A state of emergency remains in Banks Peninsula, about 250 properties have been without power overnight, and there are also cell and internet outages.
Boil water notices are in place for Wainui and Little River.
Canterbury Civil Defence controller Duncan Sandeman said he didn’t know how long the peninsula would remain isolated – but reopening the road would be Wednesday’s priority.
About 250 properties have been without power overnight in the Banks Peninsula after the flooding. RNZ / Nathan McKinnon
“That’s a decision for NZTA, what I do know is that they’ll have contractors working pretty hard to get that lifeline reopened,” he said.
A damaged fibre optic cable was causing the communications outages, said Sandeman.
“That’s created a number of dramas … the comms is patchy, we know that the 2degrees cell network is able to take texts.”
People could also dial 111 in an emergency, he said, and civil defence staff were communicating via satellite phones.
School children stuck at camp
About 40 primary school children are stuck at Wainui Park Camp on the peninsula, and the manager has no regrets about the trip going ahead.
Wainui Park Camp is run by the Kind Foundation, and it’s been hosting a rural Christchurch school trip since Monday.
The foundation’s chief executive Josie Ogden Schroeder said the camp is well equipped with food, water, power and communications, and the group was staying in a building on a hill away from the river.
Roads had been blocked near Wainui after the floods caused slips. SUPPLIED/Linda Hennessy
“This is a country school, they are full of beans, they’re totally relaxed … they’re all absolutely fine, they are very safe where they are,” she said.
“I don’t think that there’s any major concerns about safety, it’s more just the adventure of it all, and I believe that school is turning this into a pretty awesome learning experience for those kids.”
Despite the wet weather forecast, Ogden Schroeder said it was the right call to continue on with the camp.
“Heavy rain shouldn’t stop outdoor education because that’s actually the entire point of going away on camp is to actually experience the outdoors and learn about such things,” she said.
“However, if we had known … that the road would be cut off and such like, then of course then we would have been saying to schools, ‘look, this is not a sensible time for you to be coming to Wainui’.”
The camp was not badly damaged, save for a few small bridges over creeks, thanks to flood mitigation work over the last year, Ogden Schroeder said.
School trips scheduled for the rest of the week had been cancelled, she said.
Warning level questioned amid massive rainfall
A huge amount of rainfall was experienced in the Banks Peninsula RNZ / Nathan McKinnon
MetService meteorologist Katie Lyons said Canterbury had seen a “huge amount” of rainfall – with Banks Peninsula in particular taking on nearly ten times the average monthly amount in just 48 hours.
Banks Peninsula
- 48 hours, Sunday night to Tuesday night: 300mm
- Monthly average rainfall: 35mm
Christchurch city
- 48 hours, Sunday night to Tuesday night: 40mm
- Monthly average rainfall: 30mm
Some Banks Peninsula locals have questioned why the MetService weather warning wasn’t upgraded from orange, to a rare red.
Lyons said it’s too soon to say whether it was the right call – but MetService would analyse it, which was standard practice.
“We don’t just look at the rainfall that has fallen, we look at the impacts that were actually felt, because sometimes the heaviest rain falls in places that no one lives, and that means no one cares,” she said.
There was a lot of “post-analysis” to get through which involved working with councils to understand how badly people were affected, Lyons said.
Red warnings are issued when there’s high confidence of extreme impact and risk to life, she said.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
