Kapiti recovers from heavy downpour
Kapiti is in clean-up mode after heavy rain left rivers and streams flooded, and slips across roads on the weekend.
Making matters worse, a single-car crash brought down live wires in Waikanae - gridlocking traffic for most of the day on Saturday.
For a time, State Highway 1 at Waikanae was closed by the crash in one direction, and then a slip blocking in the other. It came a the lower North Island was hit by a blast of heavy rain.
On Saturday Fire Service shift manager Belinda Beets said fire brigades were called at about 9.25am to a flooded house at Willow Grove, Raumati Beach.
At about 10.45am fire fighters were heading to another house on Amohia St, Paraparaumu, which had reported flooding, Beets said.
Kapiti Coast District Council closed the Otaihanga Domain and Otaraua Park as the Waikanae River surged up towards its banks.
Throughout the day staff received more than 75 call outs, reporting flooding, slips and road closures across the district.
Te Kupe Rd and Donovan Rd, Paraparaumu Beach, were flooded, the council said.
Wairongomai Rd, Otaki, was closed after a wall slipped away. Cones and warning signs were in place. On Otaki Gorge Rd, closed for seven months after slips last year, there was a slip and trees down at Devils Elbow and debris on the road at Blue Bluff and Roaring Meg.
This was compounded by the Waikanae crash, reported to emergency services at 10.30am, which was blocking the righthand northbound lane of SH1 at the intersection with Elizabeth St.
Following the crash, the NZ Transport Agency reported the southbound lane, about 500m to the south, was closed due to a slip near the Waikanae River bridge.
The crash brought down live power lines, but both scenes were cleared by about 1pm. The traffic backlog, however, was not cleared till about 4pm.
There were reports of flooding and sandbag work north of Otaki.
At 3.15pm resident Otaki Beach Linda Billington said she could look east from her Kapiti Lane home and see a cluster of about five houses under threat as a swollen nearby stream poured over its bank.
She said the houses were at the end of Atkinson Ave, before the stream, and the water was up to the top of the wheels on a car on the road.
Billington had spoken to another resident on the street who was organising sandbags to protect her home.
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