Delayed flood hits Hauraki farms
A Hauraki farmer has described the devastation as the worst he has seen after the remnants of Cyclone Cook caused a stopbank to breach near the Piako River in Waikato.
A fire service spokeswoman said the breach was about 1km up Tramline Rd near the Piako River.
Families had been forced to evacuate, Steve Fabish, Hauraki District Council local controller, said.
Dairy farmer Margs Carline said most of their farm was under water.
Another farmer, Andrew Ball, said it was the worst he had seen in his 12 years in the region.
‘‘We’re just trying to deal with the animals and get them safe,’’ Carline said.
‘‘I don’t know how they’re going to stop it.’’
A group of six from one house, initially reported to be trapped, were all accounted for and were evacuating, a fire service spokeswoman said.
Fabish said affected households were visited by Civil Defence on Thursday, as Cyclone Cook hit, to advise them to be prepared for floodwaters to eventually make make their way down the river, and to consider evacuating if they felt at-risk.
‘‘It’s just the movement of the water in the upper part of the catchment. It’s working its way down,’’ he said.
Civil Defence teams were yesterday doing a ‘‘double check on their needs’’.
Contractors directed traffic along Paeroa-tahuna Rd as floodwaters threatened to submerge the road. Entire paddocks were under water on either side of the road.
In some areas, the floodwaters have formed expansive lakes, marooning cows on higher land.
Ball said his farm was a bit higher but he was looking down over ‘‘rather a large lake’’.
‘‘Just watching the water rise from up here – and getting bigger and bigger, the lake, across the farmland. It’s unprecedented, the flooding, what has happened.
‘‘The first lot of rain we had, from the end of Cyclone Debbie, all the soil was completely saturated.
‘‘Even though we got less rain this time, there was nowhere for the water to go quickly.’’
On Friday, there was ‘‘a little bit of water but the road was still accessible’’.
‘‘Yesterday [Saturday] when I went through, the water had probably risen a metre.’’
Ball said the community was uniting to help those who had been flooded.
‘‘There are a lot of farmers that are affected.
‘‘Most farmers are well prepared and certainly other farmers in the district are willing to help out. It’s going to take a while for that water to go down, and a lot of those farms are going to have to regrass.
‘‘We’re coming into winter, it’s going to be pretty tough for a lot of them.’’
Janice Kowalski, a resident of Tramline Rd near the Piako River, said delayed flooding was not an uncommon phenomenon in the area.
‘‘We get it a few days after heavy rain,’’ she said.
Kowalski said her house was not affected but she could see the police and fire service working to help other families.
Another resident, Michael Aylward, said the flooding was on a dairy farm with several houses on it.
‘‘The flooding has come about 1km up the road,’’ he said.
Aylward said it was sunny in Patetonga but with two big storms recently the ground was saturated.