Family rescued through second storey window
Auckland-based DJ Dick Johnson is ‘‘so grateful’’ to his Grey Lynn neighbour, after he and partner – musician Anna Coddington – were rescued with their two boys from a second-storey window during Friday’s storm. ‘‘It was surreal,’’ said Johnson of the escape from his property, during Auckland’s record rainfall.
The neighbour, a local doctor, kayaked over a fence and through large trees to get to Johnson, Coddington and their two sons, aged 9 and 6. Stuck on the second floor of the house, with water rising up the stairs, Johnson had attempted to reach his own kayak, but said: ‘‘The torrent of water was so powerful, I couldn’t get five metres out of my front door.’’
‘‘I smashed the window and got the kids and Anna out,’’ he said yesterday. He and a friend, who had been trying to help stop the flooding, then got themselves to safety with the neighbour’s help.
That neighbour’s house flooded next, ‘‘so we had to evacuate them’’. ‘‘My kids were so scared,’’ Johnson said. ‘‘It was like, let’s get out of here ... You go into life-saving mode.’’
Earlier on Friday afternoon, the house began to flood, but it quickly cleared. Then, very suddenly, ‘‘it came back and didn’t stop’’.
‘‘It came into the house. All the time we’re thinking it’s not going to go any higher ... but it kept going up and up.’’
The family went to the second storey thinking they would be safe, but Johnson watched the water rise up the stairs. Before he knew it, the water was at the second stair from the top.
‘‘We just had to make an escape plan ... it was getting higher and higher, and we didn’t think we’d get out.’’
This was the third time the house, which sat about 3m below street level, had flooded since March, 2022. But Johnson said they had never experienced anything like this. ‘‘We don’t want to go back there, there’s no way we want to live there,’’ he said.
The house was an ‘‘unreal scene’’. It had not been ‘‘redstickered’’ yet, but Johnson expected it to be soon.
‘‘It’s black water, and now a few days later it’s rotten. You can’t be in there more than two or three minutes without feeling sick.’’
The family also lost two cars, their boat tipped and their sleepout was destroyed.
Johnson, a UK-born DJ who has curated the set list for Auckland’s Synthony in the Domain in April, has a studio separate from the house, so his work gear was not damaged. Coddington, however, lost guitars and sentimental items such as a box containing every
song she had ever written. The children were doing ok said Johnson, but had not returned to the house yet.
‘‘My eldest doesn’t want to go. He can’t get his head around losing the house,’’ he says. ‘‘They just lost all their stuff. It’s going to be very different for them.’’
Johnson had also been ‘‘overwhelmed’’ by the love and support shown by the community and friends. ‘‘We’ve shed tears for our home, but we’ve shed more for the generosity and kindness of people,’’ he said.
‘‘It makes the whole process of dealing with it easier.’’