Rescuers pull man from flooding

Firefighters save Kawerau local clinging to bridge in rising waters after weekend deluge in Rotorua region

Aman clinging to a bridge in Kawerau flood waters had to be rescued by firefighters as the region experienced one of its wettest weekends in some time, forcing the postponement of Rotorua events.

The man was rescued from River Rd in the early hours of Saturday after he decided to ditch his car and walk the rest of the way home because of rising flood waters.

Kawerau Fire Service station officer Tyrel Katu said the man had to call for help and was found “clinging on to the bridge worried he was going to be washed away” when firefighters arrived. “He was trapped and couldn’t move.”

Katu said luckily the man had his phone in his hand and was able to call for help. The crew gave him a line and a lifejacket before Katu and another crew member “grabbed him out . . . He was very lucky”.

Katu said the Kawerau firefighters had numerous callouts over the weekend and the waters were so deep they couldn’t get through to one of the first, at a flooded home on Wilson Cres. “We couldn’t get to that one. The water was getting a little bit too deep even for the fire appliance . . . We stopped and reversed out.”

In the 60 hours from early on Friday, about 188mm of rain fell in Rotorua, with Kawerau reportedly receiving more than 400mm of rain in just 24 hours.

MetService meteorologist Brian Mercer said it was the wettest weekend Rotorua had seen for a while — but the good news was that fine weather was on its way.

All the water is gone now. The fire brigade are helping people pump water out of businesses and a few homes. Malcolm Campbell, Kawerau mayor

He said although there were some relatively significant falls — the heaviest on Saturday night — the amount of rain was not enough to spark warning levels.

“The heaviest falls were Saturday evening and overnight and then it eased off earlier [Sunday] morning.”

Mercer said the 188mm recorded at Rotorua Airport was a sign of a wet weekend experienced in the region.

Kawerau mayor Malcolm Campbell said the sun was once again shining in the town yesterday, with people cleaning up the mess.

“All the water is gone now. The fire brigade are helping people pump water out of businesses and a few homes that got a bit of water through them.”

Campbell said the region experienced a significant weather bomb. He was told the area received 409mm of rain in a 24-hour period.

“But most of it seemed to fall in the 12 hours from 2am to 2pm [overnight on Friday and into Saturday].

“There’s no major damage — wet carpets and that sort of stuff and a few wet cars after getting caught in about 1200mm water in the promenade,” the mayor said yesterday.

“But it’s all back to normal again today and we will be looking to get our engineering team together to find out how it happened and how we can stop it in the future.

“We’ve had a couple of incidents like this in the past, but not as bad as this one as it did catch us a bit short.”

Campbell said the main thing was no one was hurt and the damage was fairly minor.

Kawerau resident Grant Reid said he almost needed a canoe to go outside on Saturday. The water was about waist deep in the Jellicoe Court area after “torrential” rain. “It’s the worst I’ve seen in it 17 years.”

However, Reid said, by yesterday the streets had dried up and the town was getting back to normal.