Blenheim to Timaru: Flood damaged 460km of roads

we’ve just had [last year], is we get a half meander shift. What that means is it comes off the heavy rock lines we’ve got, and it will find all the weak ones in between.

‘‘That has just started, so we had to do a couple of emergency works just before the storm we had on Tuesday.’’

Dick updated councillors on Tuesday’s heavy rain event.

He said the flood had three problem areas – David St and Fyffe St in Blenheim, and an area near SH63, in Renwick.

‘‘Tuesday was a classic easterly, southeasterly storm, so it was the lower plains,’’ he said.

‘‘If you look at the rain gauge at the council building, over a 12-hour period it was about a one in 20-year event.’’

The total volume of rain measured in central Blenheim over those 12 hours was about 70 millimetres. In Ward, it was about 110mm.

Dick said weather modelling was fairly accurate, but the total rainfall ended up on the ‘‘lower end’’ of what was forecast.

And, while the council received some phone calls about the Taylor River, there was ‘‘never a concern’’ there, he said.

‘‘So it was a significant storm, but not massive,’’ he said.

In David St, tree roots blocked the storm water system.

‘‘That’s part of that whole Cameron’s Creek catchment that’s going to be upgraded for storm water and to allow for housing,’’ he said.

Similarly, in Fyffe St, at the top of Redwood St near the Wither Hills, there had been some sort of blockage in storm water piping. The council would look to find the cause of this in the coming days using a camera, Dick said.

And in Renwick, Dick said they had ‘‘problems’’ with School Creek.

‘‘... we ended up with, probably, three or four houses that ended up with water through the flooring.’’