Countdown to chaos
post builds 342 comments, none of which appear to be responded to. It doesn’t post again on Facebook until 10.01pm.
5.50pm MetService warns of severe thunderstorms and torrential rain for Auckland city, Kaipara, Waitakere, Rodney, the Hauraki Gulf and Albany.
5.52pm McAnulty confirms what most already know – heavy rain has hit. He says ‘‘the impacts are being managed locally . . . I’d urge people to follow the advice of their local authorities.’’ 5.50pm Waka Kotahi tweets that flooding on the northern motorway was blocking southbound lanes at Greville Rd.
5.53pm MetService issues another severe thunderstorm warning.
5.55pm Waka Kotahi tweets that flooding on northern motorway between Northcote and Esmond Rd was causing delays.
6pm Auckland Emergency Management makes a call not to ask for an emergency declaration. Andrew Clark, controller, later says, ‘‘When we considered around 6pm, should we ask for this? We didn’t feel at this time it was needed.’’
6.10pm Diversions around the Brynderwyns are now closed, too, due to severe flooding on SH12. 6.11-6.15pm Auckland Emergency Management tweets that severe weather is particularly affecting north, north-west, and west Auckland; ‘‘We’re working with emergency services to establish what help is needed on the ground. If it’s safe, stay home, call 111 if your life is at risk, don’t drive through floodwaters. We will continue to provide updates.’’ It doesn’t appear to tweet again until 10.04pm.
6.21pm Fenz has by now had 500 calls for help.
7pm Organisers call off the Elton John concert, at the exact time fans were told to arrive.
7.15pm Waka Kotahi sends a ‘‘final update’’ on the Brynderwyns route, asking people to check its website for more information.
7.16pm Auckland Transport says it’s helping Elton John fans get home by redirecting special buses. It doesn’t appear to tweet again until 9.27pm. There are chaotic scenes as people try to leave Mt
Smart Stadium, with reports of cars floating down streets and people u-turning on motorways to avoid flooding.
7.25pm A body is found in Wairau Valley.
7.30pm Waka Kotahi tweets another ‘‘final update’’, saying parts of the northern motorway are closed, directing people to its website.
7.35pm A landslide brings down a house in Remuera. One person is missing – and is later found dead.
7.40pm Waka Kotahi tweets another motorway update.
7.50pm Waka Kotahi sends its last tweet for several hours – it’s a ‘‘final update’’ about the southern motorway. ‘‘Closed from Market Rd off-ramp northbound.’’ There are no more tweets from Waka Kotahi until 10.30pm.
7.55pm Brown tells RNZ: ‘‘We just need the rain to stop, that’s the main issue’’.
8pm The northern motorway is submerged. Images emerge of knee-high muddy water around bus passengers. Severe flooding has also closed the Waterview Tunnel and surrounding motorway.
8.24pm Fenz has logged 1000 emergency calls and the agency pleads for people to stay home and call only with life-threatening requests. People are trapped in cars, on roofs, and in houses. Fenz asks the Defence Force to assist.
8.30pm Lifeguards rescue 69 people from workplaces on the North Shore using Inflatable Rescue Boats.
9pm Six family members are rescued from rising floodwaters at their property in Helensville, with lifeguards pulling them from their window, including a child, and onto two rescue boats. An 80-year-old woman is rescued from the second floor of her home.
8.37pm Flights are disrupted after a landing aircraft breaks a bunch of runway lights at Auckland Airport. It will eventually close the airport to flights and passengers. Some sleep at the airport as the car park is flooded.
8.42pm Pakn’Save Glenfield is inundated. Four supermarkets across the region would have to close.
9.01pm Amid ongoing silence from Waka Kotahi, Wood instructs NZTA to reopen its communication channels.
9.14pm Wood adds, ‘‘The event is extremely serious. Ministers and MPs are coordinating. A formal declaration sits with the mayor.’’
9.27pm Auckland Transport begins tweeting again – two hours after its last message – advising people to stay home. It notes closures from half an hour earlier that had not been communicated.
9.27pm This is the time PM Chris Hipkins will later say Brown declared a state of emergency, which was not immediately communicated.
9.30pm Auckland Airport tells people to stay away, as photos emerge of significant flooding inside the international terminal.
9.30pm Councillor Richard Hills criticises Civil Defence for not updating its social media in more than three hours.
9.31pm MetService issues a ‘red warning’ for Auckland, until 3am.
9.48pm: Hills calls for a state of emergency to be declared.
9.50pm: Councillor Josephine Bartley tells Stuff that Brown has declared an emergency, although Brown, Auckland Council and
Auckland Emergency Management have not confirmed this themselves.
9.56pm National leader Christopher Luxon urges Brown to declare a civil emergency.
9.57pm Auckland Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson tells TodayFM the mayor has signed the declaration of a state of emergency. Brown is yet to comment.
10.04pm Auckland Emergency Management starts tweeting again, a thread about opening a shelter in Kelston, and asking people to stay with family if possible.
10.14pm McAnulty says Brown has declared a state of emergency. Brown is yet to comment. McAnulty says the National Emergency Management Agency is ready to send resources from across the country.
10.15pm A man is swept away in floodwaters at rural Onewhero.
10.18pm Auckland Emergency Management confirms a state of emergency has been declared.
10.41pm Hipkins says the flooding is an ‘‘extraordinary set of circumstances’’ and the Government is ‘‘ready to assist’’.
11.14pm: Brown hosts an impromptu press conference, his first since the flooding started. Entire news organisations, including Stuff, aren’t told. 11.15pm. Auckland Emergency Management tweets a picture of the mayor signing off the declaration of emergency. 11.43pm Hipkins asks for public updates to increase. The Beehive Bunker response coordination centre is being prepared, for emergency management.
Surf Life Savers assist with evacuations in West Auckland.
Yesterday
Midnight: Rescuers are directed to a hypothermic man screaming for help from his vehicle, which was starting to float.
12.30am: Hipkins and McAnulty bunker down in the Beehive basement, alongside Defence, emergency services and Civil Defence staff.
1.30am: Hipkins and McAnulty hold their first press conference on the flooding. Hipkins warns Auckland to ‘‘brace for more rain’’.
12.38am A second body is found in Wairau Valley.
12.49am Civil Defence directs people to further shelters on the North Shore and Randwick Park.
1am 249mm of rain has fallen in Auckland and the airport registers its wettest day since 1985.
The rain continues to fall.