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A West Auckland family rescued from rising floodwaters during Cyclone Gabrielle have had their property covered by “tonnes” of sand from a nearby stream that overflowed.
Bethells Beach resident Rose Worley, along with her sister and 6-year-old nephew, were forced to evacuate to a neighbouring property shortly after midnight on February 14 as floodwaters rapidly rose around them.
“The water had got to about knee-deep and the current was pretty strong in places,” she said.
“Within 20 minutes of us getting next door, the water was about a metre deep outside. Needless to say, we didn’t sleep,” she said.
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With no power or cell phone reception, the family hunkered down and waited for daylight.
But when the sun came up, “it was pretty evident we were completely surrounded by water”, Worley said.
“It was quite scary. It was pouring with rain and the wind was howling.
“All the trees above us were bending and the water seemed to be coming in from all directions.”
Worley said the Waiti stream coming from Lake Wainamu overflowed, bringing with it a mix of water and sand which quickly headed towards the garage under her house.
“We were scared the house might get undermined. We called emergency services and they told us there would be no access to us for a few hours because of a slip on Bethells Rd.
“We were eventually rescued by the Bethells Beach surf lifesaving club, who had to try a few different routes to get to us.”
She said by the time the rescue crew arrived, the water was waist deep.
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The family dug around doorways to enter the house.
When the family returned to their property the following day, it was 70cm deep in black sand.
Worley said “thousands of tonnes” of sand from the stream engulfed the entire property during the cyclone, making it unrecognisable.
“We basically had to dig around doorways to be able to open the doors to get in.
“We were lucky to only get a bit of sand inside the house, but it was probably about 20cm through my bedroom.”
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Native trees which had been planted by Worley have been washed away and other items have been found buried underneath the sand.
She said the entire underside of the house was full of sand and the family had spent a week digging.
“So much has been buried, including our water pump. We’ve had to dig out our chicken feeder, our native tree nursery and our rubbish bins, which were all about half a metre under.
“We’ll be having to replace our kitchen floor because it was particleboard so that’s kind of turned to sponge. We’ve lost plants and we even lost one of our chickens. It’s completely changed our landscape.”
She said all the sustainability projects the family had worked on had been “washed away”.
It was “devastating”, she said.
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The family have spent a week digging up sand which invaded Worley’s garage and the entire underside of the house.
“We spent all our spare time planting native trees and we’ve been doing a big river regeneration project and it’s basically all gone.
“Our purpose here was to improve the place and to have it all covered in sand and washed away is really heartbreaking.”
An Auckland Emergency Management spokesperson said Auckland Council was aware properties adjacent to the wetland and river where flooding occurred now had a “significant deposit” of sandy silt remaining.
“However they have not had reports of issues closer to Lake Wainamu.”
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