Waihī Beach Floods: Were the warnings heeded?

Did the Western Bay of Plenty District Council have the weather warnings it needed to reduce the damage caused by floods in Waihī Beach?

The council said it did not, but MetService and community members believe it did.

On 29 May, heavy rain and thunderstorms lashed the coastal town causing flash flooding and the town's dam to overflow.

Katikati/Waihī Beach ward councillor Allan Sole lives in nearby Athenree.

"I was aware that we had a warning for here [Waihī Beach].

"I was aware of a very real risk that we were going to have a fairly major weather event," Sole said.

"I can't comment on what happened at council's office, because I don't know what they were or weren't told.

"I think the event was way bigger than anybody expected, most people probably did not expect such a heavy amount of rain over a fairly short time."

The council recorded 67 millimetres of rain between 1pm and 2.30pm out of a total of 91.4mm on 29 May.

This caused the Waihī Beach dam to overflow for 40 minutes from 1.26pm.

The water rushed through the northern end of the town, filling up creeks, spilling over roads, flooding homes and the holiday park.

Twenty seven people were forced to evacuate their homes, including two families at the holiday park and 11 elderly residents from the council owned pensioner housing on Beach Road. The water quickly rose to window height, causing the pensioners to flee and leave everything behind.

WBOPDC Waihī Beach stormwater project leader James Abraham initially told Local Democracy Reporting the council did not get the heavy rain warning until 45 minutes before the flooding happened.

However severe weather warnings were provided by MetService in the days prior. A heavy rain watch was issued for 29 May for the Bay of Plenty about and west of Whakatāne on 27 May at 9.51am. An hour later this was updated to include all the Bay of Plenty.

The watch was upgraded to an orange heavy rain warning on 28 May.

Another was issued at 9.35am on 29 May, saying to expect 60 to 90mm of rain, with peak rates of 15 to 25mmh between 9am and 9pm, with thunderstorms possible.

So what was the basis of James Abraham's claim there was no warning until 45 minutes before the flooding occurred?

Asked to clarify if he meant they had not received a localised warning specific to Waihī Beach, Abraham replied: "Western Bay of Plenty District Council did not receive a formal rain warning that would trigger our pre-heavy rain checks for the 29 May event, so we did not do a heavy rain warning inspection or lower the dam."

It was "typically" the council's process to lower the dam in instances of heavy rain warnings, he said.

"We [the council] had also recently done a pre-rain check on 18 May.

"We're referring to the official rain warnings that are issued through MetService and we also receive them through our civil defence contacts."

The council shared a Bay of Plenty Civil Defence post about the rain warning on its Facebook page on 28 May.

In explanation, Abraham said that warning was for Bay of Plenty about and west of Whakatāne including Rotorua, and Bay of Plenty east of Whakatāne and Gisborne north of Tokomaru Bay.

He said the MetService forecast that LDR questioned him about "didn't include the Waihī Beach, Tauranga or Coromandel area".

LDR sought advice from MetService which provided a graphic of the area covered by the orange rain warning.

It clearly shows Waihī Beach was definitely included.

MetService also gave information about the heavy rain watches for the Coromandel Peninsula for 29 May.

Three were issued on 27 May, two on 28 May and one was issued at 9.35am on 29 May. It forecasted periods of heavy rain where rainfall amounts may approach warning criteria between 9am and 5pm that day.

MetService meteorologist John Law said as well as the broadscale warning, there was also a severe thunderstorm warning issued on the day for Waihī Beach.

These were only issued once a thunderstorm had formed and could be tracked on the radar network, he said. This was issued at 2.11pm on 29 May and was valid until 3pm.

Waihī Beach resident Chris Stanaway is angry the council "deny" getting a warning.

"The entire North Island had a weather warning, and the simple fact is that council put in writing that before every storm they would lower the dam."

In his view, had the council lowered the dam, his friends' and family's seven raised caravans at the Tasman Holiday Park would not have been damaged.

"My aunty's caravan got dragged 35 meters with the annex, and [the water] was waist deep inside. If she'd been in it at the time, [she] easily could have been dead.

"Their [the council's] negligence is disgusting," he claimed.

Some areas of the town are flood prone and a similar flood happened in 2012 after a "weather bomb" hit the town.

But Stanaway said: "It's never happened like that before" at the holiday park and his aunty's caravan had been in the same spot for 40 years.

Sole agreed the dam should have been lowered and said the incident should be recorded as a "near miss".

"It is conceivable [that] a loss of life may have been an issue if it was late at night or [in the] early hours of the morning.

"There is potential that the height that that water got into some of the houses and in particular some of the pensioner flats [it] could have been an issue."

Waihī Beach Community Board chairperson Ross Goudie also agreed: "They'd have been asleep and the water would've been up around their beds ... up to the window tops and in the dark no one knows what's going on."

LDR went back to the council with the information from MetService and asked again if they received a warning.

The council's communications team referred LDR back to Abraham's previous comments and said they did not want to comment further on that or Stanaway's views.

A draft list of stormwater projects for Waihī Beach, worth $19.8 million, is being presented to the council's Projects and Monitoring Committee meeting for approval on Tuesday.