As climate change causes a couple near Westport to flee floodwaters yet again, moving to higher ground looks like their only option
After two floods and four flood warnings, painter Ruth Vaega and her husband Pete Graham have precautionary evacuations down to a fine art.
First make a pie. Calmly.
Then heave the bikes and tools and mowers onto the deck; stack other good stuff in the house; scoop up the dog and the pie and head to your mates’ house on higher ground.
“You feel a bit like Noah - the house is absolutely chocka,” Vaega says.
The couple, who live on the banks of the Orowaiti River, were among 160 Westport residents who abandoned their homes on Wednesday on the advice of Civil Defence officials.
“Pete’s really organised for evacuating. We’re pretty good at it these days, but the worst thing is the dread, the perpetual weather warnings. When it changed from orange to red this week, I thought, ‘Here we go again.’”
The threat of yet anther flood in Buller receded overnight as the worst of the rainstorm veered north and targeted Nelson and Tasman.
“We went home in the morning and everything’s okay. But then you have to brace for the next high tide. I’ve come to hate the rain,” Vaega says.
She has reason to.
In 2018, floodwaters tore through the couple’s home on Snodgrass Rd during Cyclone Fehi, ruining furniture, appliances and artworks.
“The couple we’d bought the house from came to see us and they were shocked - they’d lived there 20 years and never been flooded,” Vaega says.
Vaega and Graham took their insurance payout and used it to raise their house by 1m, then built high decks around it.
“We were using a ladder to get into the house at first, until we built the steps. We thought we were pretty safe.”
But in the July flood last year, the waters were lapping at the deck, and outbuildings including Vaega’s studio were once again awash.
“Our insurance company has looked favourably at us because we raised the house, but I can see a day when we won’t be able to get insurance - it’ll be too much of a risk.”
Relocating the house to somewhere safer might prove the best long-term option, Vaega says.
Circle of safety
The scenic but low-lying Snodgrass area just north of urban Westport lies outside the ring of flood walls and stop banks proposed for the town.
“It’s looking pretty sad for Snodgrass,” Vaega says.
The Westport artist, who’s standing for the Buller District Council in the coming elections, says previous councils have allowed people to build on a what’s essentially a flood plain, and those home owners are now facing the consequences.
“I would fight to the death if I thought it could be saved. But I’ve been to all the meetings, I’ve looked at the modelling and they can prove that protecting us with stop banks or whatever would cause worse flooding in Westport itself.”
The benefit to the majority has to be weighed against the benefit to the relatively few home owners in the Snodgrass block, she believes.
“I have a son and daughters in Westport and for their sake I want to see that [proposed] wall built.”
But it could be four years until Westport’s flood ramparts go up, Vaega says, even if the government comes across this year with the $56 million councils have asked for to protect the town.
And four more years of weather warnings, floods, rumours of floods and evacuation upheavals are a wearying, worrisome prospect for the Vaega-Graham household and hundreds of others.
“What do we do in the meantime? We’re already on stilts - we can’t do that again. We have to keep doing this until we see if the government will pay us out or help to move us.”
Buller council has done what it can to help out anxious Snodgrass residents this time around, Vaega says.
“They had the diggers out heaping up earth and gravel barriers in the weak spots where the water came over last time, and people are pleased about that.”
But temporary bunding won’t be enough to protect her home and others from the severity of floods that are fast becoming the norm, she believes.
“We would be sad to leave our little bay on the Orowaiti with the river and the birds and everything. But we have to be realistic - climate change is upon us. It’s happening now.”
****
Update: 2.30pm Thursday
River levels are now dropping around Westport but the state of emergency continues with more heavy rain expected across Buller tomorrow night and into the weekend.
It says rainfall has varied hugely over the district: one rain gauge recorded less than 70mm and another 20km away, recorded 300mm.
Civil Defence has ordered 5000 more sandbags for the town.
“If we get more of that sort of intense rain in the wrong place at the weekend, it has the potential to cause problems, so we aren’t relaxing,” says Civil Defence controller Al Lawn.
Made with the support of the Public Interest Journalism Fund
