Residents on flood-stricken Christchurch street feel forgotten - 'it looked like Lake Emmett'
Wednesday, 27 July 2022
Residents on one of Christchurch’s most flooded streets say they’ve been left to fend for themselves with no sign of help or support.
Emmett St in Shirley is one of the city’s most commonly affected areas by flood whenever it rains. Despite this, the people who live there say it’s the worst it’s been due to the deluge over the past two days.
In the 48 hours to 7am Wednesday, 110mm of rain fell in the Garden City (60mm is the July average), causing widespread surface flooding and slips.
Barney Gray said she opened her curtains on Wednesday morning to find she was “living in a houseboat”.
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Gray, whose lived on Emmett St for 24 years, said the flooding had only been as bad once, two decades ago, and was worse this time compared with after the quakes.
Flooding had submerged the entire boundary of her property, but her home stayed dry.
She felt the street was a bit of an afterthought, but she was making the most of it.
“I love it. I woke up and thought ‘ooohhhh, houseboat’.
“It looked like Lake Emmett” she said of her street name.
“I love the cold. That’s why I was walking in the water. People look at me like I’m crazy.
“I don’t care, I just carry on.”
Christchurch shouldn’t have been built on a swamp, she said.
Drone footage recorded by Stuff on Wednesday Emmett St showed several properties still inundated with water, though it appeared homes remained relatively unscathed.
Stacey Gleeson said it was “by far the worst we’ve seen” in her family’s five years living on Emmett St.
Water had covered the Gleeson family’s front and back gardens and was likely to be floating under their house, but the interior was unscathed.
Gleeson’s children Leo, 9, Ruby, 6 and Wyatt, 3, hadn’t been to school for the past two days as they couldn’t leave the street, which was inundated with water.
“We haven’t heard anything from anyone. Yes we know common sense should be used, but what are we supposed to do?”
Gleeson didn’t know if anything was being done to mitigate flooding on the street.
“If it was in Fendalton it’d be sorted the next day… where are our rates going?”
In nearby Horseshoe Lake Rd, Brett Evans didn’t get much sleep on Tuesday night as water from his neighbour’s property gushed through his home.
He and his family slept in the lounge upstairs as water “completely soaked the carpet in the bedrooms”.
Thousands of litres of water accumulated in a neighbouring property’s backyard and flowed through to his garage and home.
He rescued what he could from the rooms and the garage.
“We tried to stop the water until about midnight,” Evans said.
Fire and Emergency said the river was too high to pump the water anywhere, and it would just come back.
Uninsured, Evans took the day off on Wednesday to begin tearing up his downstairs carpet.
In his eight years living there, water had not entered his property.
“It’s completely soaked the carpet in the bedrooms. We tried to rescue what we could.
“It’s a bit of a joke.”
Rain overnight on Monday pushed Christchurch Airport’s reading to 268 millimetres for the month.
MetService meteorologist John Law said 25mm fell between 7pm on Tuesday and 7am Wednesday.