Hell in high waters

A year ago, Auckland flooded. Since then, many residents have been living in limbo with glacial progress on repairs. 

- GRAHAM REID

As I write this from my temporary office in the upstairs bedroom, workers outside in heavy fluoro jackets and hard hats are toiling under a scorching sun. There’s noise from diggers and massive machinery, the scrabble of scoria pouring from metal buckets, weighty wheels crunching over rocks.

And I’m enjoying it because, to me, it sounds like progress. We live beside the Western railway line in Auckland and for the past few weeks the track has been undergoing maintenance. But I’m watching closely what’s being done with the drainage.

This time last year, that incessant rain ran down the hill on the other side of the line, under the tracks and came through the wooden retaining wall of our courtyard as a waterfall. It flooded the carpark of our townhouse block, flowed under tilt-a-doors into garages and the rooms where people had washing machines and driers, or had converted into living quarters.

Within minutes, the floodplain in the courtyard – which claimed a few cars because the owners were out – rose to half a metre in many ground-floor areas.

We had repurposed the garage into a library-cum-television room, with my office beyond. Our modest Mazda, quickly moved to higher ground, always remained outside.

We’d had rains before but, as everyone will attest, nothing like that night. The water outside, then inside, rose relentlessly as I piled precious art books on chairs. But by the time I’d done that, both rooms were awash.

So I opened the back door from the office and watched water flow through from the courtyard into our pocket-sized back garden, already ankle-deep.

My wife Megan was at her farewell work dinner, leaving a constantly busy job after nine years. She was going to have a brief break before looking for something else.