News Story
The tail-end of former Cyclone Debbie hit Auckland early last evening with continuous heavy rain causing slips, evacuations, flooding, trees down and road closures.
Members mobilised to Kohimarama Road where a land-slide threatened "San Remo", a block of apartments. Residents told of hearing a roar before a wall of mud, water and stones rushed down the cliff-face behind the apartments and crashed into the building. In one case the torrent smashed a door off its hinges before cascading through the apartment. "San Remo" and neighbouring buildings were evacuated with several residents at first feared buried in the mud, but later accounted for. It was the missing persons and instability of the land that triggered attendance of the Fire Service's Urban Search and Rescue team. Our members closed roads, maintained cordons and turned out the canteen to provide hot drinks for those evacuated and emergency workers. Other members attended 4 storm events at the same time - shops flooded in Glendowie, a road closure because of a fallen tree near Whitford, a partial road closure on Tamaki Drive at a slip and, on the same road, a motor accident. And Debbie's not done yet... we were paged to assist at flooding in Maraetai this morning, and further downpours are forecast for this afternoon.
