With Monday’s rain bringing its own challenges Council would like to remind people that we have 2 more reasonable sized weather events coming later this week, the first set to arrive on Thursday 23rd and the next due on Monday 27th October.
Both of these events are expected to bring significant amounts of rain and high winds (in places).
We already have the end of Haast-Jackson Bay Road closed and expect that Kaniere-Kowitirangi Road will also be closed during both of these next 2 events. Council and our Contracting Staff are working with WCRC staff to collect more data around the closures on this road so we can hopefully better predict and anticipate when we need to shut the gates.
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We have already stationed sandbags at various locations around town and will leave these in place until next week.
With ground conditions already at saturation point we expect that surface flooding will occur faster so please stay safe.
Other Roads that will likely experience surface flooding are as follows:
- Robertson Road, Harihari. – St Georges Creek Regularly overflows in high rainfall.
- La-Fontaine Road, Harihari. – Low lying areas regularly flood when the Wanganui River is in flood.
- Wanganui Flat Road, Harihari. - First 1.5km around Village during heavy rainfall when surrounding farmland is flooded
- Peterson Road, Harihari. – Regularly floods in high rainfall.
- Oneone Road, Harihari. – Poerua River regularly goes over this road in high rainfall.
- Waitangitaona Road, Whataroa. – Waitangitahuna River regularly goes over this road in high rainfall.
- Haast-Jackson Bay Road, Haast. Various locations along this road are subject to surface flooding during high rainfall events.
- Nolan Road, Haast. – Okuru River may go over this road.
- North & South Turnbull Roads, Haast. – Turnbull River may go over these roads.
- Jackson River Road, Haast. – The gate at Lake Ellery Bridge may be closed if the river overtops the road.
This list is not exhaustive, so any road could potentially be closed at very short notice.
Please avoid driving through the surface flooding particularly when in the CBD or around residential dwellings as the waves created could be the difference between a building getting flooded or not.
As with any storm event we cannot predict where the worst hit areas will be, so we urge caution for everybody who needs to travel during this storm. If you can delay your travel please consider doing so. Sending out rescue teams places others at risk
Karl Jackson WDC Transportation Manager