'They dropped the ball': Oamaru locals frustrated at council flood response

Oamaru locals are frustrated with Waitaki District Council's lack of preparedness for torrential rain that inundated homes, businesses and streets overnight.

Some people were left stranded by the deluge and others are counting the cost of damage.

The council declared a local state of emergency at 4.25am on Monday after bad weather battered the lower South Island. But by then, stormwater and wastewater systems were already overwhelmed and floodwater was lapping at the doorsteps of some homes.

MetService had issued an orange heavy rain warning from 12pm on Sunday until 9am on Monday for coastal parts of north Otago with a high chance it would be upgraded to a red warning.

At least nine homes and six businesses flooded with one house yellow-stickered.

Two households have been provided temporary accommodation because of welfare concerns.

Lea Street resident Shiv Janardan said the timing of the state of emergency was a farce.

"I saw the council put up a post on their Facebook page. I only saw it when I woke up this morning but it said they posted it five hours ago. If I woke up at nine in the morning it would have been posted at four, so who's really up at that time of the morning to see it?" he asked.

Homes on the street had wastewater back up the pipes and into toilets with at least one spilling into a home.

Janardan said he had not seen the council in the area by the time RNZ visited his home on Monday morning.

"The back of our house is pretty flooded out as well. Pipes and stuff are all blocked up, the toilet and all that stuff. I would have expected to see somebody out and about," he said.

"It's a natural thing. I'm not pissed. I'm just sad for the community. Extremely sad for a lot of residents around here, especially this street is full of retired elder people."

While sandbags were eventually made available, people stranded in their homes could not leave to get them.

Raylene Mulligan, whose sister lives in Lea Street with a child who uses a wheelchair and another who is blind, said the council had "dropped the ball".

She sent a photo of her sister's home surrounded by floodwaters to the council.

"I asked the council 'well, how would you like me to get to the sandbags?' and I stood on the porch and took a photo out here. It's ridiculous," Mulligan said.

"Sandbags? Yeah, if we could have got out of the street."

Mulligan said her sister and nephews were incredibly anxious as the water rose around the home, so she rushed over to help.

"I turned on to this street and second-guessed whether I should even drive down. I did get in here, got out and straight over my knees in water. It stopped at her backdoor. She was very lucky," she said.

Dana Lucaci, who lives on nearby Lea Street, found the garage and lower floor of her home flooded.

She ran her business from her home's lower level but was unsure when she could see clients again.

A drawer of clothes and possessions were ruined and the water rose high enough to fill a clothes dryer in the garage.

"Everything was floating so I don't even know if it's working," Lucaci said.

"I was worried that everything was plugged in, with power. I'm surprised nothing exploded to wake us up because the freezer, the piano, the dryer is half-full with water, which is crazy to see. We don't know yet what is damaged."

Merv and Hazel Roper had a close call on Lea Street but the water stopped rising after flooding their conservatory.

"I never thought it would come like this but we're just fortunate that it didn't come inside. Another quarter of an inch and it would have come right through the house," Merv Roper said.

Firefighters responded to more than 50 emergency calls for help with flooding and crews helped 18 people evacuate to Oamaru Fire Station.

The council said Oamaru received around 37mm of rain in two hours from midnight until 2am, resulting in rapid surface flooding.

Waitaki mayor Mel Tavendale accepted that questions about the council's preparedness and response needed to be answered.

"I think after we do the efforts around clean-up and recovery we do need to have a look at our communications and whether we got that right," she said at a briefing on Monday afternoon.

"Those localised events, the thunderstorms that are happening that are really unpredictable, there is a learning from that for us and we need to keep working with our community to make sure we are better prepared in future."

When asked why sandbags were not available earlier, Tavendale said it was an issue the council would look into.

"There were a number of things that were done in preparation around cleaning out drains, our stormwater and streams and things, so we did have a lot of work that was happening in preparation but there needs to be something that we look at in the future to make sure we are better prepared and continue to improve our systems," she said.

Matt Stenton, another Lea Street local whose sleepouts and garage filled with water, questioned how much preparation was done.

"I haven't seen any street sweepers - not for a couple of years - and the drainage and stormwater just doesn't seem to cope down this end so as soon as the street down here gets filled up then we are knackered," he said.

"I don't think it's ever been maintained. We never see people here cleaning out underneath the manhole covers or anything like that. When it does rain I'm usually the one coming along here trying to clear them out as best as I can."