Whangārei Mayor Ken Couper visits the damages areas around Ōakura.
Photo: Supplied / Whangārei District Council

Whangārei Mayor Ken Couper says the storm damage he witnessed on Tuesday was as severe as any he’s seen in Northland.

A precautionary state of emergency is already declared for the Whangārei District as large areas of the country brace for more bad weather.

Northland and Coromandel Peninsula are under an orange heavy rain warning until Thursday, with MetService saying there’s a high chance of upgrading to red.

MetService has issued strong wind watches for Auckland and Waikato from 8am, while heavy rain warnings for Bay of Plenty and Gisborne come into effect on Wednesday afternoon.

Couper visited the areas worst hit by Sunday’s deluge, including the seaside settlement of Ōakura, northeast of Whangārei, to see the effects for himself.

“It was as bad as you see in the north, in terms of the damage to property, the hillsides coming down behind houses, the damage to the wastewater infrastructure, things like that. It is quite localised, thank goodness, but where it’s bad, it’s bad.”

However, Couper said the people he spoke to were unbowed.

“They’re a resilient bunch. They’re used to living remotely.

“They look after themselves. They acknowledge they’ve had a hit, but they’re very pro-active about getting on with life.”

Whangārei Mayor Ken Couper speaking to residents.
Photo: Supplied / Whangārei District Council

Residents in Ōakura in particular were “extremely upset” about damage to the community hall they had worked so hard to renovate little more than a year ago.

“It’s been taken out by the slip behind it, so they’re very sad about that, but people aren’t down in the dumps. They’re just frustrated with the fact that they have now a big clean-up job.”

Couper said the damage already caused and the prospect of more extreme weather in coming days had persuaded him to declare a state of emergency, which came into force at 4pm Tuesday and would last an initial seven days..

Ōakura Community Hall was badly impacted by the flooding.
Photo: RNZ/Peter de Graaf

“With a further weather event coming, we felt that it was wise to declare a state of emergency, which allows certain powers to be released, if required. We didn’t want to wait until it’s proved that it is required – we wanted to get ahead of the game.”

Couper said those extra powers included the right for police to order evacuations or close roads, if they believed lives were in danger.

The council’s emergency operations centre was already up and running, and Northland Civil Defence was engaged in a full regional response.

“They are ready to respond, and are in place should this weather event come along and cause us more trouble.”

Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell visited Whangarei on Tuesday and supported the council’s decision to declare an emergency early.

“We certainly didn’t take that decision lightly and there was a full discussion with all the emergency services before the decision was made.

“Our hillsides and roading network are already saturated, we have 47 slips, there are cracks above those slips and any more rain will potentially cause more problems. Part of our community is significantly affected already and we have people in emergency shelters.”

Couper said Northlanders looked out for each other when the going was tough and he expected that would happen again, if there was more extreme weather in coming days.

“I think now is a time for us to demonstrate how resilient and how connected we can be as a community, and of course, we will. We always do up here in the north.

“It’s just a case of being prepared, as much as we can.”

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.