Can i borrow a brolly?

[Kittyhawk]

What a summer!
A couple of weeks ago we had cyclone Hale. Now it's a tropical depression stuck between a couple of unmoving high pressure systems that is funneling rain down over the north island. By rain I mean a little over a metre in the last few days with peak falls of 120mm/hour.
Feel sorry for Auckland, 150 clicks up the road - flood water 7 metres deep in places, drownings, evacuations, numerous houses condemned, and no end in sight. Here in whangamata we have just received yet another red alert from civil defence but thankfully we drain quite well so our flooding is only superficial so far. And, as with cyclone Hale we are cut off from the outside world again, but in a big way this time. Here's a picture of the road out of town. Looks serious.

 

[woodhutt]

Yup. Pretty wet down here as well but not as bad of course. Maybe NZ should get into the business of exporting water. Could be a dollar or two to make there. Hope things improve for you soon.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The bottom of my sisters drive (Castor Bay, N. of Auckland) -

 

[Kittyhawk]

Heard a whisper of a months long repair on the road but probably an unsubstantiated rumour. Can't imagine it taking that long. The continued wet and sky high humidity means I cannot even finish sand anything in the workshop let alone applying finishes. But a minor problem compared to the catastrophies others are facing.

 

[Kittyhawk]

The bottom of my sisters drive (Castor Bay, N. of Auckland) -
View attachment 152368

Hope she weathers the next forecast rain ok

 

[MARK.B.]

We got flooded out in 2007 and it was not a pleasant experience but it was not anything like what you guys are experiencing over in NZ . I hope that things improve soon and people can start getting their lives back to normal again.

 

[Jester129]

@Kittyhawk - over here it would take over six months to get that road repaired! "Looks serious" is a bit of an understatement!
Hope it gets sorted quickly for you all.

 

[treeturner123]

Hi

That's terrible, Kittyhawk.

It's a bit strange that there seem to be more and more really bad storms in the summer. I live a little outside Tewkesbury where, as some may have seen on TV, we had really bad floods in July 2007.

In one of the local villages our friends cottage had water lapping it's ceiling, just over 6ft! The whole village now has a bund around it with flood gates at the three road entry points. These have been used quite a few times!

Phil

 

[Kittyhawk]

The whole village now has a bund around it with flood gates at the three road entry points. These have been used quite a few times!

Phil

That's the difference between you and us.
You have a flood - you do some serious engineering work to protect your environs for the future.
Here, we will do a patch up job and the authorities will tell us that will suffice as it was a one in a hundred year storm event.
It's become a bit of a joke with these increasingly frequent super storms referred to by us cynics as the 'annual one in a hundred year storm.'

 

[Terrytpot]

When looking to move house last year we were sorely tempted by this property that had obviously had some money spent on it to make attractive to buyers..but when we dug a little deeper it transpired that not only was it in an area deemed to be vulnerable to flooding it also had recent history of it too from 2019.

 

[Kittyhawk]

In the original post I put a picture of our road out of town.
Here's another pic of the same slip from the other side, how it looks today.

 

[Inspector]

Boy have you guys been angering the rain gods!

Similar stuff happened last winter on the West Coast. Washed out multiple places on the highways in the interior pretty much cutting Vancouver off from the rest of Canada. Took out bridges as well as sections of the highways. They rebuilt and opened it up in only a few months with completion during the summer. A huge undertaking with an equally huge bill to pay. I hope your road isn't the only access out.

Pete

 

[Kittyhawk]

I hope your road isn't the only access out.

Pete

There is one other road but it adds about an hour if going north. If it hasn't fallen down yet.
This whole roading thing drives me crazy.
NZ is a mountainous country so our roads have lots of cuttings, drop offs etc and the cliff faces are always left near vertical and invariably drop material onto the roads after a sprinkle of rain. I dont have any engineering knowledge but from my sea time on bulk carriers we learned about a thing called the angle of repose. Basically this is that if you tip any granular material onto a level surface it will form a cone, the angle of repose being being the angle that the sides of the cone will adopt without slumping. This will be between 0 and 90° dependent on the material.
So why to these roading experts expect that they can make cuttings with near vertical faces through earth or clay without them failing when it rains?
We get a lot of rain. And earthquakes.
I think our current roading troubles are an engineering assisted disaster.