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Banks Peninsula sees 10 times monthly rainfall in 48hrs, MetService says
Banks Peninsula has been hammered by nearly 10 times the average monthly rainfall in just 48 hours, MetService says.
The deluge has left the peninsula cut off, with slips and flooding blocking State Highway 75, the main road between Christchurch and Akaroa.
A state of emergency remains in Banks Peninsula, about 250 properties have been without power overnight, and there are also cell and internet outages.
Boil water notices are in place for Wainui and Little River.
Canterbury Civil Defence controller Duncan Sandeman said he didn’t know how long the peninsula would remain isolated – but reopening the road would be Wednesday’s priority.
About 250 properties have been without power overnight in the Banks Peninsula after the flooding. Photo: RNZ / Nathan McKinnon
“That’s a decision for NZTA, what I do know is that they’ll have contractors working pretty hard to get that lifeline reopened,” he said.
A damaged fibre optic cable was causing the communications outages, said Sandeman.
“That’s created a number of dramas … the comms is patchy, we know that the 2degrees cell network is able to take texts.”
People could also dial 111 in an emergency, he said, and civil defence staff were communicating via satellite phones.
School children stuck at camp
About 40 primary school children are stuck at Wainui Park Camp on the peninsula, and the manager has no regrets about the trip going ahead.
Wainui Park Camp is run by the Kind Foundation, and it’s been hosting a rural Christchurch school trip since Monday.
The foundation’s chief executive Josie Ogden Schroeder said the camp is well equipped with food, water, power and communications, and the group was staying in a building on a hill away from the river.
Roads had been blocked near Wainui after the floods caused slips. Photo: SUPPLIED/Linda Hennessy
“This is a country school, they are full of beans, they’re totally relaxed … they’re all absolutely fine, they are very safe where they are,” she said.
“I don’t think that there’s any major concerns about safety, it’s more just the adventure of it all, and I believe that school is turning this into a pretty awesome learning experience for those kids.”
Despite the wet weather forecast, Ogden Schroeder said it was the right call to continue on with the camp.
“Heavy rain shouldn’t stop outdoor education because that’s actually the entire point of going away on camp is to actually experience the outdoors and learn about such things,” she said.
“However, if we had known … that the road would be cut off and such like, then of course then we would have been saying to schools, ‘look, this is not a sensible time for you to be coming to Wainui’.”
The camp was not badly damaged, save for a few small bridges over creeks, thanks to flood mitigation work over the last year, Ogden Schroeder said.
School trips scheduled for the rest of the week had been cancelled, she said.
Warning level questioned amid massive rainfall
A huge amount of rainfall was experienced in the Banks Peninsula Photo: RNZ / Nathan McKinnon
MetService meteorologist Katie Lyons said Canterbury had seen a “huge amount” of rainfall – with Banks Peninsula in particular taking on nearly ten times the average monthly amount in just 48 hours.
Banks Peninsula
- 48 hours, Sunday night to Tuesday night: 300mm
- Monthly average rainfall: 35mm
Christchurch city
- 48 hours, Sunday night to Tuesday night: 40mm
- Monthly average rainfall: 30mm
Some Banks Peninsula locals have questioned why the MetService weather warning wasn’t upgraded from orange, to a rare red.
Lyons said it’s too soon to say whether it was the right call – but MetService would analyse it, which was standard practice.
“We don’t just look at the rainfall that has fallen, we look at the impacts that were actually felt, because sometimes the heaviest rain falls in places that no one lives, and that means no one cares,” she said.
There was a lot of “post-analysis” to get through which involved working with councils to understand how badly people were affected, Lyons said.
Red warnings are issued when there’s high confidence of extreme impact and risk to life, she said.
rnz
The chief executive of the Parliamentary Service is confident there will be enough room to accommodate the increased number of MPs and their staff coming into Parliament.
On current numbers, up to 131 MPs could be sitting in the Chamber following the election, brought on by a record overhang result.
Clerk of the House of Representatives Dr David Wilson told the Spinoff that currently the debating chamber had enough chairs to seat 124 MPs – including the Speaker of the House – and work was being done to accommodate more by altering the seating arrangement.
In a statement, Parliamentary Service chief executive Rafael Gonzalez-Montero said planning for a larger Parliament had been going for “some time”.
“Now that the election results have confirmed an increase to the number of members we are looking at several options.
“We are confident we will be able to accommodate all members within the Chamber.”
VNP / Phil Smith
Gonzalez-Montero said office accommodation for members and their staff would be “stretched” for a short time, but the new Members’ Building was only a few months away from “practical completion”.
That building – located behind Parliament – was due to be ready to occupy in April next year and had capacity to accommodate around 30 backbench MPs.
“All members should be in fit-for-purpose accommodation from that point,” Gonzalez-Montero said.
Following the 2023 election, 123 MPs sat in the Chamber – a record number at the time. That decreased to 122 following the resignation of National MP Judith Collins.
Collins held the seat of Papakura and stepped down in May and Parliament voted against holding a by-election because it was too close to the election.
The election result also meant high-ranking National Party MPs like Chris Bishop, Paul Goldsmith, Nicola Willis and Gerry Brownlee – Speaker of the House and an MP for 30 years – would likely not make it back into Parliament.
Only resigning or retiring MPs were permitted to give a valedictory speech meaning none of them would get the chance to give a valedictory statement.
Asked if their would be special allowances for valedictories, Wilson said in a statement that normally only MPs were allowed to speak in the House but the House could suspend its own rules or temporarily alter them.
“It could do so to allow former members to address the House.”
Wilson said no such arrangements could be made until the next Parliament opened and members sworn in.
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