{"id":17221,"date":"2026-04-21T18:19:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T06:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17221"},"modified":"2026-04-21T18:19:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T06:19:13","slug":"wellington-man-dumbstruck-to-find-car-on-fence-after-flood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17221","title":{"rendered":"Wellington man &#8216;dumbstruck&#8217; to find car on fence after flood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Wellington man says finding his car perched on top of a chest-high fence after Monday&#8217;s flash flooding was surreal.<\/p>\n<p>The water left the blue station wagon balanced on the corner of a roughly 1.2m high corrugated iron fence on Emerson street in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/weather\/592875\/wellington-floods-the-stories-of-the-people-caught-up-in-the-disaster\">Berhampore<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday morning the car was still there and others appeared to have been plonked willy-nilly along the street as if they were toys, full of silt and debris.<\/p>\n<p>The waterline on a nearby property indicated the flood had reached a depth of 2m.<\/p>\n<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-full photo-cntr eight_col \"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.rnztools.nz\/rnz\/image\/upload\/s--4vygoOn_--\/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050\/v1776725145\/4JPTYLL_Image_jfif?_a=BACCd2AD\" alt=\"David Fraser's car on top of a fence after Wellington's flash flooding.\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\"><span class=\"caption\">David Fraser&#8217;s car on top of a fence after Wellington&#8217;s flash flooding.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Photo:\u00a0RNZ \/ Mark Papalii<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The owner of the car on the fence, David Fraser, told RNZ he and his wife saw cars bobbing down the street about 4am on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>He said the water floated their car out of its carport and into the road.<\/p>\n<p>After the water cleared, neighbours told them where it was.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When we actually got there to see it in the morning we were just absolutely dumbstruck. How did it land there, how did land almost perfectly,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-full photo-cntr eight_col \"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.rnztools.nz\/rnz\/image\/upload\/s--0gTuioIj--\/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050\/v1776724570\/4JPTYLL_Image_1_jfif?_a=BACCd2AD\" alt=\"David Fraser found his car perched on a fence after flash flooding in Wellington.\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\"><span class=\"caption\">David Fraser found his car perched on a fence after flash flooding in Wellington.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Photo:\u00a0RNZ \/ Mark Papalii<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8220;It was an absolutely crazy night just in general anyway and this kind of topped it off with a dash of surrealism, like some surreal artwork that&#8217;s been placed there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There was another car actually sort of almost underneath ours so I&#8217;m wondering whether it kind of rode up or who knows but that one&#8217;s been cleared. Ours is still there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And I mean, props to whoever built the fence. The fact that it hasn&#8217;t collapsed is just kind of incredible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-full photo-cntr eight_col \"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.rnztools.nz\/rnz\/image\/upload\/s--u4xsI1B_--\/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050\/v1776725273\/4JPTVC7_Image_4_jfif?_a=BACCd2AD\" alt=\"A car carried by floodwaters landed on top of a chest-high fence after Monday's torrential rain in Wellington.\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\"><span class=\"caption\">A car carried by floodwaters landed on top of a chest-high fence after Monday&#8217;s torrential rain in Wellington.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Photo:\u00a0RNZ \/ Mark Papalii<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Fraser said the lower level of his house was flooded but it was lucky that during recent renovations they learned that the house was on a residual floodplain and its lower level could be used for storage, but not for dwelling spaces.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s bad, but we kind of feel it could have been so much worse,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Fraser said his neighbour&#8217;s house was much worse off with water about 1.2m up the walls and mud and debris throughout.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They had to get out of their house really quickly,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think they were incredibly lucky to escape without any harm to the family.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-full photo-cntr eight_col \"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.rnztools.nz\/rnz\/image\/upload\/s--uyY3DJKI--\/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050\/v1776716475\/4JPU24L_Media_4_jfif?_a=BACCd2AD\" alt=\"Flood damage in the Wellington suburb of Berhampore after torrential rain on Monday 20 Aprill 2026.\" width=\"1050\" height=\"787\" \/><\/div>\n<div>Source: RNZ<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Wellington man says finding his car perched on top of a chest-high fence after Monday&#8217;s flash flooding was surreal. The water left the blue station wagon balanced on the corner of a roughly 1.2m high corrugated iron fence on Emerson street in\u00a0Berhampore. On Tuesday morning the car was still there and others appeared to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17223,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17221\/revisions\/17223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}