{"id":17617,"date":"2026-06-09T05:45:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T17:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17617"},"modified":"2026-06-09T05:45:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T17:45:46","slug":"wellington-south-coast-residents-urged-to-evacuate-ahead-of-10-5m-swells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17617","title":{"rendered":"Wellington south coast residents urged to evacuate ahead of 10.5m swells"},"content":{"rendered":"

The deadline is looming for hundreds of people to evacuate their homes on\u00a0Wellington’s south coast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The city’s mayor Andrew Little has\u00a0declared a state of emergency<\/a>\u00a0for the southern and eastern wards of the capital after MetService issued a Heavy Swell Warning for Cape Terawhiti to Turakirae Head in Wellington and Turakirae Head to Mataikona in Wairarapa.<\/p>\n

A southerly weather system moving up the country is bringing the swells to Cook Strait from Monday night through to Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

A mandatory evacuation order has been issued for waterfront properties, covering about 350 homes from \u014cwhiro to Breaker bays – excluding Lyall Bay.<\/p>\n

Residents must leave before 9am on Tuesday and have been told to expect extensive road closures.<\/p>\n

Wellington City Civil Defence controller Phil Becker said the swell was expected to be larger than one that hit in 2021.<\/p>\n

“Back then, water was sloshing against the fronts of houses, and rocks and timber debris … was cast up on some of those houses as well.<\/p>\n

“So, it’s just not safe for people to stay.”<\/p>\n

One Breaker Bay resident told RNZ her home had never been hit in the three decades she’d lived there, but said she expected most people to evacuate.<\/p>\n

Raymond Morgan, however, said he was only leaving his Breaker Bay home because he had somewhere to be on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

“The mayors often say, ‘We’d rather be safe than sorry’, and that’s all well and good, but there’s an impact on people’s lives when you say, ‘You must evacuate’.<\/p>\n

“Because people have to go to places – they have pets, they have dependent children and things like that, which is quite disruptive for people’s lives.”<\/p>\n

Morgan said his biggest concern was coastal erosion and didn’t expect his house to suffer any damage.<\/p>\n

“I might eat my words but I don’t think so. I’ve lived here for 12 years and there’s been nothing that’s threatened my house.”<\/p>\n

A resident in \u014cwhiro Bay planned to stay put because he has a two-storey house, but said he’d be keeping an eye on swell data from a buoy off the coast of Christchurch.<\/p>\n

He said the swell data down south reaches Wellington several hours later.<\/p>\n

“If it’s a 10m [swell] they’re reading I know that can be quite dangerous. I’m thinking I’ll be fine but there’s other people I’ll be quite worried about.<\/p>\n

“I’m sure they will move, but I’ll be going and seeing them anyway.”<\/p>\n

rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The deadline is looming for hundreds of people to evacuate their homes on\u00a0Wellington’s south coast. The city’s mayor Andrew Little has\u00a0declared a state of emergency\u00a0for the southern and eastern wards of the capital after MetService issued a Heavy Swell Warning for Cape Terawhiti to Turakirae Head in Wellington and Turakirae Head to Mataikona in Wairarapa. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17617","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=17617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17619,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17617\/revisions\/17619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}