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 |  is paved with good intentions... |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Hi, I'm Elle. I'm based in Auckland, New Zealand. I'm the mother of two young adults, the wife of an entrepreneurial gamer and the Queen of Unfinished Projects. This blog will contain poems, short stories, possibly photos and book reviews if you're lucky, and my thoughts on a variety of topics. Hope you enjoy it. |
| It rained all day on Friday, which isn't a great precursor to a long weekend, but it didn't matter much. Steve and I were going to go up north after work and spend the wet long weekend snuggled up indoors without kids. Yes, it's the middle of summer and yes, it's humid as fuck, but so what? Three days without kids! The plan was for me to catch the train home after work and then we'd head north. I left work at about 5:15pm and had to walk down Queen St to the train station. It was so wet the drains had overflowed. Water was just streaming over the roads and footpaths. Where Queen St met Customs St, right before the station, there was basically a small lake I had to wade through to cross the road. Ugh. My shoes were soaking wet, my socks soaked. My feet literally couldn't have been wetter if I'd taken my shoes and socks off and just jumped barefoot in the puddle. I got on the train, but it didn't go anywhere. Eventually the people got off, so I got off too, wondering what was happening. Eventually everyone got back on. A train employee came near me and I asked what was happening. She said they were looking for a driver, and when they found one, the train would leave. So I sat on the train and waited. Eventually the train left the station and we arrived at the next one. Then we waited again. And waited. Then we eventually left that station and went to the next one. It had taken us an hour and a half to move from station A (Britomart) to station C (Newmarket). The entire ride home, all nine stops, usually takes half that time. When we arrived at Newmarket, we were told the service was terminating there. We were not given any advice about buses or what else we were supposed to do. I wasn't familiar with the station, so I just followed people moving towards an exit. When we got to the exit, there was a sign that made it clear that this was where we were supposed to wait for buses that replaced the trains when the trains weren't running. Great, I was in the right place. Except there were no buses running. I asked Steve to come and collect me. It was 7pm when I got to Newmarket, and I stood under an overhang watching the rain fall. It was just bucketing down, streaming off buildings and sheeting across the road in front of us. As cars pulled up to collect stranded passengers, they parked in a river that had formed down the side of the road, ankle deep. While I was waiting for Steve, I heard a woman trying to organise car pooling, and I thought that was a good idea. I rang Steve back and asked him if he thought we could take some extra passengers back. He said yes, he could fit five more people in. He told me the flooding was worse than he'd thought. He'd seen some on the news, but had thought it was localised, but he was finding the drive to me more hazardous than he'd expected. He told me to be patient. When I hung up with Steve, I walked out to where all the people were waiting and said loudly "Does anyone need a ride to New Lynn?" I was immediately surrounded by people. "Yes please!" I told them I could only take five people. A few drifted away, disappointed, but I was still concerned there would be too many people to fit in the car and I wasn't sure how I was going to choose who got a ride home and who remained stranded. One of the people who had said yes to a ride was the lady who had been trying to organise a car pool. I asked her about that, and she said she'd been hoping to share the cost of an Uber drive home, which was quoted at NZ$80 (US$52) but the Uber driver had cancelled. We later figured out that no Ubers were running because the roads were too dangerous for small Prius-style cars. By the time Steve reached us, my group of passengers had dwindled to four people - a lady whose name I can't remember who was desperate to get home to her baby, Megan who had originally given me the idea of sharing a ride, an older guy named Peter, and a young guy named Cyrus. Steve pulled up just a bit further up the road out of the way of traffic, and we trudged through the rain to get to him. We squished everyone in, but the car has 7 seats and we only had six people in it. Should I go back and find one more stranded person to rescue? I asked the question aloud but no one answered. I decided it was worth seeing if one more person needed saving. I walked back to the building, where there were still 10 or 15 people waiting. Maybe 10. I dunno. I said "I can take one more person to New Lynn." At first no one moved, then a guy stepped forward, looked at everyone else as if to see if anyone else was going to take up the opportunity, then said "Yes, please?" He followed me back to the car and squished in. David told me later that he thought I must have worked for Auckland Transport and was shocked when he realised I was just a person offering people lifts out of the goodness of my heart. Actually, they were all shocked and grateful for the ride. Peter kept saying "Nobody does this anymore. Nobody does nice things like this anymore." Everyone was super grateful. Steve told us some stories about how bad the roads were, but it's hard to imagine it until you're in it. We crawled along the streets, the rain coming down faster than the wipers could remove it, surface water making it hard to see the lane markings. In low places, water had pooled, created lakes that people nervously drove through, begging their cars not to stall, or forcing people to find another route. In higher places, water rushed downhill, creating fast flowing streams that collected debris and smashed into obstacles. There were broken down or abandoned cars everywhere, generally small ones. Now we understood why the Uber drivers all cancelled. Most of the cars we saw were utes (trucks) and four wheel drive vehicles. Steve's car had four wheel drive, thank god. We gave way to emergency vehicles multiple times. Steve told us that the news had said that every single fire engine in the city was out helping and that the emergency call center had been overloaded with calls. We came across one car that had clearly aquaplaned and smashed into something. Emergency services were on the scene, but no ambulance. Either they weren't hurt (which didn't seem so likely considering the damage to the car) or the ambulance had been and gone. The trip from Newmarket to New Lynn might take 25 minutes in light traffic. It took Steve an hour each way. We dropped off the new mother first, then Megan, then Cyrus, then Peter. Just after we dropped off David, we had a call from Jayden who was in town. "Can you come and pick me up? There aren't any buses working." Fuck me. We had fought our way home and were five minutes from home and now we had to do it all over again? But what was the alternative? We'd rescued five stranded strangers but we weren't going to do the same for our son? So we headed into town. We headed for the motorway, but the on-ramp was blocked by a flood and a submerged bus. I found a photo of the bus later online, but when we saw it had floated further sideways and the water was up to the windows.  We drove through numerous sections of flood water, each time hoping we'd make it through okay and there weren't any hidden dangers beneath the surface. We made it to Jayden and collected him. He had his own horror stories. He'd walked along the road to catch a bus home and the cars going through had splashed him with so much water his phone had stopped working. When no buses came, he realised he'd have to borrow a phone, so he decided to walk to the YMCA where he used to stay. He'd had to help someone push a car out of flood waters, and he was absolutely saturated from head to toe. Some of the roads we'd driven through on the way to get Jayden were blocked on the way back, just ten or fifteen minutes later, so we had to find new routes back. We never knew when the road would be blocked by water, debris, a broken down car or whatever. Every corner was suspenseful. The only good thing is that last hour, when we were picking up Jayden, the rain eased off. Considering it was now dark, it was good that the rain had eased, so Steve could concentrate on the road. By the time we finally got home, it was 10pm. I'd left work at 5:15pm. Steve was exhausted from concentrating so hard on his driving for three hours straight, and I was exhausted from stress, adrenaline and fear. On Saturday we had the time and clarity of mind to realise that we'd made some stupid decisions. I should have either stayed at the office (although I'd had no idea it was bad at that point) or stayed at Newmarket and just slept in a building or curled up in a corner. I shouldn't have made Steve drive out in that weather. And we should never have ventured back out into it to get Jayden, he should have stayed at the YMCA for the night. But you don't think clearly in the middle of it all. And there was no direction from authorities. Auckland Transport sent out an alert on Saturday advising that there were numerous delays and cancellations due to the severe weather. No shit. Where was that alert on Friday night when the trains and buses were cancelled leaving people stranded? A civil defence emergency was declared at about 9:30pm but no alert was sent to phones. We know they have the capability to send alerts to all phones. They've done it with tsunami warnings (that have turned out to be nothing) and with Covid lockdowns. On Friday night, when people's lives were in immediate danger, nothing. Why didn't they tell people to stay put if they were safe and dry, to stay off the roads? Everyone is demanding answers to those questions. The news tells us now that four people died. One was swept away while assisting other people to evacuate, one was killed when his home was buried in a landslide and I think one person drowned in their car. The fourth was a stupid young man who went kayaking on the flood waters for a laugh and drowned - his death was wholly preventable.  45 roads are closed, and 19 homes have been declared total losses already with 5,000 more to be reviewed.We've had floods before, but they've been localised. Never before have we seen such widespread damage across the whole city. It's actually a miracle only four people were killed. It was not only the wettest January on record by a long shot (remembering that we're in the middle of SUMMER here), but the wettest month on record. Wetter than even our wettest winter month. How crazy is that? On Friday alone, we had 249mm of rain. That's nearly 10 inches of rain in 24 hours, and the worst of it came after I'd finished work, which is why it went from 'Wow, it's wet' to 'It's bloody dangerous' so fast. Saturday wasn't too bad, but it's rained all day today and they're predicting heavy rain tonight and next week. My house isn't in any danger. I spent all of yesterday feeling exhausted, and I assumed it was just a recovery after an adrenaline-filled evening, but I'm shattered again today and I think I've got a migraine since I've had a headache since I woke up yesterday. Yay. But at least I'm safe, my family is safe, my house is dry, and I have food, water and power. I'm okay. Thanks to Lilli ☕  and Wordsmitty ✍️  for checking on me. |
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