North Island Floods

31/01/2023

North Island Floods

Thank you to all our teams working hard in response to flood events

A summary of work currently underway with our customers across the Auckland region to repair and reconnect our roads, water networks, telecommunications, and power lines.

Since Friday 27 January, our Downer whānau have been working with our customers, partners and communities in response to severe storms and flooding in Auckland, Coromandel and surrounding areas. 

We are committed to working together in a collective effort to ensure people stay connected to vital communications, roading and power supplies, and to resolve issues on the water, wastewater and stormwater networks. 

Many team members across the North Island have travelled to affected areas to help with this massive emergency response.

TRANSPORT

Since the severe weather event on Friday our team at Downer on behalf of Auckland Transport have been working tirelessly across the network to keep communities connected. 

To minimise further disruption to the network and to keep roads safe and clear from flooding and debris, Downer have implemented response crews to continuously assess and monitor the Auckland area

Downer are in the process of clearing up current slips and debris to maintain access while clearing catch pits and culverts in preparation for further rain.

Please keep safe by following all temporary traffic signs, directions and instruction given by our crews on site, take care when travelling as high wind, and rain warnings are still in place. 

Stay updated with Auckland Transport, Met Service, Waka Kotahi and Civil defence,

For transport alerts, as they happen, sign up for travel alerts or check out our twitter page @AT_TravelAlerts.

Visit the MetService website for up to date weather information.

For other state of emergency related updates, visit the Civil Defence website or the Auckland Emergency Management website.

For the latest information on state highway closures and disruptions, visit Waka Kotahi Journey Planner.

WATER

Our Water team have been working around the clock to repair damage to the three waters networks predominately in Auckland and Tauranga.

The team are working on multiple issues on the networks, including:

  • Dirty water from reserved overflows affecting potable water. Significant work on Water Treatment Plants. 
  • Major Water outages, particularly in West Auckland
  • Overflowing reservoirs
  • Popped manhole lids
  • Inspecting other sites working with subcontractors as required 
  • Pumpstations - Multiple failures due to over loaded networks, crews working to de-rag some sites and complete visual inspections on switch panels as some sites may have been flooded.  
  • WMC dispatched all wastewater jobs and scheduling managed by HSES priority and emergency only overnight
  • Generators installed to get pump stations back up and running

Ahead of severe weather warnings tonight (Tuesday 31 Jan), our Water teams are busy working on clean up, removing several tonnes of debris to prevent further blockages and flooding, checking critical assets and prioritising schedule for repairs. They are also working on sandbag delivery to prevent items from falling over.

Live progress updates for Auckland can be followed on Watercare’s website. 

TELCO 

So far our Telco crews have: 

  • Attended 55 mobile sites faults, with all but 2 restored.
  • Deployed 10 x 24/7 generators which the team continually are refuelling. 
  • Visited every client exchange and point of presence from the Waikato/Bay of Plenty to North of Auckland.
  • Work Management Centre managing large volumes of calls 

ENERGY

Our Energy team have responded to 486 faults across the Energy network across parts of the North Island, which included large outages and emergencies due to power lines down (caused by high winds and fallen trees).

The team also checked Energy assets for safety, due to extreme weather conditions. Accessing the sites was incredibly challenging due to flooding and trees blocking roads.

So far our Energy crews have responded to:

  • Coromandel- 43 faults
  • South Waikato- 97 faults
  • Tauranga- 80 faults
  • Wanganui/Raetahi/Taihape- 93 faults
  • 41 Emergencies for above areas
  • 15 Feeder Faults (large outages) for above areas
  • Worked with three third parties who helped with the response

All work for clean-up, monitoring our Utilities networks and checking assets for safety continues across all Utilities.

We are thinking of everyone who has been impacted, and would like to encourage anyone who needs support or advice to continue checking the CDEM website which has regular updates and important contact information > https://www.aucklandemergencymanagement.org.nz/major-incident/flooding-2023

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