Attitudes to summer downpours in New Zealand’s biggest city have changed markedly in tone to the antediluvian period of a year ago.
While January rain was once met with the relief of nourished pastures and refilling reservoirs, that relief is now tinged for many by the memory of the night last year when the waters rose.
A year on, Auckland Council has given out nearly $30,000 in total to more than 30 storm-affected communities to fund activities to mark the anniversary through mental health education, community events and capturing the stories of that fateful weekend.
Forty-six community organisations and 10 resident groups across the region are receiving funding, with more planned in the future.
Among these communities is Te Henga Bethell’s Beach, which was hammered by slips and river erosion in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle.
And while this summer has marked a return for tourists to many of Auckland’s West Coast beaches, the damage is still visible.
Scott Hindman, chair of Te Henga Bethells Beach Emergency Resilience Group, said if the anniversary was left to pass unmarked, the community would miss the chance to recognise volunteers who made a difference.
“Our anniversary event includes a review and lessons learned to ensure local knowledge and experience is captured for future weather disasters,” he said.
Auckland Council recovery manager Mat Tucker said the groups would decide themselves how the money should be used.
“We are working with community organisations and resident groups who decide for themselves what their neighbourhood needs to mark the one-year anniversary in a meaningful way.”
Examples of this could be resilience education, projects to capture personal stories, and recognising bravery, the hard work of volunteers and the lessons that were learned.
Auckland Council appears to have learned its own lessons. The organisation has just released a guide to help homeowners make their properties more flood resilient, in a bid to reduce the severity of future severe weather events.
The guide details ways people can minimise flood damage to their property, including not parking vehicles on low-lying land, clearing debris from gutters, clearing rubbish regularly, storing valuables in high places and not sleeping in flood-prone parts of the property.
It also asks people to report visible blockages in roadside drains to council.
The guide is a symbol of a new state of mind within the city – a post-flood mindset where stormwater infrastructure and the viability of drains have shot up the priority list for many.
A diagram detailing common property-related stormwater risks reads like a laundry list of the myriad little problems that added up last January to allow the water level to rise so quickly in many parts of the city.
There was landscaping that directed water into homes, non-absorbent concrete surfaces where once there was grass and soil, solid fencing contributing to pooling water, and blocked overland flow paths.
They are all examples of a city that wasn’t ready for the amount of water dumped on it across the span of a few hours.
The guide recommends longer-term fixes like increasing the amount of flood cover in your home insurance, raising low-lying driveways, and replacing impermeable surfaces with lawn.
It paints a picture of a slow and gradual change, where thousands of private home-owners’ renovations work together to slowly but steadily increase the flood resilience of the city.
In Sunnynook on the North Shore, residents recently came together to paint a mural on the side of a local supermarket in tribute to the two local men who died during the flooding.
Twenty-five-year-old Daniel Newth drowned in Wairau Valley after his kayak was carried into a culvert by raging floodwaters, while 34-year-old Daniel Miller also died in the area after braving the floodwaters to offer help to local residents.
The mural was paid for by gambling-funded charity Milestone Foundation, while Woolworths paid for the paint – a cost that skyrocketed as the painting got underway due to the porous nature of the wall.
