Sarah Lang lives in Mt Cook, Wellington, where cars were submerged by flood waters and homes have been inundated with water.
This morning I went to grab a towel before my shower, but there were none in the linen cupboard. I did find a huge beach towel jammed into one corner. I should have added it to the rotation of towels soaking up the water on the floor of our lounge yesterday.
At 4.30 a.m. yesterday, we were woken by a loud noise. I think it was thunder? Or maybe it was our rubbish bin being blown down our steps and into the street? Or maybe it was just the sound of rain lashing our roof like it wanted to get inside?
We went to the lounge and looked out the window. The water was pouring down our hilly street. It looked like a river. The water struck the tyres of our car, gushing upward like a spraying tide fit for a surfer.
The main ‘wall’ of our lounge is floor-to-ceiling windows immediately abutting the street. Water was spraying through the windowframes, soaking our curtains and our furniture. Half asleep still, we grabbed towels to soak up the water on the floor. We grabbed containers and put them under the windowframes. We moved our furniture into the middle of the room to dry.
We were lucky. Two streets across from us, where my son’s best friend lives, cars were submerged (see the first photo in this RNZ story).
In other places, cars floated away.
In Berhampore, a woman helped her 87-year-old mother climb atop a wardrobe, then they treaded water for half an hour until being rescued.
In Happy Valley Road, between Brooklyn and Owhiro Bay, someone had to climb out their windows to get to a neighbour’s house.
An Emergency Assistance Centre was quickly set up in the Wellington City Mission at 4-8 Oxford Terrace in Mt Cook (my suburb) for those who had to leave their homes.
At 2.30pm yesterday, Wellington Regional Emergency Management Office declared a state of emergency. They said “this is a serious weather event with ongoing and evolving risks.”
They advised people to move out of low-lying and flood-prone areas for the next 24 hours, stay inside if their home is safe, and avoid non-essential travel.
I’m definitely not leaving the house.
Router on the Outer
Parenting continues whatever the weather, right?
Yesterday, our router near the window got soaked. I could use mobile hotspot data for my laptop, but that wet router meant my sick 11-year-old was – gasp – without access to TV via streaming. (When he’s unwell, or there’s terrible weather, he gets more screentime.) Thankfully we found some Flight of the Conchords episodes on our hard drive. It’s got some ‘adult content’ but nothing too racy, I figured.
Today, school is closed. The router has, thankfully, dried and my son is watching football. MetService has issued a red heavy rain warning for Wellington until tonight at least. And I’m writing this, because the rain and the wind are screeching a message.
This is far from a freak occurrence. We can’t ignore how many ‘once in a century’ weather events have been happening in recent months and years. Scientists globally agree that climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, and that those impacts will continue to worsen in the future on our heating planet.
The current government talks a lot about climate adaptation. But first off (or in tandem with adaptation), what’s most important is climate mitigation: taking action to limit the greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Can we please put that on the to-do list?
My London-based brother John Lang – co-founder and lead of the international project Net Zero Tracker, and founder of the network Kiwis In Climate – says adaptation without mitigation “is the equivalent of rebuilding after every flood while ignoring why those floods are becoming more destructive. The less mitigation we invest in, the more adaptation costs rise”.
In unexpectedly apt timing, John launches his new infographic-based project the Climate Trunk tomorrow, April 22. His overall message about climate change? It’s bad, it’s us, but we can fix it.
