Ōhura remains cut off to all but emergency services

The remote King County settlement of Ōhura remains cut off to all but emergency services following the weekend deluge.

Ōhura local Simon McKenzie got the shock off his life when he jumped out of bed early on Sunday morning to find himself ankle deep in water.

"We'd had a working bee down at the local rugby club, and, yeah, I woke up, and I didn't even know what time it was, and could hear water rushing, rushing.

"And I like, got out of bed, and I was ankle deep in water, and I came outside, and it was probably a good metre [deep] at my back doorstep. Yeah, it was pretty scary."

McKenzie lives on Tui St in the centre of the remote King County settlement. He's now in cleanup mode.

"Yeah, all the water's gone now, which is good. I've just been left with a lot of sludge and silt.

"Luckily, my house is mainly old matai flooring, so there's no carpet, and I've just been busy scraping that off [the floor] and just tidying up."

McKenzie was happy it appeared no one locally had been injured during the weather event.

"There's just a lot of mud and debris everywhere. It's just lucky that no one was sort of harmed, because the speed that it came up was quite scary."

McKenzie, who has insurance, said emergency services staff had checked in on him.

"They've been really good actually. The fire, local fire crew been awesome. And the Red Cross ladies, they've been great.

"They're set up at our local hall, and they've got food and anything you need down there, which is great. So that's been really good."

Meanwhile, Ōhura cattle farmer Ross Perry was hoping stock he'd lost during the storm would turn up alive and well.

"We had some stranded that night, so we checked them probably like 1.15 in the morning, and I just deemed it to be too risky for myself to go and try and get them because they were standing in water at that point up to the bottom of their gut."

He thought they would be all right if they stayed put, but when he went back to check on them they were missing.

"Yeah, for whatever reason, they'd moved and some managed to swim out towards the cattle yard, but there was seven of them, obviously, that went into the stream, into the river, and got swept down.

"The following morning, we found one down the main street by the Memorial Hall, but at this stage, at least the other six are still missing.

He hadn't given up hope on the remainder.

"They're actually good swimmers, and I was talking to a stock agent yesterday, and he was telling me of a similar case over in Waihi recently, and they actually found the missing cattle 10 kilometres downstream, still alive and well."

Perry said at his place he was dealing with some silt, but they were up high.

"Ōhura is no stranger to the flooding, you know, the township was built in a flood plain and there's a huge catchment up above Ōhura.

"So, when you start getting decent rainfall, that catchment's got to come down and through the township."

Perry said he had a lot of hardwork in front of him like many of his neighbours.

"I'm just in cleanup mode now. Like fences can be fixed and baleage can be retrieved. You know, silt over time will disappear.

"You can re-grass if you have to, but yeah, it's unfortunate, you know, but we all live on a flood plain around here and it's what happens in these extreme weather events that we seem to be getting more and more regularly."

Ruapehu mayor Weston Kirton said there were slips and surface flooding on the roads making access perilous.

"The public have been excluded except the odd media have gone in there, but we're permitting only those who are authorised to get in there, but it's closed off to the public in most parts of the area.

"So, there is a limitation to getting into Ōhura and only those emergency services can get in there as of right and it's usually four wheel drive or a ute or something like that.

Kirton said between 100 and 150 people had been affected by the flooding and a small number were still sheltering at the Ōhura community hall.

"We have a number of council staff there and Red Cross, for example, and we have Civil Defence on board, we have engineers assessing the situation, but the first thing is the welfare of the community.

"So, we're providing some accommodation somewhat in the community at the community hall with bedding, food and the likes, and just assessing their people's circumstances one by one, and if there's a need to relocate people somewhere else, then we'll try and do that."

Weston Kirton said while floodwaters had receded there was more rain forecast and the district had a huge clean up ahead of it.

"It's chaotic, to say the least. I've just been talking to the roading engineers and the road contractors. They've got every available digger and contractor out there doing what they need to do to just open the roads into one lane.

"It won't be pretty, but they're doing their best to get the main roads open so that farmers can get stock out or produce out or people coming in to service the farms.

"And of course schools are affected as well, but there are a number of roads that are completely cut off and there's no way can we get in there."

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