'As bad as it gets': Selwyn District in State of Emergency as wild weather lashes country

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The flooding in the rural Canterbury settlement of Selwyn Huts is as bad as it's ever been, an evacuated resident says.

Christchurch, Banks Peninsula and the Selwyn District are under a state of emergency as rain continues to fall in Canterbury.

More than 200 millimetres has fallen on Banks Peninsula in the past 48 hours, and Christchurch has recorded its fourth wettest day on record.

Selwyn District has asked residents of Selwyn Huts to evacuate as rivers continue to rise and rain lashes already sodden ground.

Selwyn resident Keith Morrison said people were knocking on doors telling residents to evacuate as he left his Upper Selwyn Huts home Thursday morning.

Some are in denial about the effects of climate change on the community, but recent weather drives home the reality, Morrison said.

"It's as bad as I've ever seen it. The roads are the worst I've seen it," he says.

"But around the houses it's all ponding, so it's as bad as it gets.

"It's a long story, but we're planning for climate change adaptation and eventually over the next few decades needing to relocate, so this is just another prompt - that's how I see it. It might actually help the community to realise it's real because a lot of people are still in denial about it."

MetService has heavy rain warning and watches in place on Thursday for Gisborne, the Eastern Bay of Plenty, Kaikōura, and Canterbury including Christchurch and Banks Peninsula.

It seems the river tops the stop bank every year now, and it has been wet over the past week, Morrison says.

"It's just been incessant. It started last week and that made everything waterlogged and then when the new rain came then it all started flowing over. There's nowhere else to go anymore because we are not far above the sea level, so everything's totally waterlogged.

"Just incessant rain and just heaps of it."

Selwyn Huts Owners Association member Kirrily Fea said the community was being kept well informed by Civil Defence and they had not been told they must leave their homes.

"We don't need to evacuate at this stage, all the residents are talking to each other, we're keeping an eye on everybody, making sure everyone's OK. The community's quite a tight-knit community and we're quite proactive with these things," she said.

Selwyn mayor Sam Broughton declared the state of emergency at 5.39am following 24 hours of heavy rain in the region and the expert advice from the Environment Canterbury flood controller.

Broughton said the rivers continue to rise and there is significant surface flooding including on roads, with the heavy rain warning in place until 6pm.

Residents of the Upper Selwyn Huts, where the Selwyn River flows into Lake Ellesmere, were asked to self-evacuate due to concerns of flooding from the river.

"This is a precautionary measure due to potential risk to the residents and their properties.

"There is an expectation that the community will be cut off, and the river may breach the road and access."

The council distributed 250 sandbags to specific houses in the areas of West Melton, Doyleston, and Leeston, while community sandbag stations were set up at community centres in Sheffield and Glentunnel on Wednesday evening.

Late last night, the Coes Ford and other fords across the district were closed due to river levels.

The council has distributed sandbags to some houses in West Melton, Doyleston and Leeston, and community sandbag stations have been set up at community centres in Sheffield and Glentunnel.

Residents have been asked to conserve water.

Fea, an Upper Selwyn Huts resident, said there was a lot of surface water around and locals still had access, but were heeding mayor Broughton's advice to stay home and not travel unless it was necessary.

She said she was very cautious and usually the first to evacuate if there was a risk of flooding, but felt safe by regularly checking on the river level.

She said there was still plenty of capacity in the Waikirikiri Selwyn River and Data from ECan showed the river at Coes Ford was flowing at 224 cubic metres per second mid-afternoon. A one in 10-year flood level was 330 cubic metres per second.

Fea said there were around 95 houses in the close-knit community and disagreed with another resident's Morrison's claim that some were in denial about the effects of climate change.

"We're constantly in communication with the council and we're listening to their own commissioned scientific reports and we're still in an engagement process with them", she said

"At this stage, it's saying that we're not at risk for at least another 30 years and possibly not until late this century."

Last March, the council voted to evict the entire settlement near Lake Ellesmere by 2039, partly because of the risks of climate change.

"They gave us 15 years, but they did that with only two days' notice and no consultation, and so we got a barrister involved, and they've had to back down on that, and engage with us properly because people losing their homes is highly significant issue," Fea said.

Four months later the council voted to pause the process to allow further consultation with residents on when and how they will leave.

Fea said at the time that residents believed they should be able to remain at Selwyn Huts as long as it was safe to do so and they didn't believe the council had the right to terminate their time at the settlement.

Road closures

A number of roads in Christchurch are closed.

NZTA is closely monitoring the Selwyn River State Highway 1 bridge.

To the south in the Ashburton District, several roads near Methven are closed after being flooded by Dry Creek.

The council reported that there are no current concerns for bridges over State Highway 1, but NZ Transport Agency is monitoring the situation.

Environment Canterbury flood advisory suggests the main impact of the heavy rainfall remains north of the Rakaia.

The Ashburton District Council road crews are out checking on the state of the network and asking people to take care with widespread surface flooding across the district.

NZTA reported it has had five crews out attending to potholes on the South Canterbury - Mid Canterbury network.

"Some potholes are 300 mm deep so people may see temporary speed limits and crews busily filling them as best they can do."

The full extent of damage to the roading network across Canterbury won't be known until the rain stops and surface water recedes.

Canterbury schools closed

Across Canterbury a number of schools are closed and in the Selwyn District only one of the four high schools is open, Rolleston College, though it urged whānau to travel only if it is safe to do so.

Darfield, Ellesmere and Lincoln High Schools are all closed due to concerns about road safety, or surface flooding on school grounds.

Selwyn's Tai Tapu School is also closed.

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