the river flooded. pretty normal for this time of year. normally when we get a flood the river rises and drops within a matter of days. the river’s been flooded since last tuesday. normally the river flows at about 60 cubic metres per second. on tuesday it rose to 1000, then started dropping again, then went up to 900, then dropped again, then finally on saturday it reached 2300. it burst its stop-banks on saturday morning and started flooding through farmland, heading this direction. we were evacuated.
after the evacuation there was a police officer escorting a journalist down the beach to get some footage of the flood. me, my brother and my nephews followed them down the beach. had a yarn. the journalist didn’t say much. eventually i asked the cop if the evacuation was mandatory, was i under arrest if i tried to go back to my house? at first he joked about being too busy to arrest me, then said he wasn’t actually sure what the deal was. they were having a meeting soon to figure that out. understanding there was some risk involved, if we wanted to go back to our houses we could. righto. suddenly the journalist comes to life, “hello. i’m a journalist. can i ask you some questions on camera for a story?” like fuck, mate. my brother and i both declined. i didn’t want to be that one fucking goon on the evening news in the middle of a disaster evacuation who won’t leave.
so we went back to the house. packed up some things. moved some things onto benches and hopefully out of reach of any flood water. then finally decided it was craziness to stay here, if the river did change course enough for it to come through the houses we’d be in the ocean before we realized what was happening. the old bugger used to have a tackle shop, he’s converted it into guest bedrooms. there’s a little kitchen. a couch. so we went and stayed there. i probably give him too hard a time when i write here. or only focus on the few little things i find funny. anyway. he’d had a bunch of people ask if they could stay in his guest rooms but he’d shooed them off and saved the rooms for us.
the evacuation was lifted that night. saturday night. i probably would’ve gotten bored watching britain’s got talent with the old bugger and spent the evening in the garden. i got bored watching the first half of it, anyway. although, he does get a little shouty when the ads come on at the wrong time.
in the second video clip in this article you can see how close the river was to the houses down here by the beach: https://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/118031915/rangitata-bridge-to-remain-closed-for-at-least-next-36-hours
jimmy was here for a little while on sunday morning. and saturday. we were going to go explore the damage on sunday but there was too much flood water still. but we didn’t just get a flood over the weekend. there was also a thunderstorm on friday night. it lasted all night. i didn’t sleep much. every time i was about to drift off to sleep the sky would explode. i don’t think many people would’ve gotten much rest that night. talking to one of jimmy’s neighbours, he said he’d just handed his guns in for the new gun restriction laws that day. reckoned he was having nightmares all night about people shooting at his house and shining torches in his windows. acts like a gruff, tough dude but really what a fucking princess.
one particular lightning bolt struck an electrical transformer here, knocked out power for some people and blew up the pump at the water filtration system. it also blew up our tv so peter and i went and got a new one on sunday. but all the bridges and main roads are closed so they can’t get a new pump delivered until the roads are re-opened. so we have no water. well, we did have water. there was a tanker here yesterday to fill up the header tank but it’s empty already. i need to do some laundry. and water my garden. my strawberries are wilting. i probably shouldn’t water them even if they send another truck load of water since i still haven’t done anything about the birds eating them. i don’t know. i don’t really care who eats them, i just like growing them.
there’s still water in the yard right now. i did remember to move my mower in time for this flood. even though it doesn’t seem to mind being submerged. it’s been swimming a half dozen times. i fixed the carburettor for the mower they use up at the salmon hatchery last week. i’m pretty sure the river would have gone right through that creek. that mower’s probably sitting out there on the bottom of the ocean somewhere now, in the middle of a patch of kelp like poseidon’s about to do some yard work.
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