Here in Hawke's Bay we are living in a 'state of emergency'.
The rain started here on Easter Monday / Anzac Day about 10am. It rained for the next 60 hours non stop. We had torrential rain for all of that time. No wind. We ended up with more than 300mm (12 inches) of rain in that time. That is half of our annual rainfall here in Napier.
The photo above was taken on Tuesday morning. Click on it to enlarge. Our corner fence post is just visible in the middle of the photo. Where you see water is normally grass. The water was still rising. The causeway on the left has never been covered in water before. By Tuesday night, it was knee deep. Our only way in or out was by walking 100m through this lake for 2 days until Thursday afternoon when the water started to subside.
It is the worst storm ever to hit Hawke's Bay and it came with no gales or hurricanes. South of Napier along the coast, tens of thousands of hectares of farmland have been destroyed, washed away with slips and floods. Some parts had 550mm of rain. Whole farms have had their fences washed away. Some farms have had 80% of their topsoil washed away. Houses, bridges and roads have been destroyed.
No earthquake, no hurricane, no tornados. Just rain for 60 hours. A disaster.
