A couple might own Wellington’s most perilous vegetable garden after a landslide took out a section of their yard, leaving a raised bed hanging off the edge.
Property owners on Holborn Drive in Lower Hutt are in shock after a pair of slips brought down in Thursday’s severe weather carved off tonnes of earth.
Jaime and Tim Philips were in bed on Thursday night when they were evacuated from their Stokes Valley house.
“There was no noise, no rumble … just a knock on the door at 11pm,” Jaime Philips said.
READ MORE:
* ‘We got really battered’: Wellington City Council teams face huge clean-up following Cyclone Dovi
* Slips and evacuations as parts of Wellington mark second-wettest day on record
* SH59 north of Wellington opens, but delays expected as congestion clears
“They told us the property was at risk, that we’d lost a significant amount of dirt off the side of the hill.”
About 3.5m of Jaime and Tim Philips’ lawn has fallen away.
The couple and their son stayed with friends overnight and returned about 9am on Friday after an engineer gave them the all clear. About 3.5 metres of lawn was lost in the slip, which stopped about 4m from the house.
“I’m going between laughing and crying – it’s kind of a bit of disbelief that this has happened.”
The slip has blocked the southbound lanes of Easter Hutt Rd and people wanting to travel south to Lower Hutt to leave Stokes Valley are having to head north to the exit at Silverstream. Traffic is queueing up Stokes Valley Rd with people trying to leave.
Matthew Tso/Stuff
The smaller slip beneath Viv and Janet Haar’s deck on Holborn Dr in Stokes Valley.
Further down the road the same assortment of engineers and council workers had been plodding though the living room of Viv and Janet Haar. A smaller slip had removed earth from beneath their deck earlier in the evening.
Janet Haar said the bank gave way about 6pm.
“It’s very much a concern,” she said.
Matthew Tso/Stuff
The slip blocking southbound lanes of Eastern Hutt Rd was from Jaime and Tim Philips’ land.
Both families had spent the morning on the phone to their insurance providers trying to figure out their next steps.
Hutt City Council said in a statement on Friday evening that the two large landslips on Eastern Hutt Road meant that the two southbound lanes on Eastern Hutt Road remained closed, due to risk of further landslip.
The council said it was looking to restore access for southbound vehicles on Eastern Hutt Road by converting one northbound lane to a southbound lane
Closer to the city, a slip on Lennel Rd in Wadestown now could take days to clear up.
Wellington City Council spokesperson Richard MacLean said the slip had trebled in size overnight, with contractors having to clear up 300 cubic metres of rock and soil.
KEVIN STENT
A large slip on Lennel Rd, Wadestown, got worse overnight and may not be cleared until Tuesday.
“It’s possible the road won’t be reopened to traffic until Tuesday,” he said.
The council has received 54 reports in the past 24 hours for flooding trees, small slips and fallen trees.
التعليقات