It was clear by 6pm that something was going horribly wrong in Auckland.
All the weather and emergency services on all of their social media are making clear warnings by 6pm that an emergency event was occurring.
Where the hell was the Mayor?
By 7pm the flooding and shear magnitude of the rainfall was known.
Where the hell was the Mayor?
By 8pm rescue services are inundated and waters are rising through suburbs and roads are being closed.
Where the hell was the Mayor?
By 9pm Auckland MPs are on social media begging the Mayor to declare a state of National Emergency.
The Mayor finally declares a state of emergency at 10.30pm!
The Boomer King screams any criticism of him waiting until 10pm to declare a state of emergency is politically motivated.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Here is my understand of what happened.
Hooton left the Brainstrust of the Boomer King a couple of weeks ago because Hoots is a political bloodsport fans who enjoys the hunt, the chase and the kill.
Getting the Boomer King elected was the kick, not baby sitting an invalid for 3 years, unfortunately without Hooton, the Boomer King ain’t got no game and what happened last night was a panic session behind the scenes where no one inside Wayne’s inexperienced crew seemed to have any idea of how an Emergency is declared.
The Boomer King says he followed the process that needs be followed in this and waited until the emergency management centre made the call, which is absolutely true, but the nature of that relationship is supposed to be the Mayor on the line demanding that response, not just waiting around for someone from the emergency management centre to call him or read it on Twitter!
He is an underprepared Mayor who doesn’t have the advisors to stop blunders like this happening.
For him to defend his bullshit response while our city drowned is almost criminal negligence.
Boomer Aucklanders with property portfolios voted for Wayne Brown, remember that when you are deciding who to help and save in your suburb over the next 48 hours as Auckland gets hit by more rain.
There is no way Efeso Collins would have sat on his hands until 10pm to declare an emergency.
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Last nights 6.00pm news both channels showed families wading waist deep through flooded streets, carrying children, elderly and pets to safety and Mayor Brown waits another four hours to declare a State of Emergency.
Now today he’s telling us he had to wait. WAIT FOR WHAT. Stupid procedure that could have cost more lives.
I wonder who he will be firing after this debacle. Brown is out of his depth.
Yes, any one of those tiny children dragged out of their homes by their mums or dads, waist deep in muddy water, could have slipped from their arms so easily, and never been seen again.
If ‘Buckets Brown’ had only been watching the 6 p.m. news, he’d have known this.
What a pompous, careless man.
When he finally commented he couldn’t help himself and had to criticize Wellington (in advance), for their earthquake evacuation procedure.
It’s not about Welly this time Buckets, it’s about you and what a poor performer you are.
Get the deputy mayor to take over, put a woman in charge and get on with it. When can we have a vote of no confidence?
“Buckets Brown” has a nice ring to it.
I can’t claim that as my own, but it suits the situation so well. Have a look at today’s Stuff cartoon.
I thought the same thing, by 5.45
Aucklanders were warned. But, yes, no pity for all those million dollar mansions on land which is slip sliding away. Oops, there goes the swimming pool! Wayne Brown is a joke, a champagne swilling, lazy old coot!
Yes and he opposed to three waters, he may want to consider that decision as well. Why couldn’t Auckland’s water infrastructure cope? If ever there was an answer for three waters, this is it. Labour were right.
And Aucklanders, this is what you get with a right wing mayor, a fraud!
So Brown the Clown finally fronts up to the media with Chippy.
Gets asked why the delay and immediately defers the question to the guy from FENZ to answer. FENZ is a central government authority, not Council’s CDEM department! The question was about Council’s response not FENZ!
The rest of the press conference is just cringeworthy with Angry Grandpa ranting and shouting inconsistencies and mistruths until the Deputy Mayor takes his arm and leads him away like a nurse in a dementia ward.
Brown the Clown needs to step Down. Clearly not fit for office!
Brown fiddled while Auckland drowned it seems. It was very poor statesmanship by an elected local body official, for his complete lack of leadership in an emergency, where citizens were desperate and scared. Someone needs to remind him it’s his job as mayor to support the people during a time such as this!
Brown’s media stand up was a joke, attempting to justify his reasons for not responding earlier. Nothing mentioned about the people losing everything they had! It was all about him! He’s a self serving piece of shit if ever there was one!
I think it’s also worth noting that one of Efeso Collins’ campaign pledges was precisely to invest in the city’s resilience to climate breakdown events. Given that Collins knew the responsibilities of the role well following his years-long work as an Auckland Councillor, and had a history as a responsible, intelligent public figure, it’s likely he would have acted in a timely manner, handled things appropriately and been on the ball.
Instead Auckland got a “Trumpian” outsider figure, who had previously gotten into fights with councillors, had been investigated for corruption by the Auditor General, and stated on air that he wanted to take a photo of a journalist and put it above urinals so that people could “pee on him”.
People have lost their lives, and communities and overrun emergency service workers were left to fend for themselves while the Mayor looked around in confusion for somebody to tell him what to do. It’s a sad story that could’ve had different outcomes.
Who cares, does declaring an emergency stop the rain? He just followed the civil defence council guidelines.
This is just people playing petty politics because the rein of labor mayors has ended.
tedheath, it makes a difference both operationally (resource wise) and legally. This is not a political party issue, it’s an issue of if the Mayor has a grasp on his responsibilities.
So true.
What a load of crap. Like him or loathe him, Phil Goff would have been all over this *doing something*, not playing tennis while the rain pours incessantly, just about drowning the people you’re supposed to be representing.
More rain coming tomorrow, I can imagine Mr Brown will be off to play golf then.
Tedheath so he said ???!. We watched the news we couldn’t believe what we were seeing why couldn’t the mayor Brown. Talking about other mayors has absolutely nothing to do with this mess. As Jacinda Ardern texted to the new PM “ tag your it “.
Really Mr Heath? Fair enough, put the declaration aside what we’re all the comments like it not being his job to rush out with buckets, or even saying you should not have built your house there? Who said it was his job to do that and is it really helpful to tell people off in the middle of the actual f*cking emergency, as to where their house is located? The crowd he is charge of would have issued consents for those properties in the past so maybe he should leave that issue for a week or two and focus on now.
It’s not a left or right issue. The man is a complete knob.
No you are.
Very compelling argument tedheath?
At the end of the day it’s only Auckland eh Krauty?
My Coarse Kings
Nothing would have changed even if Brown had not even declared a SOE. The civil defence services and fire depts and medical services did a magnificent job as always. They don’t wait for any old mayor to do what they do. They just do it. Folks here are livid because he’s not a leftie so always looking for things to pin on him. Bit like Tova at TodayFM…gotcha! Ok, gotcha Wayne. So fucking what.
So you think Brown did everything in his power, and handled the situation absolutely perfectly? If that’s the case, what the hell is his role as mayor about then, apart from writing testy letters to “the experts” he derided to win the election?
“No you are….times infinity”
That was for Ted the tribalist
Folks I’ll come from a more controversial angle. I’d rather have a mayor who’s razor focused on and challenges the chronic culture of wasteful spending and hopeless inefficiencies of our council, than be exactly on time to the minute with an announcement that would not have made all that much difference on the day – just to keep the rabid media and some online outragers happy. We need more managers and shitkickers rather than announcers. 6 years of announcements is enough for now.
Several hours of not doing anything is not really “to the minute”. He could have done a lot more than he did and did it earlier than he did, rather than swanning off to play tennis that morning – like he did.
So fiscal issues are more important than peoples safety? We do not pay our rates for the mayor to dither like a fool while Auckland drowns. Brown is incompetent fool.
I don’t give a flying fark if the Auckland Mayor is left or right. He / She just needs to be on the ball and convey vitally important messages to Aucklanders via the media in a timely manner. Obviously this has been an epic fail for the current Mayor but nobody should be surprised as it’s well known that he views the media with contempt. He’s also shown zero leadership skills when they were most needed. He’s been the quintessential fireguard. His position as Auckland Mayor is now absolutely untenable.
I am a bit over the boomer thing, it is not age related, it is a competency issue. Funny little words for people of any age is just not cool. Was Phil just an old ‘boomer’ to? I never heard him described that way.
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