BREAKING: Auckland flooding emergency highlights Mayors incompetence and how climate change can no longer be denied
It’s like these weird weather events so severe they keep testing our infrastructure keep happening more often and with increasing intensity for some reason?
No idea why. Never mind, MORE COWS!
Facetiousness aside, the fiasco of a response to an emergency this large in Auckland from heavy rainfall shows you how useless our infrastructure is and where the bloody hell was the Mayor?
Wild weather: Wayne Brown defends speed of Auckland’s emergency declaration
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown is defending the timing of the city’s state of emergency declaration.
It was declared at around 9.30pm – after torrential rain and flooding hit the city from mid-afternoon.
Earlier in the day, the Mayor was under pressure to make the declaration – including from National Party Leader Chris Luxon and local councillor, Jo Bartley.
…when the National Party is calling you out for inaction, you know shit just got real!
We had this insane situation last night where the Mayor seemed confused over who was supposed to declare a State of Emergency!
Hooton left Wayne Brown a couple of weeks ago as his advisor so there is no brains left in the Mayor’s Braintrust and the Boomer King seemed confused as to whose responsibility it was to actually declare an Emergency.
The time between the emergency and the Boomer King waking up has enraged Aucklanders hit by this.
This extreme weather event seems to have crept up on Auckland without anyone knowing.
Nothing was prepared or ready for an extreme wether event like this and look how quickly our entire city was swamped!
Here is the commentary from one person in the flooded suburbs
Flooding really bad around here especially at **** her and her dad spent most of the evening walking around in chest high water swimming into houses to get people out and helping them out of flooding cars the storm water drain burst through the pavement where she lives it lifted the freaking tarmac cars floating around snashing into each other just madness lucky her and her dad are surf life savers and went straight out to help after their house was hit anyway. It’s chaos here madness. Half our street flooded but we are ok at the top of the street just minor flooding that drains through our garage door out the back section but where ayla is it’s by wairau and it’s bad there the whole valley got fucked
…People are furious and have started attacking the motorway barriers Police have put in place because they are trapped…
…this is a cluster fuck of enormous proportions, where the fuck is the Mayor?
Right now there is a level of flooding we’ve never experienced in Auckland, many people are shocked because this is a large modern city that is completely unprepared for this and with more rain coming over the Weeknd, it’s only going to get worse!
There are suburbs right now who are struggling with the enormity of this. Emergency Services are stretched to breaking point and the immediacy of need is where our attention should be, but right after we have made sure everyone is safe, we need an urgent review into where the bloody hell the Mayor was and a real wake up to our climate changing future.
Folks, this extreme weather is our future, we can no longer pretend to be in denial, our pollution is causing this and we need to radically adapt.
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Hang in there Auckland!
Thinking of you guys….keep safe and sound.
How can new subdivisions be so dramatically affected by these flooding events? Inadequate infrastructure?
I wonder how many councils are against 3 Waters?
Build a city with appropriate infrastructure. Then double the number of rooftops with unplanned for infill housing because of over-immigration. Watch the drains fail.
Feeling for everyone in Auckland.
Brown may have been slow to call a state of emergency, but he is vindicated in his calling out Auckland transport. What a disaster they were over the Elton John concert.
McAulty has just said the rain was quicker and more intense than previously thought
“Buckets Brown” has a nice ring to it.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/483223/weather-updates-state-of-emergency-declared-as-severe-flooding-hits-auckland-northland
“In a media stand-up late on Friday evening, Brown said he was following advice from experts and as soon as they said it was time to declare an emergency, he signed it off.
“It wasn’t as if nothing was happening before that,” Brown said.
Brown said he was confident the state of emergency had been declared at the right time as it would have been “irresponsible” to rush ahead and declare the emergency just because the public was calling for it.
It was officially declared at 9.54pm.
He said it was “not my job to rush out with buckets”.”
The greybeards and those from the comfy house with a view who went to university (possibly) and slipped onto the upward escalator, find they have got off on too high a floor. Down, down to a level that suits your abilities and stop trying to surf over the real work and wise decisions required.
Wayne Brown is such a f*cking knob. You can quibble over the right time to declare a state of emergency but what was the bucket comment for? Absolutely idiotic thing to say ( as I was one of the he people rushing out with buckets).
The only thing our dear Mayor, Scrooge McBoomer Brown will give a toss about is the impact this will have on his beloved budget.
The people effected are only ratepayers after all, infact many of those in the hardest hit areas like Ranui probably arent even that. Instead they are more likely just renters given the low socio/ecomomic demagraphic of the area. That type of person doesnt fit with Brown’s worldview. His proposed Austerity budget clearly shows people of that ilk deserve less from Council, not more!
Knowing how Emergency Management works and after reading his press release where he defends himself by passes the buck to his Duty Controller, TWICE! for the delay in declaring a State of Emergency, before showing any form of compassion, concern or leadership for those effected, suggests to me that delay was more around assessing the cost of making that declaration than anything else.
How else can a 3 hour delay be explained when the agency charged with making that call is the same agency charged with responding to and managing a Civil emergency as it is happening, are well prepared are poised and have protocols in place to do so?
No, expect even more cuts to community services, Local Boards and Frontline staff to help pay for the clean up after this event but don’t expect public Leadership from Brown.
He’s only interested in “balancing” budgets and collecting the “mediocre” $300k he gets paid for shitting on and bullying everyone in Auckland who is not part of his cherished and well paid inner circle.
It is a such a very harsh situation.
All folks can do is band together and find the strength to get through.
Times like this shine a light on where the weaknesses and strengths lie.
Humans can be incredible and create a caring community when intense situations hit a low.
That bucket comment was Morrison-esque.. “I don’t hold a hose mate”. Pretty dumb.
Umm. exactly how long has Brown been mayor, and who were the knobs before him? Just wondering.
My exact same thought about what the Labour party inherited from the National government Gary?
I’ve got it!! I know who this new mayor reminds me of.. Scott Morrison… He got in by underhand methods as well.. That isn’t good news by the way…
I don’t think the blame game is going to be a long term solution to our turbulent weather future. Yes, Brown is an boomer-knob whose thinking is outdated and self-serving. This is normal of his generation. Still, even such insular perspective had to adapt to the reality weather like this, even as begrudgingly as he has done.
What needs to happen tho, is for us not to blame our lack of infrastructure or procedures to deal with what will become increasingly unpredictable weather. That is going to be a given.
What needs to be seen, by all of us, is how all our different views of the world can combine to help solve the myriad of new and unexpected problems we will face. I don’t think any single perspective, political or otherwise, will be enough going forward.