Flood put city residents to the test in 1923

 

The term "one in a hundred-year" weather event is regularly used in the media, and no more so this year when Dunedin was hit by a serious storm which caused widespread flooding and damage around the city.

 

Coincidentally, a century beforehand the city was  confronted by a similar inundation.

 

The April 22, 1923 weather forecast, "heavy rain, all day long", portended what was to come: an estimated half an inch or rain an hour at the storm's peak.

 

"It was not until 11.30pm (Saturday)" the Monday ODT reported, "that the rain commenced in earnest. Once it began it knew not when to stop and as these lines are being penned, late on Sunday night, it gives no sign of abating."

 

The cellars of several businesses had been flooded, roads were damaged, and navigating through Caversham specifically and South Dunedin in general was an adventure.

 

"A unique site was presented by the Carisbrook ground which, along with its immediate surroundings, was completely under water to a depth of  three feet. Bathgate Park was also overspread, lonely cabbage trees standing out like the vegetation of a submerged island."

 

That afternoon a Daily Times reporter had attempted to do a round of the city by automobile and in the North East Valley he found "things had a very ugly aspect": at least 40 homes were being swamped by floodwaters.

 

"In many of the places the water was two feet deep and those in which there were pianofortes and other heavy articles will doubtless prove to be the source of considerable loss."

 

A "veritable seething cauldron of water" had flooded most homes in Harbour Tce, North Rd presented a "turbulent scene" and Lindsay's Creek had become "a noisy, ugly river", while the Leith was "a sight to startle one".

 

"It too had lost all sedateness and the manner in which it leaped from its bed and fell back to a seething, foam-wrapt matter was terrible in its way."

 

Things were also rough out on the Taieri where "some unenviable experiences" had befallen residents and businesses.

 

Mr Findlay and the staff at the dairy factory had been obliged to follow their profession of cheesemaking while wading in a foot of water, the streets near Holy Cross College were impassable, and "the residents are having an anxious time".

 

The following day the ODT editorialised on the morrow's Anzac Day service, World War 1 had ended five years before and was still a raw wound for many readers, and then commented on the floods.

 

"An experience of flood on such a scale is unprecedented in the latter-day history of Dunedin," the paper said, adding "a survey of the flooded areas yesterday revealed a picture of desolation, which readily explained why the normal workaday life of the community was almost at a standstill."

 

The residents in affected areas had shown an admirable spirit, the ODT said, "both in enduring their miseries with philosophy and fortitude and in helping one another."

 

Then, as if to demonstrate that the more things change the more they stay the same, the editorial writer added: "the question is bound to arise whether the stormwater outlets have been kept as clear as should have been the case if preparedness for an emergency had been kept in mind."

 

And with that a long, arduous and expensive cleanup began.