FEB 8: Flash flooding which ripped through Dunedin last evening left retailers and emergency services mopping up through the night. The damage bill is expected to climb into the millions of dollars.
Scores of businesses and homes were flooded as up to 34mm of rain was dumped on the city in just 20 minutes.
The rainstorm hit just before 6pm, and within 15 minutes shops and roads were knee deep in water and fire brigades were struggling to respond. By 7.30pm, there had been 52 flooding calls and by 9.30pm, firefighters were working their way through a backlog of more than 100 calls.
Most of the water had receded within an hour of the storm, leaving people to mop up their shops, homes, clubs and roads.
Such was the ferocity of the water that roads were ripped up in the central city and shop doors were burst open by the force.
For many retailers, it was the second time in three years that torrential rain had overflowed drains in George St.
Retailers mopping floors and moving saturated stock said yesterday's flash flood was far more destructive than the one that hit at 5.50pm on January 17, 2002.
An "irate" Trents Leather Shop owner Sue Brown, who estimated her stock losses at $40,000, said the Dunedin City Council needed to take urgent action to improve drainage. Several shoppers along George St stayed to help staff, including German tourist Rainer Hodapp, who stayed for about an hour.
The Octagon and the Exchange were also badly affected, and water surged down Lower Rattray St, at times about a metre deep.
Five underground electricity substations in central Dunedin were flooded and several power lines came down in the suburbs.
A Delta Utility Services spokesman said power was cut to 236 consumers.
Around town, manhole covers were sent skywards by the pressure of water rushing through the drains.