31 Aug 2021 – Auckland is in alert level 4

6:30am

We wake up and read in the Maddren group message: ‘Flooding in Kumeu looks pretty bad, going by the videos being posted – would not be surprised if there are a few outages today.’

The weather the night before had been terrible, with strong winds and persistent rain, but we’re thinking it will just be another day of occasional power outages, like those we sometimes experience in Kumeu.

7:15am

Rodger Scott, general manager of Maddren who lives nearby tries to check out the office. He posts this photo of Main Road, Kumeu with a comment ‘close as I could get’, adding ‘server room could be dangerous, water and electrical.’

Obviously, the office is flooded, but no one knows yet just how bad it is.

Videos and photos from the media start to flood in. It’s not looking good.

(*Photo: New Zealand Herald, 31 August 2021*)

9:00am

Water still covers Main Road, Kumeu and access to the office is impossible.

We get some great news – the server is still up and running. The team is business as usual, but with heavy hearts.

With a great show of positive spirit Stuart, one of our design and build consultants, posts this in the group message: ‘Dressed for the office’.

1:00pm

A third attempt is made to enter the office. Tony and Terena, owners and directors of Maddren, finally get permission from police to enter the building. It is now three hours after full tide but when Tony walks around the building, in some places, water still covers his feet.

The server room is located on the ground floor but escapes flood damage: Richard, our IT support hero has built a raised platform for the server to sit on ‘just in case there is ever a 100-year flood’. Who would have thought it would actually happen? Maddren are forever grateful for his planning and forward thinking.

8:00pm

After many hours of work and great effort by the cleaning team, mud has now been vacuumed out and 10 dehumidifiers and fans are on. Water is still seeping out from under the framing and cabinetry.

1 Sep 2021 – Auckland is in alert level 4

The plan is to mop the floors and chlorinate all water-damaged material. The cleaners spend another 4 to 5 hours doing a full clean, finishing inside at around 7:00pm.

The dehumidifiers and blowers will remain in the office for another couple of days to thoroughly dry out the inside of the building. Cleaners also waterblast the area outside the front door and will return in few days to do the driveway. It seems this recovery is going to take a while.

2 Sep 2021 – Auckland is in alert level 4

THE OFFICE IS TOTALLY OUT OF BOUNDS. Today they are spraying fog, an antibacterial agent designed to kill bacteria and stop viruses. The fog is sprayed throughout and then left for 24 hours.

Tony has a meeting with Elite Cleaning regarding cleaning the desks and wall areas throughout the building. It seems we may have to replace all the double and triple plugs on the ground floor. Some of the desks and cabinets have already blown.

There’s a container in the side yard. We open it and find water has gone right through there too.

The insurance company advises they will more than likely be removing all the GIB throughout as well, as it will be contaminated. This could be a long process.

We notice a timber pile from next door has floated into our driveway together with this sign. Rodger takes this photo. It’s surreal and ironic.

The bundle of timber and evacuation sign sitting on our driveway belong to the sawmill behind us, which pretty much tells the story of just how bad the flooding was.

Today we also have emails and messages flooding in from clients, suppliers and friends passing on their kind thoughts. Thank you everyone for the warm messages.

4 Sep 2021 – Auckland is in alert level 4

Shaun from Elite Cleaning comes in the afternoon and takes all the blowers and dehumidifiers out. He says the percentage of moisture inside the bottom plates is around 100mm up the GIB, which is not coming down percentage wise.

We’re still waiting for the insurance accessor to arrive.

Little did we know the blowers and dehumidifiers would soon be back.

28 Sep 2021 – Auckland is in alert level 3

Who could have imagined the wall warmers and blowers would still be on to this day? They’ll be here until the drying is completed.

After many days of Tony calling and following up, an assessor has finally arranged a time to complete the assessment. Lockdown has caused so many delays to this process.

Nov 2021 – Auckland is in alert level 3 step 2

After a long drying process the GIB board is finally dried out. Some power points are changed due to being contaminated. Furniture throughout the building is to be replaced due to water damage. There is still a long way to go to full recovery but we are glad things are now settling down.

100-year floods do happen!

When the Maddren Homes building was being designed, council insisted that in order to protect ourselves against a 100 year flood we must raise the finished floor level by 800mm. This felt extremely over cautious at the time and it wasn’t cheap. Now we are extremely grateful. This is a great reminder to everyone that rules can sometimes be tough and challenging, but they are there for a reason. (This is a good message for our clients too!)

Our flood recovery journey