Before the flood strikes remember to:
- Make sure you’ve prepared your Emergency Household Plan and survival kit.(See the civil defence fact sheet from Series one to see what is in a Survival kit)
When the flood strikes remember to:
- Listen to your radio, to see if there is a flood warning.
- Move to higher ground/evacuation point if required.
- Stay away from the water.
Remember to include your pets in the emergency household plan!
Facts about floods:
The word ‘Flood’ comes from the old English word flod
There are a number of dangers with a flood:
- If the water is travelling very fast
- If the water is very deep
- If the floods have risen very quickly
- If the floodwater contains debris, such as trees and sheets of corrugated iron
Check out http://www.getthru.govt.nz/What-to-do-in-a-flood.73.0.html for what do when a flood hits
Floods are the most frequent natural disasters in New Zealand.
Payments for flood damage in New Zealand between 1976 and 2004 averaged roughly about $17 million per year
Most floods occur when water from heavy rain, and sometimes from melting snow enters rivers, streams and lakes, causing them to overflow and FLOOD!
The floods in the Northland of New Zealand in 2007 cost over $80 million dollars to clean up
On the 15th and 16th of February 2004 the lower north island suffered floods that cost $180 million dollars due to the forests and animlas being flooded in that area.
NIWA (National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, New Zealand) scientists are making and testing a nationwide flood early-warning system to give people time to prepare for floods and, if necessary, evacuate areas.
To give you some idea about New Zealand’s floods here are just some of the storms and floods in the last ten years and the cost of the damage they have caused:
November 1999 in Queenstown, Alexandra, and Balclutha $51 million to repair the damage
June 2002 North Island ‘weather bomb’ ($24 million, one person drowned);
February 2004 in Manawatu, Wanganui, Taranaki, and Wellington ($116 million)
July 2004 in Bay of Plenty ($18 million, 156 homes destroyed)
May 2005 in Matata ($29 million)
March and July 2007 in Northland ($80 million)