'A town devastated'

Otautau scoured

Otautau flooding

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Flood damage in Otautau.

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1984 Floods

Flood of memories People felt pressured Your say: The 1984 floods If it's this bad now, what's still to come? Watching as your life washes away 'A town devastated' Never a Day Like It, and lived through Getting back to order after the floods All flights cancelled How prepared are you?

In Southland's Black Friday surely one of the most well-thumbed and, appropriately, bedraggled volumes at the Invercargill Public Library author Clive Lind readily admits that, in any disaster, comparisons between areas are odious. Then he says it anyway, because it's true: "Proportionately, Otautau suffered most in the floods of January 1984.

"With two-thirds of its householders directly affected, Otautau was a town devastated." Devastated is better than demolished, which Otautau would have been had the Aparima floodwaters not broken out on the other side of the river first.

Otautau sits at the bottom of a roughly shaped U formed by the Aparima and, mercifully, the rampaging river first broke its bank upstream, near Wreys Bush, drowning hundreds of stock and demolishing fences.

Inevitably it also broke the banks on the other side of the river, swamping already flooded smaller streams, all of which fed into the Otautau Stream, bringing the problem right back to the town.

Word went out that those on the north-west side of the stop banks were to be evacuated because water was coming over the top. Otautau Primary School headmaster Bill Mellon and caretaker Mick Menzies shot up to the school and began lifting files and equipment from lower shelves.

There was no water when they arrived but five to 10 minutes later it was rushing knee-deep between the two main buildings.

Very quickly, it was up to chest height and, outside, more than 2m in places.

Time to get out, but Mr Menzies couldn't swim. Mr Mellon began to swim on his back, across the playing field, for about 200m until he reached the railway line and could find people to arrange a boat to rescue Mr Menzies.

Elsewhere in town, another man was swept off his feet and carried 10m before he reached the safety of a shop doorway.

By 2pm the town was awash and at 4pm the flood peaked.

About 190 homes on the flat part of town suffered. About 900 people were directly affected.

What followed was testament to the character of the district.

Lind: "Throughout the town there are numerous stories of kindness and understanding." They ranged from the large-scale, with more billets offered than were needed, to a legion of neighbourly acts. Typically, this one: Wallace County engineer Royce Evans came home one day to find that his fence, knocked down in the floods, had magically resurrected itself.

County clerk Lindsay McKenzie: "Fortunately, we live in a rural environment. People often help without being requested."

TUATAPERE
The Waiau River, fed by the equally engorged Orawia River, started reinventing itself on the morning of January 27 1984.

Upstream of Tuatapere, it began moving in what seemed mysterious ways.

Floodwaters fled the usual channels, swung wide through bush and open country, emerged at the top of Morton St, followed across Erskine St and back down Half-mile Rd towards the Waiau River bridge.

Some 70 houses were evacuated and 37 had water through them.

Once again, Lind describes a town with all hands to the pump.

"The people of Tuatapere rallied magnificently. No sooner were people evacuated than they were absorbed into the community. People swarmed through houses as the water rose to lift items to higher spots .... Everywhere individuals toiled mightily to help their neighbours in trouble." 

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