‘We were really lucky’

‘We were really lucky’

Rowena Fry checked in on some of the businesses on Kent Terrace to see how they fared after the Wellington’s extreme rainfall event on 20 April.

At the harbour-end of Kent Terrace, cafes Phoenician Cuisine, and Deluxe Cafe share the same building. Sam Ah Kit was already well into her workday baking for Deluxe when she noticed the weather change. “There was wind, rain, the whole works. Fire engines were running,” she says. “Then it pelted down.” Seeing the water starting to run down the footpath made her realise there was going to be a problem. “There’s a gap under the door and we didn’t have anything to put there.” 

Sam says that she heard that water was blocked further ‘upstream’. “So, when it had nowhere else to go, that’s when it came flying down Kent Terrace. We were lucky.”

Deluxe Café has a strong fan base and so it was the early morning regulars who jumped in to help Sam and her team clear out the 10 centimetres of rain. “We’ve got great customers. People were bringing us down dry socks. A builder brought us a squeegee mop. Someone brought us gumboots, so we were all cleaned up by 7.30am.” 

Next door at Phoenician Cuisine, Zahi Assaf had woken to a phone call from Sam. The water reached 3 cm. Although some of their paperwork was damaged, he is thankful of no major damage. “It took a few hours to clean up at the end. A lot of hard work. We got rid of 30 litres of water, in buckets.”

Zahi is able to find a bit of humour and positivity in the situation. “It was a good chance to do a thorough clean as well. You’ve got to look at the benefit side.” 

Midway up Kent Terrace, the water had edged into Gazley Motors but to a lesser extent. Greg Jolliffe says he and his team had spent most of the day mopping. “We got completely wet through but the boss put on some pizzas and we just ripped into it,” he says. Six hours later and they had returned most of the indoor area back to new.  

At the Basin-end, Victor Alforte, who runs the car wrapping business, Protect, was dropping his kids to school when his crew messaged him about the flooding. Grateful that his premises has a sump, he says the few millimetres of flood water was easy to deal with. Asked if he thought Wellington City Council could’ve help prevent the flooding, Victor is pragmatic, “We can’t really blame the Council on this one. It’s just part of nature.”