FLOOD DAMAGE AND CITY SERVICES

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 8, 4 October 1941, Page 8

FLOOD DAMAGE AND CITY SERVICES

It is particularly unfortunate that one of the most damaging spells of wet weather experienced in Wellington for many years should have occurred at a time when the city’s maintenance and repair services are being carried on with reduced staffs. In common with local bodies throughout the Dominion, the Wellington City Corporation has contributed a number of engineers and skilled workmen to the fighting Services, and in addition recruiting has absorbed much of the casual labour previously available. Considering the numbei and nature of the emergency calls made on the City Engineers Depaitment in the past 48 hours, and the limited number of hands to cope with the extra work, the most serious suburban street blockages have been cleared with remarkable celerity. But a great deal is left to be done at comparative leisure, and the cost of this extra work will add to a load of civic departmental expenditure which had already given the Council cause -for anxiety this winter. _ The unexpected October expense makes it more Jmpoitant than ever that the Council should concentrate on the elimination, for the time being, of all non-essential city works. At the same time the question of the adequacy of drainage and protective measures in newly-developed areas, which have proved their liability to flooding, requires to be gone into. Twice or three times in less than three years numbers of suburban residents, notably in Karori, have suffered damage and hardship by the blocking of drains, or their actual, inadequacy after heavy, prolonged rain. In all such areas, but especially those which are destined to be more thickly settled, future risk should, if possible, be removed even if it means a further and drastic temporary curtailment of expenditure on amenities such as reserves, lhe paramount consideration should be a maximum of protection for the property of the city’s ratepayers.