Sand bagging at Muriwai Drive

Following the 1998 floods, and prior to the 2004 flood, Environment Bay of Plenty had undertaken a process of
increasing the flood protection surrounding Whakatane's central business district.

Floodwalls had been built, and down at the river mouth they were awaiting for the arrival of stop logs to slot into the wall at the boat ramp. An earth bund was planned to help protect the Muriwai Drive area, but as yet Environment Bay of Plenty had not received the permission of all the residents living in the area to go ahead with this. Without the earth bund and stop logs the river would be able flood much of the area in a 100 year flood. No one knew that the 100 year flood would happen quite so soon.

On 17 July 2004 it had been raining for a while and the river was rising, but inside on television the All Blacks were playing Australia, residents sat glued to their screens watching the game. The river rose. It flooded the boat ramp, flowing through the stop log slot as well as over the river bank, water pooled in Matatua Reserve and began encroaching on the houses on Muriwai Drive.

Staff at Environment Bay of Plenty and local volunteers started sandbagging at the boat ramp but the river won and they retreated to sandbag a narrow stretch of land across Muriwai Drive. Realising they could not save the Muriwai Drive residents from flooding they set to work trying stop the water reaching the town's CBD.

At 9:30pm it came to the attention of staff that a telecom transformer very close to the sandbagging operation was at risk of being flooded. Sandbagging stopped and everyone fled from the water and the transformer while it was at risk of blowing up. Telecom disconnected the transformer. The sandbagging operation started up again.

When the All Black's match finished a number of residents began to realise the seriousness of the situation and fled the area, unable to save all their belongings.

Around 10pm that night a section of the sandbar that runs across the river mouth gave way allowing a lot more water to flow out the river mouth. Once this happened water levels in the river quickly dropped.

The sandbagging effort saved many businesses and homes from the flood waters, unfortunately not all the properties of Muriwai Dr escaped the flood.

The Sandbag effort two days later, Muriwai Drive Whakatane.	Locals living on Muriwai Drive begin the clean up.