Six pulled from floodwaters on State Highway 6 at Canvastown as wild South Island storm closes roads and cuts power

Six people were rescued from vehicles trapped in floodwaters on State Highway 6 near Canvastown on Friday night as a powerful storm system swept across the top of the South Island, closing roads, knocking out power to hundreds of properties and pushing rivers and streams over their banks.

Police were alerted at about 8.35pm to vehicles stuck in rising water on the Pelorus to Havelock stretch of SH6, the main route between Nelson and Blenheim. By the time the call came in, four vehicles were trapped and motorists were unable to drive out. Police said multiple agencies coordinated the response, with Police Search and Rescue, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, the New Zealand Defence Force and Surf Lifesaving New Zealand all on scene. All six people were brought to safety.

The rescue capped a day of severe weather that battered the West Coast, Nelson and Marlborough, with MetService warnings in force across the region for much of Friday. RNZ reported that floodwater levels remained high overnight and into Saturday morning, and that police were urging motorists to avoid the Pelorus to Havelock stretch and delay non-essential travel until the highway could be cleared.

The Pelorus area is one of the more flood-prone sections of state highway in the upper South Island. The Pelorus River drains a steep, heavily forested catchment that runs close to SH6 near Canvastown, and the road has been closed many times in recent years when the river runs hard. Friday’s event followed a similar pattern, with rain on already saturated ground turning side creeks into torrents within hours.

Workers spent Saturday morning clearing slips and debris from the carriageway. The highway between Pelorus and Havelock has since reopened with a 50 km/h temporary speed restriction, with drivers asked to take extra care because surface water and silt remain on the road. Authorities said the route would stay under monitoring through the weekend in case more rain arrived.

Power was also a problem across the top of the South Island. Hundreds of homes lost supply on Friday afternoon and evening as wind brought trees down on lines, and crews worked into the night to reconnect customers. Most outages had been cleared by mid-morning Saturday.

The wider weather picture has eased a little since Friday’s peak. 1News reported that most heavy rain warnings had been lifted by Saturday morning, although a strong wind watch remained in place for Wairarapa and the Tararua District, and a heavy swell warning was current for the Kapiti and Porirua coast. MetService said conditions were forecast to ease through Saturday afternoon.

The capital itself did not escape the storm. Heavy rainfall on Friday triggered an emergency discharge of untreated wastewater from the Moa Point treatment plant into Tarakena Bay, near Wellington Airport. The discharge had ceased by Saturday morning, but the plant has a long history of overflowing during big rain events, when sudden volumes of stormwater overwhelm the wastewater network and treatment ponds. Wellington City Council and Wellington Water have been working through a multi-year programme to upgrade pipes and reduce the frequency of such discharges, but progress has been slow and complaints from local residents and surfers about beach water quality have been a recurring theme.

Friday’s storm is the latest in a string of rain events to hit the upper South Island this autumn, with soils across Marlborough, Tasman and the West Coast already heavily saturated from previous fronts. That has been a key reason a relatively short, sharp burst of rain was enough to send the Pelorus and other Marlborough rivers into sudden rises, rather than soaking into the ground.

The rescue itself appears to have ended without serious injury, an outcome that emergency services described as fortunate given how quickly the water rose. The combination of darkness, fast-moving water and a state highway full of through-traffic could easily have produced a worse result. Police are continuing to ask drivers to follow road-closure signs the first time they see them, rather than attempting to push through, after several recent events around the country in which motorists drove into flooded waterways and had to be pulled out.

Forecasters say the worst of the wet has now passed for the upper South Island, with a ridge of high pressure expected to settle over the country from Sunday and bring drier, colder conditions for the start of the working week. Showers are still likely on the West Coast and over the divide on Sunday, but the heavy rain risk has dropped sharply.

On the ground, the focus is now on cleaning up. Contractors and roading crews will continue to clear silt, repair shoulder damage and check culverts along SH6 and feeder roads through the weekend, and drivers heading between Nelson and Blenheim are being asked to allow extra time and check official road information channels before setting out.

Have you been caught up in this weekend’s South Island weather, or do you live in a flood-prone part of the country that keeps copping it every autumn? Let us know in the comments below.

See also NZ Lightning — Newswire’s replay of recent severe New Zealand storms and where each strike actually landed.

This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂