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The leaders of a community response in the Mt Roskill area after Friday’s dramatic deluge across Auckland City are urging support services not to forget Pasifika people who live in the central area.
While the devastation was keenly felt in parts of the North Shore and West and South Auckland, Mt Roskill pastor Tiliilagi Leilua says it is not lost on her that suburbs like Wesley and Mt Roskill can be overlooked when it comes to catastrophic events.
“We always miss out and yet so many Pasifika families are in this community, but we are always sort of overlooked and I’m talking not just about the help, but the resources go to someone else,” Tiliilagi says.
“It’s almost like there is an assumption that Pasifika people only live out in South Auckland and West Auckland but there are so many Pasifika that live here… but people in Wesley and Roskill are not defined by their struggles, there is so much they go through.”
She says they are proud of their community and everything they have done to pull through this disaster.
Husband and wife pastors Peter and Tiliilagi Leilua lead a group called ARK (Acts of Roskill Kindness) which was set up nearly three years ago to provide community support during the global Pandemic.
As the events of last Friday unfolded in dramatic fashion across the city with flash floods swamping properties, forcing people to flee their homes in the encroaching darkness, the team at ARK decided they needed to act.
While emergency services and Civil Defence sprung into action with the mayor announcing a state of emergency for the city later that night, Tiliilagi says they knew what needed to be done as soon as the floods hit the neighbourhood.
“Around 8pm we saw the flooding and that’s when we went straight into action. The Principal of Te Kura Tuatahi O Weteri – Wesley Primary School, Lou Reddy was worried about the families around his school and he was thinking, should he open the school hall?”
Tiliilagi says they noticed people were starting to come out of their homes looking for somewhere to get their families to safety.
“A lot of families were sort of evacuating themselves, but there was nowhere to go…pretty much the only place was the school community hall, and that’s when myself, my husband Peter and Principal Reddy decided to open up the school hall.”
According to Metservice, Auckland received approximately 240 millimetres of rain in less than two hours. And while emergency services were dealing with thousands of calls from residents, back in Mt Roskill, Tiliilagi says there was a sense of shock from people and what had just happened.
“There were so many facilities around the community, but none of them were open. An outreach team was sent out into the community to let them know the hall was open for people to come sleep and have some hot food,” she says.
As people started to arrive at the Wesley Primary school community hall on Potter Avenue, Tiliilagi saw families putting their babies in big containers as they walked through the flooded area to get to the hall.
Wesley Primary School is situated near a creek which overflowed in the heavy downpour, flooding surrounding areas. Tiliilagi says she could see people were traumatised by what was happening, especially the elderly who were in a state of panic.
“One Mother who can’t swim, said she just felt like she really had to grab onto hope.”
It is this faith that Tiliilagi believes got them through those initial hours and in the immediate days after the flooding. She says the community and all the volunteers who came together was a classic example of what resilience looks like in times of crisis.
Since the events of that Fateful Friday, ARK has become the backbone of the local community response from the school hall, running an outreach, coordinating with govt and council agencies, doing health checks as well as being a home for the displaced.
“The needs are still high, it’s that whole reality that is sinking in… people are starting to realise, ‘we’ve lost everything and how are we going to restore furniture, appliances.’
“There are a lot of families that just come to the community hall and say, ’I just need a place to sit and let it all sink in’”, adds Tiliilagi.
Between 40 to 60 families deemed high risk have sought shelter at the school community hall since last Friday’s flooding, while others have needed some support with bedding, towels and other non-perishable goods.
Tiliilagi says even during a time of high stress it is also about empowering families to be part of the solution.
“And because it’s such whanau/aiga/family centred feel, it’s almost like the families feel included in a bigger village where they feel comfortable to ask for help, and that they are not ma (embarrassed).”
Tiliilagi says despite the ordeal many families are going through, she’s been heartened to see the community work together.
“Everyone just put up their hands and said, ‘what can I do, I want to help, what area do you want me to help in?’”
Another cool thing is people who needed help have also ended up volunteering; “they are strong enough to help out,” says Tiliilagi.
ARK offers 24 hour emergency contact for those families who need help. They have an outreach night shift team staying on site. Tiliilagi says they are starting to notice more families are utilising the hub. She encourages people to come forward and not to be afraid to ask for help.
Tiliilagi says the generosity from the community and local businesses such as Mcdonalds and Ford have been above and beyond.
