Storm-hit Hawke's Bay residents were left frustrated last night after a council site used to monitor rising river levels was unavailable amid heavy downpours.
The Hawke's Bay region was under an orange heavy rainfall warning on Tuesday into Wednesday, with over 200mm of rainfall expected throughout the night.
However, when flood-concerned residents went to check the status of rivers, they were left wanting — with many locals turning to Facebook to vent their frustration.
The council later apologised for the technical issues, after fixing the fault hours later. It reassured residents that weather monitoring staff were still able to monitor water levels.
Hawke's Bay Regional Council chief executive Nic Peet said telemetry and weather monitoring systems had been and continued to work effectively during the downpour.
"Council staff have monitored river levels and rainfall through the last 48 hours," he told 1News in a statement.
"Yesterday evening, there was a period of three-to-four hours when we couldn't display the live data on our public-facing website, but staff were still monitoring river levels and would have been able to notify authorities of any issues of concern during that time."
A malfunction meant the electronic monitoring of rising river levels wasn’t updating.
It comes after equipment failure jeopardised river level updates during Cyclone Gabrielle, with blame placed on a failed power backup battery among several issues.
One commenter on Facebook said last year's cyclone meant residents were on edge.
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"For people that have already been through this before, the information has to be here and now. No bloody good to us the day after.
"People are still traumatised by what they experienced on February 13 and 14."
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