The low-lying residential area was mainly hit on October 3-4 and happens to be the area of town where historically there was no residential development.
However, that has changed radically in the past few years.
And last Monday night at the Waihemo Community Board, unhappy residents queried the council’s role.
This included who was responsible for clearing the stormwater system — ditches, creeks and roadside swales — before the weather event, which lashed East Otago and Dunedin and had been anticipated.
June Anderson summed it up. She said she had read Mayor Gary Kircher’s column in the Oamaru Mail in the aftermath about "being prepared".
But the "overgrown state" of the waterways which had contributed to flooding in the Brough and Stour Sts area had apparently not been addressed.
It was clearly "neglect", she said.
"There should be a consequence for those who don’t [clear waterways], because the whole community can be impacted by their neglect."
Mrs Anderson asked if the district council and the Otago Regional Council had in fact really been "prepared".
In particular, someone had to be responsible for water pooling in the adjoining railway reserve, where a small pipe restricted its drainage.
Mrs Anderson said taking the precaution of raising the building platform of her Brough St home had saved the house last month.
But bunds and enlarging culverts and pipes for stormwater had to be considered by authorities.
She said the "immediate response" from the authorities seemed lacklustre during the October 3 rainfall.
An example was the lack of sand stockpiled to enable residents to fill sandbags.
"We look forward to learning the outcome of the Emergency Management debriefing meeting which was held recently.
"We’re eager to hear what went well, and what can be improved," Mrs Anderson said.
Waitaki District Council chief executive Alex Parmley said those issues had been fed back into the post-storm debriefing.
"Leading up to the weather warning, the culverts and drains were checked.
"I think what we were dealing with on the day was exceptional."
Mr Parmley was uncertain when the public would hear back on the storm debriefing.
"We did have teams on the ground ... trying to clear culverts where it was safe to do so."
Mrs Anderson’s points about drainage needing to be resilient would be taken on board, he said.
Mrs Anderson was not satisfied: "When you say someone looked at clearing the waterways, that’s your response?"
Mr Parmley said the council’s contractors had gone around and found that in many cases debris washing off private property had been a contributor to the blocked culverts.
Mrs Anderson said she wondered if they had actually talked to any residents near the culverts. Mr Parmley said he did not know.
However, the 160mm of rain that day was more than 10% of the area’s annual rainfall.
"I don’t think this community can afford the infrastructure for events like that."
Mrs Anderson said the council had to be aware of climate change.
"There’s going to be more of these weather warnings — you need to look at how that is going to affect Palmerston."
Mr Parmley said there was a programme to make infrastructure "more resilient".
