Raw video: Jet boat negotiates flooded Napier orchard to pull off dramatic rescue

March 9, 2018

A Napier orchard manager has described the dramatic scenes he witnessed in yesterday's torrential downpours as a jet boat was used to rescue people from a two-story house near his flooded orchard.

Cherry Orchard International operational manager Jordan Alison described the flooding of the area as "like the Niagara Falls" when it broke through a stop bank the company constructed just months earlier.

This led to a person using a jet boat to navigate his way around the orchard and pull off the dramatic rescue of people stranded on the top floor of their flooded home.

"There was a guy in his jet boat, just around the bend there is a house and the water was up to the top level of the two-story house.

Jordan Alison's cherry orchard was turned into a lake in the torrential rains yesterday.

"So they put the jet boat in the water, went around the corner and got the people out," Mr Alison told 1 NEWS.

He said there'll be a monetary loss from the event with the floodwaters damaging fence wires and pushing wooden posts out of place.

Luckily, the 5000 cherry plants weren't in season for fruiting, but the waterlogged crops could still be damaged.
 

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