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I was preparing for bed before midnight on Good Friday when I heard the first peal of thunder, somewhere in the distance.

- Russell Brown

Then another. I walked into the office and loaded the rain radar on the MetService website. It was clear things were about to kick off.

A line of rain storms, north to south, was descending the map and beginning to slam into Auckland. I knew that set-up: it was how the radar looked during the extraordinary rain event of Auckland Anniversary weekend 2023, when it felt like reality itself had torn.

I knocked on the door of our younger son, an autistic night owl who appreciates a heads-up about sudden loud sounds, then lay in bed listening to the rain sheeting down, punctuated by cracks and bangs of thunder overhead.

By morning, the Mt Albert New World, which closed for 20 months after the 2023 storm, had flooded again, and the footbridge over Oakley Creek, which had just been replaced after washing out in 2023, was washed away again. Several shelters and civil defence centres had opened while I slept.