Steve Miller, 58, watched the final moments of his son Daniel's life as he livestreamed himself wading through flood waters in Wairau Valley during the Auckland Anniversary floods. Photo: NZ Herald / Paul Taylor
Steve Miller watched the moments leading up to his son's death in the Auckland Anniversary floods through a phone screen separated by 350 kilometres.
The last thing the 58-year-old messaged, safe and dry in Napier, was "be careful" as he stared at the livestream of his son wading through the flood waters that covered a Wairau Valley street as he tried to help people.
Suddenly, the feed became submerged in water.
"The water was only knee-deep, but swift. That was the last contact I had with him," Steve tells the Herald on Sunday in his first media interview.
"I thought he dropped his phone. It was around 4.30, 5 o'clock I'd say, on the 27th. So I thought 'Oh God, I'm, I'm up for [buying] a new phone for him'."
In one of his final Facebook streams, Daniel Miller, 34, can be heard saying "this is all bad … something's telling me to go up and check on the people in this house, so I'm going to".
As Auckland continued to be battered by a record-breaking downpour for many hours yet that would claim the lives of four people, Steve spent an anxious Friday night with no word from his son.
"I couldn't contact him," he said. "I had no contact with any of his flatmates. I didn't have their phone numbers or contact details.
"I was concerned but I thought he dropped his phone. I was just going to have to wait until he got a new one or something.
"Dan liked to be the reporter. He was always the guy who wants to give help."
But reality hit early on Saturday morning with a knock at the door.
"The next morning I had a visit from a police officer delivering the sad news, Dan had drowned. I was in disbelief, as on the livestream, you could see people only a few metres away from him.
"It was surreal. You know how you imagine people breaking down crying? I wasn't like that. I was doubtful. I was like 'how do you know it was him?'"
Daniel Miller was 34 when he died. He had two children. Photo: Supplied via NZ Herald
Police told him his son was found dead in a culvert on Target Road around 7.30pm that Friday. He was a father of two.
The suburb of Wairau Valley on Auckland's North Shore is flood prone. One of the other four victims that night was 25-year-old Daniel Newth, who lived in the neighbouring suburb of Sunnynook and was also swept into Wairau Valley storm drains while kayaking in the floodwaters.
The other victims were Dave Lennard, who died after his Remuera home was hit by a landslip, and 58-year-old Dave Young who was swept away in floodwaters in the rural Waikato town of Onewhero.
Still confused and in shock on Saturday, 28 January, Steve and his family resorted to watching the multiple Facebook livestreams Daniel had made the afternoon of the 27th for clues.
"I couldn't understand how if he got washed down the road no one had helped him," Steve said.
"Then my brother rang me and said he's watched the livestream over and over and he said 'I think he went down a manhole'.
"When you look at the footage there's no whirlpool, there's no way to know that there's a manhole cover off.
"[It must] have blown off with the pressure and the water must have equalised so he didn't realise and as he walked up the drive, he got sucked down it."
Having a visual record of his son's last moments to speculate on how he died became torture for Steve.
"It was on his Facebook page but I've deleted it. I watched it too many times and it kept looping over in my head for days."
Steve Miller said having a visual record of his son's last moments became torture for him. Photo: NZ Herald / Paul Taylor
Daniel grew up in Napier and moved to Auckland when he was 19. Steve said his son was studying and planned to open his own rehabilitation centre.
Despite Steve and the majority of his family still living in Napier, the Miller clan travelled to Auckland in the following days to organise Daniel's funeral. Steve works as a health and safety adviser at Port Nicholson Fisheries, which he says is "an amazing and supportive company".
He said the Grace Gate Centre, which Dan was involved with, "were a huge support, and took on the funeral service, with over 300 people showing their respects".
"I really miss him. I don't think you can reconcile it. It's sort of weird. Like, if this accident happened on a work site, WorkSafe would be involved and there'd be an investigation. But, there's nothing afterwards, it's swept under the table, I don't know. There's no investigation.
"When I see emergency response people wading or even children playing, through floodwaters I wonder who's going to be next, sucked down a manhole cover, with no warning.
"We've been to the manhole, there's a cross there and a bunch of flowers. I've been there, I've touched it. I've looked at it."
After the 27 January floods, Auckland mayor Wayne Brown commissioned a rapid review by former police commissioner Mike Bush into the emergency response.
The damning Bush review was handed down on 12 April and found a "system failure" of leadership in the first 12 hours of the response in which "much of the damage was done" before Auckland Council or Brown had taken any action.
Brown was also heavily criticised in the days after the floods for his slowness to declare a state of emergency - which only occurred after 10pm that Friday, despite emergency services being at capacity since around 5pm.
Mayor Wayne Brown was heavily criticised for being slow to act. Photo: Supplied/ Auckland Council
Once back in Napier after Daniel's Auckland funeral, the Miller family then had to confront the onslaught of Cyclone Gabrielle. Steve's sister's home flooded as Napier and the Hawke's Bay rural surrounding area was among the worst hit from the storm that killed 11.
"Two weeks after the funeral we were hit by the cyclone in Napier, more flooding and chaos, lucky our home wasn't flooded, but we became a refuge centre for family and friends who were affected," Steve said.
The Miller family buried Daniel's ashes in Napier. His two sons, aged 11 and 5, were there for the memorial.
"The younger one is autistic. He doesn't say a lot. When we put the ashes on the ground he was trying to dig the ashes up. He was saying 'my dad's box'. So that brought tears to a lot of people," Steve says.
"It hasn't got any easier to be honest. It affects everyone different, I suppose."
This story was originally published on the New Zealand Herald.