WHERE TO FROM HERE?

AUE!: Puketawai Marae, located just north of Uawa Tolaga Bay, was badly flooded during Cyclone Gabrielle. Conversations as to the future of the marae are under way, which could result in it being moved. Picture by Uawa Live

AN East Coast marae badly flooded during Cyclone Gabrielle is looking at ways of making sure it never happens again.
Puketawai Marae trustee Victor Walker remembers dropping to his knees at the sight of the marae — located just north of Uawa Tolaga Bay — under water after Cyclone Gabrielle released its fury on Tairāwhiti.
“I couldn’t believe it. I was so stunned. I was thinking there was no way this was our marae.” 
Mr Walker said Puketawai escaped unscathed during Cyclone Hale a few weeks earlier and people had been popping out daily to check on it. 
“We had been lulled into a false sense of secuirty when we heard Gabrielle was coming. We thought we might have been safe.” 
After a night of listening to Civil Defence messages, Mr Walker got up and checked on his property at Uawa.
As he went back inside his house, daughter Hine broke the news to him through photos Uawa Live had taken of the marae.
“It was everything you dread seeing,” he said. “Our marae, our wharenui, they are us. “We had no physical injuries but spiritually we were impacted by those photos . . . it was feelings of shock.” 
He went to Tolaga Bay Area School — the site of the evacuation centre — where he caught up with whānau. 
Tears flowed. 
“Yes it’s a whare, but it’s where all my nannies lived, loved. It’s where all the dramas, all the whānau stories come from. The happiness and the sadness. 
“We are so closely connected to each other and depend on each other. When I saw my whānau, that kaleidescope of images just flooded in.” 
After the floodwaters had receded, they went to the devastated marae. 
They walked through mud up to the top of their gumboots and there was a clear line of where the water level had reached in the wharenui.
“We knew then that everything would have to be ripped out,” Mr Walker said. “So we planned to meet on the next fine day to start the mahi.
“We had a hui where we had three things to discuss — the clean-up, assessing the insurance and the way forward. What do we do?” 
They decided to return on the weekend for a major working bee. 
“We had just finished the karakia for the meeting and up the drive walks our whānau from Whāngārā.” 
A group went to the Hauiti Hauora centre in Tolaga Bay and asked how they could help. 
They were told to go to either Mangatuna or Puketawai Marae. 
With them were three outside building crews (from Alfa Construction, McMillan and Lockwood Construction and CBD Construction), who had been working in Gisborne and wanted to help, and a Papatoetoe-based water truck.
“It was like the apostles showing up,” Mr Walker said. “They just wanted to get stuck in. They had goodwill in their hearts, asking for nothing — just wanting to come in and help us.” 
The group worked for four hours straight, getting out all the damaged items and materials around the marae. 
Fortunately, no taonga was lost and photos inside the wharenui had been digitised, meaning these could be replaced. 
Another hui was held last weekend to discuss what to do next in light of future storms.
“We have three options — the status quo, which we aren’t entertaining at all, to lift the marae or lift and shift the marae,” Mr Walker said.
A geotech report is being done on the hills around the marae to see what possibilities there are. Work to rebuild is on hold until they get more information on the whenua. 
“We don’t want this to happen again. We don’t want our pa to be underwater like it was,” Mr Walker said. “It is also meant to be an evacuation centre in case of a tsunami. We want to be high enough so whoever wants to can come here and be safe.
“It is going to take a bit of resourcing but we want to keep our pa and ourselves safe.” 
Managed retreat of marae and urupa is a conversation that has started in the region as many are located near waterways.