Residents in Wairoa describe the moment Cyclone Gabrielle hit. Video / George Heard
Community leaders in Wairoa say the preliminary cyclone zoning announcement of flood-prone areas has left many people worried about the uncertainty the 2A category brings.
The 2A categorisation means, provisionally, significant further assessment is required to determine if the area is safe to live in.
“They’re concerned. They’ll have a bit of anxiety and are very confused,” Wairoa mayor Craig Little said of his people, many of whom live in the 2A zone and are uninsured and struggling moving into winter.
“The ones who weren’t insured can hardly afford to live from day to day,” Little said.
The zone, mostly in North Clyde, will subsequently become either Category 3 (future severe weather event risk cannot be sufficiently mitigated) or back to Category 2C or 2P, which require either community or property level mitigations to prevent further risk.
Little said while buyout money and infrastructure consultation was going heavily into Category 3 zones, more of it should be focused on those in Category 2 zones.
“My goal is to have every home up and running better than what it was before and how we do that I don’t know,” he said.
“It’s about people rebuilding with confidence. [2A] is not a nice position to be in.
A map showing provisional cyclone zoning areas in Wairoa. The majority of North Clyde is in the 2A zone. Photo / Hastings District Council
“We’ve got a lot of work to do, but I’ve seen very little evidence of that work yet.”
Little also voiced concern over the lack of local input.
“There’s nothing worse than people from out of town telling us what we need to be doing. Lots of these people and their whānau have lived there for thousands of years. You can’t just come in and wave a stick and say, ‘you’re gone’, because that’s not how we do it.”
A Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC) spokesperson said it was important to note no finite decisions had been made, and all affected property owners would be engaged with.
Communities from all areas involved in land categorisations would have multiple opportunities to engage with staff in the coming weeks at public meetings.
Michelle McIlroy’s house is in the 2A zone in North Clyde by the Wairoa River. She continues to live in a temporary pod near her home with whānau.
“My house is yellow stickered; we were the first houses to get hit by the river which breached behind us,” she told Hawke’s Bay Today.
“When you are in 2A you are in limbo. If you were in 1 or 3 you at least knew your fate.”
A trustee of Tātau Tātau o Te Wairoa Trust, McIlroy has fought hard to try and be a voice for those in the affected zone and wants more immediate focus on infrastructure and mitigation for the 2A zones.
Tātau Tātau o Te Wairoa Trust is a governing body responsible for managing the settlement redress on behalf of the Iwi and Hapū of Te Rohe o Te Wairoa.
McIlroy said she knew many of her neighbours and friends who were struggling to comprehend the situation.
“Seventy per cent of those impacted are Māori and over half of those are uninsured.”
She was concerned there was a lack of visible presence from the HBRC, that the district was being overlooked, and action was not happening fast enough.
“It’s really important that Wairoa has a strong voice at that table otherwise we could literally be drowned out by the cities.
“They treat us like the poor cousin and forget about us. We don’t feel like we are getting a fair or equitable say.”
Tātau Tātau o Te Wairoa Trust chariman Leon Symes echoed those sentiments.
“Right now, we have people who are not able to live in their homes, not able to fix their homes, and further delays to essential repairs with winter arriving has further disadvantaged whānau,” he said.
“Surety is needed now, not sometime in the future.”
Affected property owners would receive letters or emails with the details of their meetings, the HBRC said.
“We are working with central Government and the four Hawke’s Bay district councils on behalf of all Hawke’s Bay,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson also said HBRC’s infrastructure in Wairoa was currently limited to a drainage scheme. Drains have been cleared of silt and are operational.
They said exact infrastructure mitigation projects couldn’t be discussed as decisions would only be made after consultation with locals, gathering of their input, and a shared process for arriving at decisions.
According to RNZ, the regional council’s interim chief executive Bill Bayfield said at a community meeting in Puketapu last week that the Beehive had forced the organisation’s hand to release maps earlier than they were comfortable with.
He said the preliminary categories did not drill down to individual properties and he would have liked to have waited for the final quality assurance before releasing the information.
