Aquaholics Limited volunteers came down from Tauranga with diggers and loaders to help clear away silt and mud from Pakowhai homes. Photo / Supplied
Aquaholics Limited volunteers came down from Tauranga with diggers and loaders to help clear away silt and mud from Pakowhai homes. Photo / Supplied
Over a massive seven days, a group of volunteers from Aquaholics Limited Tauranga spent hours on machines shifting tonnes of mud and silt from 14 properties completely flooded during Cyclone Gabrielle.
When Aquaholics director and operations manager Brad Mahony said he wanted to take a small digger and go to help his hometown for a few weeks, his business partners in Tauranga and Hamilton were right behind him.
Cyclone Gabrielle hit close to home for Brad: he is originally from Tangoio and went to Eskdale School, so he knows quite a few people in Esk Valley who have been affected.
His parents still live in Hawke’s Bay, currently in Meeanee. Brad had visited them over Christmas and is taken aback over how everything was normal a few months ago and is now gone.
Brad Mahony, Aquaholics Limited Tauranga director and operations manager, with volunteers who came down to help clean up after Cyclone Gabrielle, Photo / Paul Taylor
“It’s pretty sad to see your hometown like that,” Brad said.
Brad and his business partners in Tauranga and Hamilton decided to get some machinery and a volunteer group together together and head down to the Bay.
In the end, the group of 11 brought four diggers, two loaders, and tipper trucks, which was “the right stuff for the right job”, the director and operations manager said.
Unsure where to start, Aquaholics - a plumbing company itself - got in touch with a few plumbers they knew in Hawke’s Bay and found out Pakowhai had been hit hard as well.
“We had some contacts in that area so we turned up there and started helping,” Brad said.
A group of volunteers from Tauranga spent seven days clearing properties and helping with cyclone clean-up work in Pakowhai. Photo / Supplied
The team’s main focus was restoring people’s to access their properties and clearing out mud, silt and rubbish, along with towing cars out of the way.
“Some of the properties we were walking into, people were pretty distraught and some of their stories were pretty heavy,” he said
Brad said Pakowhai definitely still needs machinery: “It was awesome to see heaps of volunteers with boots and shovels but there is just so much mud down in that area, that it’s hopeless unless you have machines.”
From what the group saw, the number of volunteers peaks on the weekends when more people are able to get out and help, with volunteers being rather sparse on weekdays.
“During the week it was pretty desperate down there,” Brad said.
Volunteers helping in Pakowhai. Aquaholics director Brad Mahony said there is so much mud that machines are the only thing that can make an impact in some places. Photo / Supplied
There are a lot of people travelling to help clean up. The group worked through the weekend alongside people who had come from Palmerston North and from Taupō to assist.
Over a seven-day span, the group cleared paths and helped locals get back into what was left of their houses.
Having to return to Tauranga, the volunteers say they wish they could have done more and they hope more people follow their example and volunteer with heavy machinery.
“If you have the means to help out with the recovery, please consider doing so, these people are desperate for machines, manpower alone is not enough,” Brad said.
The volunteers from Aquaholics had lots of local help and would like to thank, Erin and Tony Mahony for the “amazing tucker”, Brendan Mahony for accommodation, Satherly Logging for yard and transport help, Baytyres for puncture repairs, Page Earthworks for transportation, Devine Plumbing for a lay of the land/yard, family and friends for the donated food/help, “and last but not least our amazing partners (and business partners) that held the fort at home while we helped other families”.
