Napier Mayor Column: Kirsten Wise looks back on Cyclone Gabrielle as the first anniversary approaches

Almost one year Post Cyclone Gabrielle Napier has spent the time trying to clean its way back to normal.

OPINION

One year on from Cyclone Gabrielle, it’s the right time to take stock of where we are as a community in our recovery journey.

The first thing to note is this journey is not one we are on alone. We have the strength and shared experience of each other, whether associates, loved ones, fellow organisations, or partner agencies.

At a council level, we are working very closely with Hastings District Council, sharing resources and ideas. We are collaborating too with Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, and with Wairoa and Central Hawke’s Bay, particularly in our ongoing discussions with government, to ensure Hawke’s Bay is kept high on their agenda.

We are also walking side-by-side with Mana Ahuriri, and hapu and marae from around Napier and further afield.

Napier mayor Kirsten Wise. Photo / Paul Taylor

There are a lot of issues we are working through and no one-size-fits-all solution, so we are identifying specific needs together and how we can best help.

Napier was badly hit by the Cyclone, losing lifelines, being completely isolated and having no connection with anyone outside our city for many days. Those first few days felt like an eternity at the time but in perspective, most of the city and many in our community resumed normality relatively quickly.

The wastewater treatment plant was our main issue from a Napier-wide point of view. We put a lot of human-hours and resources into bringing the plant back online and by July it was fully operational.

From there, our task was to build resilience into the plant so whatever happens in the future it can keep functioning. This is a piece of work that is ongoing.

Resilience is the key word across all our infrastructure. One of our resilience measures is to ensure we have generators of all sorts on hand.

We need to have our main generators in excellent working order, then we need backup generators and portable generators in a range of sizes so we have built-in flexibility in our system.

Working with our most affected residents remains front and centre in our recovery. Much of the work of compensation has been done by the Voluntary Buy Out Office.

This is an important and careful process and I want to take a moment to thank all of you who have been involved for your patience and understanding.

Our region has been through a lot in the last 12 months. There is no way to minimise that and it will take a long time to recover.

We are now putting in place the firm foundations that will ensure we have a vibrant, sustainable and strong future, as a community and as a region.