Councillors updated on Tararua District cyclone recovery

Access to Akitio was one of the focuses in the cyclone recovery programme. Photo / Dave Murdoch

Tararua District Council was leading the way in many respects in progress on recovery from Cyclone Gabrielle, councillors were told at a meeting of the council.

Chief executive Bryan Nicholson presented the report on the Cyclone Gabrielle Recovery programme to the council on behalf of recovery manager Tina Love.

He said the report focused on the different workstreams, updating on the social, built, natural, economic and rural.

The team had already made a presentation to the council on recovery and meetings had been held with iwi as well as key stakeholders.

In the report given to the council, it was noted that a social recovery hui had been held and attended by key community stakeholders, giving them an opportunity to voice their wellbeing and social needs as well as identifying impacts on people and communities across the Tararua District.

The report stated that some areas of mental and physical health had been identified including stress, grief, post-event trauma and anxiety and fear with winter approaching.

Three properties were red-stickered due to flooding or risks associated with slips and 16 properties were yellow-stickered.

While three families had been displaced, they had arranged their own temporary accommodation.

Following the cyclone, more than 400 properties were without power and while the power had been restored, work was still ongoing across the network.

There were 49 roads closed and 14 open with restrictions in the early stage of response and the number of closed roads was now down to 13, with 14 open but with restrictions.

The report stated the current focus was ensuring the stability of access to Akitio, with the roading team considering establishing a temporary satellite depot out at the coastal community to facilitate works to be undertaken.

In the past year, the Tararua District had nine significant rain events and it was estimated it could take three years to re-establish roading and bridge networks in their entirety, barring any other weather events occurring.

Council chief executive Bryan Nicholson says the recovery team is working hard to put a plan together. Photo / NZME

Nicholson said the recovery team was working hard to put together a 100-day plan.

He told councillors funding had been allocated from Waka Kotahi in terms of initial roading work around temporary roads and safety to ensure that people could get in and out, although that did put a bit of pressure on the teams working on those.

“The response is a sprint, the recovery’s a marathon,” he said, adding that the council had a very professional team.

“I think we’re leading the way in a lot of respects in terms of progress we’ve made.”

Councillor Sharon Wards said she was delighted that Waka Kotahi had “come to the party” and she was seeing some “fabulous” pictures coming through on work being done on River Road.

“Which is making a huge difference to access for Akitio.”

She said a couple of local people had commented they were told that work on Mairananga Gorge was going to be undertaken.

However, group manager of infrastructure Chris Chapman said he was not aware of any plans to work in that area.

Mayor Tracey Collis said it did need some assessment work, but she was not aware of any more than that.

“The concern for that community is being kept informed and keeping those conversations so that everybody knows.”

She said it wasn’t helpful for anxiety for people to think something was being done when it wasn’t.

Councillor Wards also asked about the water treatment plant at Akitio.

The report to the council identified there had been some issues with water and wastewater during the cyclone.

An investigation was under way on the power supply to the Akitio plant, as well as improvements to access the route, as it currently required vehicles to stop 100m before the plant.

Councillor Wards noted there were also communication issues with the plant.

Chapman said the main reason for the communication failures was because of the widespread power outages during and after the cyclone.

He said options would be limited as geotechnical assessments done on Coast Road and the surrounding area suggested there were going to be ongoing small land movements across the area.

“If we want to have a secure, resilient site, we need to make some changes in terms of backup power generation to run the plant and comm systems.”