Flood victims still homeless

More than 550 people are still unable to return to their homes a month after the Manawatu-Wanganui region's worst recorded flood.

On February 16 the region awoke to find itself living the opening chapter of a disaster that spread and deepened as a rain dump of more than 280mm swept down its river systems.

Four weeks later, some homes are still under water in the lower Manawatu's Moutoa district, after a 100-year-plus flood that drove more than 1000 people from their homes.

Horizons Regional Council said that in its region at least 550 people were still unable to return home.

The numbers who evacuated themselves without contacting the emergency services and may still not be back home, were not known.

Among the temporarily dispossessed are residents of 45 Feilding council-owned pensioner flats, some of whom have been told they won't be going home before May.

The units need work, the work needs tradespeople and they're in short supply.

Dislocation of families and the regional economy will continue for months.

Losses to the agricultural industry - dairying, sheep, beef, deer, crop and forestry - are estimated at between $159 million and $180 million - and likely to rise.

And insurance companies expect their preliminary estimate of around $100 million in claims to increase markedly.

Transfund, the national highway funding agency, said the road repair bill for the lower North Island could come to around $50 million, but a spokeswoman said it could be six weeks before any decision is made on which local authorities get how much.

The Manawatu District Council has said its road and bridge repairs will cost about $20 million over three years.

Without special Government help its ratepayers will have to meet nearly $3 million of that, even after Transfund has applied its higher-than-normal disaster funding formula.

It is understood that the Rangitikei District Council, because of its extensive damage and small number of ratepayers, may fare proportionally better under Transfund's formula.

Transfund expects to have all the claims in within about two weeks.

A spokesman for Civil Defence Minister George Hawkins said this week that the potential for further help above and beyond the Transfund package was being discussed at Cabinet level.

Finance Minister Michael Cullen is due to announce tax-relief measures to help flood-hit farmers and businesses.

Feilding, a town of three waterways, appears the hardest-hit commercial centre after the Makino Stream, Kiwitea Stream and Oroua River went on the rampage.

The after-effects of the flood are still visible everywhere. Rural areas in the foothills have been isolated by landslips and bridge closures, and huge tracts of downstream lowland have been left under a blanket of silt.

The region's key east-west road link, the Manawatu Gorge, is expected to stay closed for at least two more months.

The Pahiatua Track, a secondary road that is the sole remaining cross-range road, is being hammered by traffic numbers and truck weights heavier than it was designed for.

- NZPA