Lives on hold amid long, slow BOP flood clean-up

Peter van Maren in the midst of reconstruction. Picture / Alan Gibson

Konini Place is not so much a ghost town as a street on hold, waiting for the play button to be pushed again.

The gardens in the Edgecumbe street are putting on quite a show. Roses are just losing their bloom amid the tidy flower beds and neat fences.

But the 20-odd homes on the street remain empty after they were flooded by waters overflowing the nearby Rangitaiki River last July.

Six months later, the only sign of life in the street is at Peter van Maren's, where he is rebuilding his home.

He and his wife, Ineke, had bought the house just three months before the floods hit, and Mr van Maren had just finished putting in a $40,000 kitchen.

After the rain, their first glimpse into their new house was through the windows from an inflatable boat.

The kitchen sink, curtains, new furniture and belongings were floating around in the lounge.

"All up, I reckon we took $100,000 in a trailer to the dump," said Mr van Maren.

Since then, he has been living in a house at Kawerau that he and his wife bought as a rental property.

He hoped to be back by mid-February. He said the only other person living on the street was in a two-storey house, living in the top floor.

Beyond the van Marens' fence, the new stopbanks have not yet grown over with grass.

He said some residents had not yet started repairing their homes, beyond an initial tidy-up. Builders were hard to find, and for the uninsured, so was money.

But he reckoned most people would return.

"It will be pretty hard to sell around here anyway because everyone knows about the floods.

"It will probably take another 10 years or so before someone is interested in buying a property here. But it's a nice place to live.

"When everyone is back we'll have a big party on the road and invite the fire brigade and some others."

Mr van Maren considers himself fairly lucky, not least because he was well-insured and still had the shell of his home.

Two houses on the street were condemned.

In the Whakatane suburb of Awatapu, Shane Wirangi moved back into his Housing NZ home with his four children just before Christmas.

The solo father, teenage daughters Phillipa, Lindsay and Michelle, and 4-year-old son Rakaya spent six months moving from place to place after their house was flooded.

The only things to survive were the television and the PlayStation, which Shane had quickly put high on a bench before evacuating.

After staying at a friend's house and a cabin in a holiday park, the family were moved into another Housing NZ property.

"They said we could stay there for good, but it was too big - I kept losing my kids in it.

"We are a small family. We like being close together, so I said I'd rather have my old home back."

Mr Wirangi, a teacher aide at the nearby St Joseph's school, said it was a huge relief to be home again.

Housing NZ had done all the repairs, replacing the floor, the bottom part of the walls, carpets and window coverings, and repainting.

"I'm not one to stand around and complain about how bad my life is. Just get over it and get on with it.

"Now that the tsunami thing has happened overseas, what we had was absolutely nothing compared to that."

Mr Wirangi did not have contents insurance, so had to find the money to buy new furniture, much of which is on hire purchase.

The old beds, sofa, chairs and anything near the floor had to be thrown out because the floodwater was believed to be contaminated with sewage.

He said the family were overwhelmed with help initially. Work and Income, the local council and various welfare bodies were giving out essentials, and St Joseph's school pitched in to help, "but I got so much, like too many blankets and forks, so I had to give it back."

"The Red Cross just kept giving us food vouchers. I told them we had enough, but they still wanted me to take them. So I ended up giving them to other people who needed them."

THE DAMAGE

* 100m stretch of Rangitaiki river stopbank broke just above Edgecumbe on July 18 last year after three days of heavy rain.

* 141 houses in Whakatane district and five in Opotiki were damaged and uninhabitable.

* Landslips affected 54 homes, of which 15 were uninhabitable and two condemned.

* About 17,000ha of farmland was flooded.