The big blow - lessons learned

There was widespread damage to irrigators throughout Canterbury after last September's storms with insurance costs exceeding tens of millions.

We are still in recovery mode after the devastating winds that ripped through Canterbury last spring. The storms downed countless trees and toppled hundreds of irrigators. As we reach mid-summer the good news is there are just a few that still require repair.

In terms of damage it was the third worst on record, creating a year's worth of work in just a few hours. An estimated 800 irrigators were affected with total storm damage in Canterbury exceeding $74 million.

FMG insurance estimated irrigator damage at $7m based on around 250 claims they received. Overall they valued insurance costs at $16m. That said, the recovery has been impressive.

Ashburton-based Rainer Irrigation, who fixed our irrigation system, have themselves repaired 180 large Briggs irrigators, at an average of five per day, and they have used 12km of pipe and assembled over 200 pivot spans.

To do this required hiring an additional 20 staff, rental vehicles and importing a specialist team from South Africa. Above all, there is the issue of replacement parts; you simply can't keep that much stock on hand.

It either has to be built or imported from other suppliers overseas and both options require time. So at the end of this season, farmers should take time to work out where to park your irrigators for next season, bearing in mind that the trees you settle behind, may well end up falling on what you are trying to protect.

This makes it all the more challenging, for when the wind is blowing the last thing you want to go near are trees and irrigators that might topple and fall at any moment.

What the big blow brought to our attention was that most of us were well prepared for a lack of power at the dairy shed but not so when it comes to our stock water systems.

We had a number of loaned generators available to us at Federated Farmers and we spent several days helping co-ordinate those in need, with available generators.

However, a lot of these generators came with instruction that, ``the plug was to stay on'', and rightly so, as once you hard wire a generator to anything, it's no longer mobile.
This meant that anyone requiring their system or shed to be hard-wired were out of luck and those with the pre-wired plug available were suddenly elevated up the list. The lesson being, while you may not be able to afford a generator, you certainly can`t afford not to have the wiring for a generator.

Another issue was communication as some areas were cut off by power and phone for nearly a week. So make sure you have a car charger for your cellphone, to avoid texting in the dark. This is not only good for morale but is also essential for keeping informed.
It's also worth remembering that these events caused severe stress to some of our members. As with time, the public attention fades, the adrenalin runs out, and the body and mind tires. That's the time for us as fellow dairy farmers and Federated Farmers' members to step up and drop in on some of our worst affected friends and neighbours, to lend a hand or more than likely an ear.

Also, take time to review your insurance policies, to understand what you are covered for and what you will need to do when it happens again.

It may seem like these adverse events come out of nowhere, but we need to remember that here in Canterbury in the past seven years there has been a massive snowfall, earthquakes and now a wind storm that knocked out power for a week. I'm not sure what will be next to cut our power but on average there will be something every two to three years. What plans do you have for the next outage?