Cumulative impacts are tough to handle

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

In the latest setback in what seems to be an endless winter, the Gisborne and Wairoa districts have yet again been pummelled by more severe weather.

We entered the weekend faced once again with what seems like a never-ending series of rain warnings from the MetService, and a day and a night of steady and sometimes heavy rain ensued.

It was another tense time for Te Karaka residents, hit so hard by Cyclone Gabrielle, as they were on the brink of having to evacuate their homes again.

Yesterday morning Gisborne District Council was, for the umpteenth time, posting a long list of roads that were closed or restricted — while in the Wairoa district there was a fatality in the early hours of Sunday when a car struck a slip that blocked State Highway 2. Another person in the vehicle was seriously injured.

Although this latest storm was much weaker than Cyclones Hale and Gabrielle, it adds heavily to the cumulative impacts of such a series of heavy blows.

It seems that no sooner than the city’s beachfront was cleared ready for summer, then within days it was a tangled mess of woody debris once again.

There was a long line-up of cars and pedestrians at the weekend looking glumly at Waikanae and Midway beaches.

Just a short distance away, the William Pettie and Gladstone Road bridges were almost blocked by debris and machinery was in play on Sunday working to clear them, which also drew an audience.

Mayor Rehette Stoltz, speaking on TV One’s Q + A programme, said: “I don’t want us after every rain event to start cleaning up. What I want us to do is to do one job properly — build in that resilience.”

That would be the opinion of everyone in Tairāwhiti and Wairoa, particularly those in more isolated rural areas who continue to face harder challenges.

This summer needs to be the time when recovery works really begin to happen.

The job is massive.

Last week district council staff estimated that the repair bill for local roads would be $117 million, while the district has been given only $37m for roading so far.

Some of the most difficult and heart-breaking challenges are faced by the owners of more than 200 properties that have been red or yellow-stickered in Tairāwhiti and close to 150 in the Wairoa district.

Our land-based industries have all been seriously affected, as have the many businesses that service them.

It is well past time for the rain events to stop and summer to arrive.