“With the roar of the sliding hillside behind, the men literally ran for their lives on a road that was being torn to pieces.”
Pictures from the aftermath of Tuesday’s landslide illustrate quite clearly how dangerous that situation must have been for them in 1988.
One of their 4x4 vehicles was caught up in the rubble that came down and the other disappeared in the lake that was formed.
“They were still shaking long after their sprint to safety,” The Herald reported on March 11 1988. “No one was hurt but they could easily have been buried under thousands of tonnes of rubble.”
The paper described their ordeal as a “horror story”. Lake French was described as a “huge brown time bomb” that first came to prominence in a flood in 1985.
Turning the clock forward to this week, an estimated 25,000 cubic metres of hillside above Tiniroto Road came down in the landslide on Tuesday that shunted almost 100 metres of the road downhill and dammed the Waikoko Stream — the same stream that was dammed to form Lake French in 1988.
The site is 20km along Tiniroto Road from Gisborne.
Gisborne District Council acting community lifelines director Dave Hadfield said a new naturally occurring landslide dam happened again with Tuesday night’s slip.
“We’re still monitoring water levels in the stream and working on a plan to release the water.”
Meanwhile, contractors have started work on a temporary access route across Tuesday’s enormous slip and that work should be completed by the end of next week. The road remains closed with no access available between Rockhill Road and Parikanapa Road.
“The trees on the slip face have been cut down ready to be removed off-site,” Mr Hadfield said.
“The contractors have made good progress on cutting the temporary track through the slip, and once the track’s ready, contractors will get in and remove the cut-down trees.
“Metal will be placed on it and safety measures will be put in place before the temporary road is open.”
The power lines have been removed from the slip area.
The ongoing road closure means residents impacted by this week’s slip must detour via Wairoa.
“The team’s taking advantage of the good weather,” he said. “We’re working to try and open the road before next weekend in time for the A&P Show — that’s our target.”
Firstlight Network aims to instal a temporary line within 10 days to restore the link lost between the Pehiri and Patutahi substations after the massive road slump at Tiniroto.
Firstlight Network operations acting manager Linda Broughton said the landslide that swept away a section of Tiniroto Road also took down four spans of power lines.
“The good news is that everyone’s power is still on,” she said.
“However, with the lines down we’ve lost the link between our Pehiri and Patutahi substations, which compromises the back-up power security for these areas.
“The impassable road also means that if there are any unplanned power outages in the area, it will take longer for our faults teams to reach and fix any issue.
“We’re aiming to instal a temporary line within the next 10 days, and are working on options for a more robust long-term solution.”
Firstlight’s 24/7 faults line number is 0800 206 207.
