Chris Chapman - It's all dependent on how much rain we get over the next few days. Photo / NZME
Chris Chapman - It's all dependent on how much rain we get over the next few days. Photo / NZME
Dannevirke can expect more rain this week as a south-south-easterly flow moves along the east coast.
A spokesperson from the MetService said it would be cloudy for most of the week with southerly breezes and periods of rain.
The town was not expected to experience the same heavy rain aslast week, which saw more than 210mm of rainfall recorded at Tamaki Reserve below the Ruahine Ranges between March 21 and March 28.
There should be a break in the rain on Thursday, with a high temperature of 23 degrees expected.
More rain would be on the way leading into the weekend, but Dannevirke was unlikely to get the heavy rain that has been battering the Wairoa district.
Group manager of infrastructure Chris Chapman said the most rainfall was in the ranges, but he'd heard anecdotally that there had been around 300mms out toward Akitio.
He said the Tamaki River at one point had flows of more than 63,000 litres per second but that had slowed down to 3500 litres per second.
While he didn't have the measurements for the Akitio River, he said both had the highest flows they'd had in the last 12 months.
Tararua District Council staff were attending to a number of issues caused by the bad weather over the weekend, with some roads either closed or down to a single lane.
A slip on River Road near Akitio. Photo / Supplied
Coast Road at Akitio had been closed due to big dropouts and there had been a number of slips in the district which kept staff and suppliers busy with water and with the road network as well, Chapman said.
Another slip on River Road. Some roads around Akitio were either closed or down to single lane. Photo / Supplied
"I think we had between six and 12 crews working at any given point in time over the weekend, opening roads, making sure they were safe, setting up temporary traffic management around things that they couldn't deal with then and there."
Chapman said some of those roads had now been opened.
This slip at Franklin Road blocked at least half the road. Photo / Supplied
What impact the rain over the next few days would have on the network would depend on its intensity.
The cost of the weekend's clean-up had yet to be determined but a team of inspectors would be out checking the network over the next day or so to do a stock take, then assess and prioritise what needed to be done.
Estimates would then be submitted to Waka Kotahi for an emergency funding application for roads.
Chapman said activating the emergency operations centre had been quite good as it allowed them to bring in more resources and have a co-ordinated approach to how things were dealt with.
"That was largely set up for the water situation but it's evolved slightly with other things and other impacts, and it seems to be working really well."
Meantime, the boil water advisory was likely to remain in place for the next week as council continued to work on the water supply.
Chapman said a lot of work had been done on the water treatment plant over the weekend and it was hoped they could be treating and sending out compliant water within the next two days.
"Of course that depends on the weather gods and the rain that comes, because if the flows go up again and the turbidity levels go up again, we're back to square one."
Drinking water was still available via a tanker supplied by Fonterra at The Hub on Allardice Street. Residents needed to take their own containers.
