Winter storm causes widespread roading damage

Cooks Tooth Rd in CHB, showing slip damage after this month's heavy rainfall.

Central Hawke's Bay did not escape the effects of the winter storm that closed the Napier Taupo Rd earlier this month, with heavy rainfall playing havoc with a large number of rural roads across the district.

On July 13 and 14, the severe storm caused flooding and damage to more than 200 sites across the roading network, including slips over and beneath roads, in areas such as Cooks Tooth Rd, Porangahau Rd and flooding at Taylors Slab at Ongaonga.

Several roads were closed by high water and some properties were threatened with flooding.

At a CHB District Council finance and planning committee yesterday to confirm how to fund the repairs, land transport manager Shawn McKinley compared this month's downpours to the April 2011 storm that hit Central Hawke's Bay's coastal areas, and told councillors the cost of the damage at this point was about $1.3 million.

"This was not like 2011 which cost $9.5m - but this was across about 250 to 260 sites and the damage caused is restricting the full road usage and negatively impacting movement of freight."

Repair work was s continuing, and he asked the council to consider which fund to use to pay for its $470,668 share.

This choice was between the Adverse Events Fund which had $677,107, the Catastrophic Fund which had $2,464,820 or the Land Transport Emergency Fund of which $551,883 was available.

Mr McKinley advised the council that using the Adverse Events or Catastrophic Funds risked depleting these and would reduce funds available for future adverse events.

As such, he recommended using the Land Transport Fund, and the council agreed.

Yesterday crews were out fixing Titoki Rd bridge at Omakere, and structural repairs to other roads were ongoing.