A state of emergency declaration allows for emergency and welfare support including setting up evacuation centres for hard-hit places like the Whangaruru area and Ōakura. Photo / Ngatiwai Trust Board
Whangārei’s mayor would like to see the district’s state of emergency lifted tomorrow afternoon.
Emergency response leaders will review the district’s state of emergency tomorrow as its week-long tenure expires.
It was put in place from 4pm on January 20 for seven days.
Ken Couper said his inclination would be to lift the state of emergency, so a sense of normality can start to return.
But he said that was dependent on what emergency response leaders decided.
The state of emergency was declared because of the severe weather impacts on the north‑east coast – including Whangaruru, Ōakura and surrounding areas.
The area suffered huge damage after a weather bomb which brought more than a summer’s worth of rain overnight on the weekend of January 17 and 18.
The declaration allows authorities to override normal rules to evacuate at-risk communities, control access and roads, keep people out of unsafe buildings and act quickly without red tape.
Couper said work was continuing in the Whangārei district emergency operations centre and out on the district’s hard-hit northeast coast, even though it was Auckland Northland Anniversary Day.
This work included civil defence welfare checks on affected communities.
Twenty-two homes have been evacuated at Ōakura.
Couper has brought in a formal designation under the Building Act 2004 for the Whangārei District Council’s Hikurangi–Coastal Ward to help manage ongoing risks to people from buildings affected by flooding and land instability as a result of the severe weather.
Building inspectors had then been able to start checking damaged properties.
Red or yellow stickers have been placed on several properties meaning homeowners cannot go back to them, or in the case of yellow stickers do so only under supervision.
There are fines of up to $200,000 for anybody who breaks the rules that red or yellow stickered houses have in place.
Meanwhile, those using the fragile, narrow sole southern access into the storm-hit Whangaruru coast have been asked to slow down and consider others.
Council infrastructure chair Brad Flower said the winding gravel Kaiikanui Rd was holding up considering the significant increase in its traffic since the Helena Bay hill slip overnight Wednesday .
Most were driving responsibly, but he said some people needed to slow down.
The road’s basically one lane or one and a half lanes for quite a bit of it, Flower said.
“If you crash you’re either going to go up a bank, or over a bank.
“If you don’t need to go on that road don’t, and if you do, slow down.
“We don’t want to have to have that road blocked by attending to an accident or repairing the surface.”
Flower said people travelling fast spread gravel into ditches, increased corrugations and made potholes.
He said it had been heartening to see locals being sensible.
There are checkpoints at the Whangārei end of the road checking who is entering the flood-hit area.
Traffic lights were put in place on Sunday along 800m of the road’s narrowest and most dangerous section.
The road was reserved for residents and emergency services only.
Bach owners were being asked to use the northern exit out of the flood-hit area. Access via this option’s now repaired Ngaiotonga Bridge had returned on Saturday.
Northland MP Grant McCallum spent Saturday with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell visiting Mokau Marae.
McCallum said what he saw was a community well prepared.
“The lessons from Gabrielle have stood communities like the Whangaruru area in good stead.”
However, he acknowledged there was more to be done.
Since becoming a candidate, McCallum said events like Cyclone Gabrielle, the Auckland floods, and the weather event at Mangawhai in 2023 had occurred.
They were not only frequent, but more intense, he said.
“Some of the figures that I was quoted, that for two hours in a row it rained 80mls an hour,” he said.
“That is a huge amount of rain in two hours, and it’s preparing communities to withstand that, and actually now looking back and saying, are there things we can do to make where we live more resilient?”
McCallum said that could include looking at whether there was more than one route into certain areas.
He used Kaiikanui Rd as an example.
The Helena Bay Hill slip has left residents utilising the narrow and windy route.
Questions like how such infrastructure could be made more resilient and usable would be asked and worked with councils on, he said.
McCallum expressed disappointment about the flooding at Whakapara as well.
The area, mainly farmland, was known to flood in heavy rain.
“We need our state highway network, particularly State Highway 1 to be more resilient than that,” he said.
“As a local MP I don’t think it’s acceptable, and we need to find a solution for that area.”
McCallum said he’d already approached the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi about the issue.
He also questioned whether more could be done about warning systems.
The downpours last weekend took many by surprise.
“No one predicted this, that I have seen,” he said.
McCallum said nature could be a “pretty tough beast”.
At the moment, the immediate concern for many in the Whangaruru area was getting kids to school, particularly those secondary-aged.
He said the Ministry of Education was looking at solutions.
■ LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.