By Delphine Herbert and Anna Sargent of RNZ
A farmer in the Motueka Valley has described the harrowing moment his wife got swept away in floodwaters in Nelson-Tasman.
Jamie Hovenden and his family lost everything in the extreme rain over the past two weeks, with paddocks, fences and sheds being completely washed away by the currents.
Hovenden and his wife were trying to move horses to higher ground during the first deluge two weeks ago when she got swept away.
“It was around lunchtime, so just upstream from us was a really big island of gravel in the middle of the river.
“The river came and flooded that island, diverted the river straight towards our property, that surrounded our house.”
Hovenden said the water was rising quickly.
“On our front lawn we had my daughter’s horses and I said to my wife, we need to move them to higher ground, otherwise we’re not going to be able to.
“We were walking them through the floodwater and as we’re going down, there’s like a little dip in our driveway and at that stage, the river was just like a torrent through there, but we had to move the horses.
“And as she went through the depth, she slipped in the flood water and got swept away, and there was nothing I could do.
“I had to grab the other horse and keep going and the only thing that stopped her from getting completely swept down the river was that she got caught up in the fence.”
Hovenden said it was an extremely traumatic experience and his wife was significantly bruised.
Their home was now yellow-stickered and Hovenden, his wife and two children were staying in a rented bus on their property, as they could not find accommodation suitable for their animals.
He said the community had been incredible, turning up with food, skips, a port-a-loo and even diggers to clear mud and debris from around their home.
A pear grower in Tasman, Charlton Malcolm, said his orchard next to the Motueka River was facing a mammoth cleanup after two major floods left it inundated with silt, sand and debris.
Echodale Orchard in Ngātīmoti was just getting stuck into cleaning up from flooding last month when Friday’s deluge hit, causing more extensive damage.
“The river came through roughly the same height as the first flood but with a lot more damage because all the trees were gone and the riverbank was weak. It’s just completely devastating,” Malcolm said.
He said the orchard lost about 2ha, and structural repairs could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“We have about 50,000 to 60,000 pear trees in the orchard all around the five-year mark, quite young trees, which is good because they should be able to bounce back from the flood, from being hit, but time will tell.
“The weather is looking pretty good for the next couple of weeks so we should be able to make headway again in removing the sand and debris hopefully, then we’ve just got to repair the bank and hopefully there’s not another 100-year flood again.”
Malcolm said growers across the district had been hit hard.
“There’s plenty of other growers down this river that have been hit a lot harder, in the same sort of situation as us.
“We’re going ahead and cleaning it up. It’s going to cost us a fortune really for all of us to clean this up and we’re just all hoping that the Government will give us funding or support or something to get us through for the next couple of years.”
The Government was assessing where funding might be needed in the region and how best to support it.
On June 30, the Government classified the floods as a medium-scale adverse event and made up to $100,000 available to support and co-ordinate recovery efforts for flood-affected farmers and growers.
The classification also unlocked further support like tax relief, and enabled the Ministry of Social Development to consider Rural Assistance Payments and activating Enhanced Taskforce Green.
– RNZ