Tourists Stranded As Gita’s Tail Hits NZ
Thousands of tourists were still trapped in Golden Bay in New Zealand yesterday as rain caused slips, with medical supplies to be sent in by helicopter.
Civil Defence Minister Kris Faafoi and Primary Industries Minister Damien O’Connor joined Civil Defence director Sarah Stuart-Black to assess the damage in Nelson yesterday.
The state of emergency in Nelson and Tasman remained in place, despite weather conditions having eased. Local civil defence officials said Takaka was not as badly affected as anticipated.
There were some blind spots where they initially thought some people were trapped but they had sent teams out to check those areas. Takaka Hill was expected to be closed for several days. Medical supplies would be delivered to a clinic in Golden Bay by helicopter to help local supplies that were starting to get low due to the difficult access.
Emergency teams were also still on the ground in Riwaka - near Motueka - checking any flood damage to properties. The emergency operations centre said the area on the eastern side of Takaka Hill was also flooded, and teams were currently door-knocking homes to check on residents.
The centre said flooding in Motueka appeared to have receded, but people were being warned of possible contamination from sewage and stormwater overflows.
Dairy farmer Corrigan Sowman said 100ha of his farm flooded on Tuesday night, and he could not believe how quickly the river came up.
“The river peaked at about 980 cubic metres and normal flow for that river would be about 10 cubic metres for this time of the year.” During milking that night, Mr Sowman and his father watched the water gauge climb.
“My father went out around the district to check and see what was happening and it was coming up like a wall of water.”
They called the neighbours to make sure everyone knew what was happening and had stock was on higher ground, he said. “Then we stood back and watched, we had the best part of 80 to 100 hectares of the farm go under water last night to a reasonable depth, including most of my maize crop.” Mr Sowman said he had never seen the river come up that high or quickly. Tasman mayor Richard Kempthorne told Morning Report there was probably about 6000 people trapped in Golden Bay, and they may need to be evacuated by sea if the main road cannot be opened quickly. “Ferry and barge and for some people air travel, but we’ve got a dairy industry, we’ve got a population of 5000 people who need to eat and we’ve got holidaymakers, and there’s probably hundreds if not more than 1000 people in there at the moment who probably want to leave and continue with their trip,” Mr Kempthorne said.