Family galvanised by Gita
‘‘There are a lot of people that are a lot worse off than us.’’ George Milne
First-time homeowners George and Jamie Milne knew it was time to evacuate when sewage roared back up the pipes into their house.
‘‘Everything in the septic system uplifted and I could hear bloop, bloop, bloop before we left, and then all of a sudden it was like a geyser coming up from the shower trap,’’ George said from his family’s partially repaired home at Riwaka, six months after they were forced to flee as extropical cyclone Gita lashed the region.
The young parents also noticed the floodwater in the yard change colour from clear to brown. ‘‘And I could smell it,’’ said George, who works for Motueka Septic Tanks.
‘‘We went and had a look out the back and you could see it just pushing the fence in and . . . the water was coming up and coming through the cat door at the back door.’’
George and Jamie fled with daughters Savanah, then aged 5, and Sienna, then 2, and the family’s two dogs. ‘‘I pretty much threw the kids from the front door in the car along with the dogs,’’ George said. They left just as Civil Defence personnel arrived to evacuate them.
For the past six months, the couple have been working tirelessly to get back into the home they bought just four months before the storm hit, living for much of that time in a caravan.
It was February 20 when the remnants of Gita slammed into the region, affecting pockets of Tasman district particularly hard, causing multiple slips and flooding waterways, including the Riuwaka River, which runs behind the Milnes’ home.
George said the flood arrived with such force that it pushed in the back fence, overwhelmed the soak pit and rushed into the back of the garage, where it knocked over two chest freezers. ‘‘I lost my venison.’’
While much of the water had drained away by the time they returned home the next day, a layer of sludge covered the floors and lower walls in the rear of the house, which sits lower than the open-plan living area and kitchen at the front. As well as having no septic system, the bore they used for their water supply was contaminated.
The family stayed with a friend for two weeks, then at a holiday park for two more before they settled in a caravan, which they parked on their property.
An extension lead was run from the house. Water was collected in five-litre containers, but they had to do their washing and bathing elsewhere. Bundling the girls into the car on a winter evening to take them to a friend’s house to bathe is not an experience Jamie misses.
A new bore was drilled a couple of months ago. For the past month, the girls had been bathed in a flexible tub in front of the fire. About three weeks ago, the family moved back into the house after the lower walls at the rear were replaced along with the floor in one bedroom.
Almost two weeks ago, a new shower was installed, but they can’t use it because there’s still no septic system. There’s no working toilet yet, either; the family use a portable loo that sits outside the back door ‘‘supplied by my boss, luckily’’, George said.
The backyard is sodden with poor drainage. George said he believed that once the septic system was fixed, landscaping would be needed, including a buildup of subsoil.
Fit and able, George and Jamie got stuck in to get the work on their home done as quickly as possible. ‘‘We used most of our contents money and money from EQC to just push it and get things started, like hiring the digger,’’ George said. ‘‘We took 19 cubic metres of sludge out of the backyard.’’
He said he did not believe they would be back in their home if they had not done so much of the work themselves.
It had been a struggle financially, but he was counting his blessings.
‘‘Through work, I see a lot of people in really bad situations and I think of ourselves as lucky, because this has brought our family closer and made us stronger. There are a lot of people that are a lot worse off than us.’’
Some residents are still dealing with the fallout from ex-tropical cyclone Gita six months after the storm hammered the region.
Beyond the Bridge Riwaka coordinator Melissa Girvin says some families are still living in homes without basic services.
George and Jamie Milne moved back into their partially repaired Riwaka home about three weeks ago but still have no septic system.
Lyn Rombouts and Max Clark, who live alongside Shaggery Creek, off Motueka River West Bank Rd, still have tonnes of debris on their land. Repair work is starting on two cottages on their property that were badly damaged by the storm.
The couple are part of a group of landowners seeking a legal opinion on whether any entity can be held accountable for some of the damage.
‘‘I’m feeling like because our voice is a rural voice, it’s incredibly small,’’ Rombouts said. ‘‘People get worn down.’’
Near Marahau, artist Tim Wraight said he recently looked back at footage taken just after the storm. ‘‘I realised how different it is now.’’
The back wall in Wraight’s bedroom caved under the force of a slip during Gita. His office and a shed were also affected.
‘‘It took two months to get back to normal,’’ he said. However, the landscaping was ‘‘going to take everybody a long time to get back together’’.
Girvin said the Beyond the Bridge group’s work would continue. ‘‘It’s in another phase now,’’ she said of post-Gita activities. ‘‘The rebuild of homes is happening.’’
Straight after the storm hit on February 20, the people behind the group started delivering food parcels and offering to help residents clean up their silt- and debris-affected properties.
Three months later, the group of volunteers expanded its support to include offers such as firewood, meal, petrol and supermarket vouchers, and weekends away. It plans to organise community yoga sessions from next term. ‘‘We’re here for the long haul,’’ Girvin said.
The group’s work had been recognised by the Ra¯ta¯ Foundation, which had approved a $10,000 grant, she said.
Tasman District Council engineering services manager Richard Kirby said the bulk of the repairs to council infrastructure had been completed. The cost of repairs to roading was likely to reach $8.5 million.
‘‘We’ve probably got about $1m to go, and it’s mainly clearing culverts,’’ he said.
Damaged bridges were repaired or work was under way to replace them including the Carter Rd bridge in Golden Bay.
The bill for river work was likely to reach about $1.6m. Most of it involved rock work around bends in the waterways.
Kirby, who also worked as recovery manager after Gita, said he believed the initial emergency response was ‘‘really good’’.
‘‘We had, I think, 12 counsellors that we’d identified from Nelson city, from Tasman district [councils], from MSD that were allocated cases of all those people who were seriously affected.’’
EQC senior adviser media relations David Miller said that at the end of last week, 231 claims had been received from Tasman district following Gita, of which 210 had been closed. More than $5.2m had been paid out.
‘‘We’re here for the long haul.’’
Melissa Girvin, Beyond the Bridge Riwaka co-ordinator