Bereft mother tries to save rose tribute
Nelson resident Lorraine Neumann waded through the knee-high mud of a large slip covering a swathe of her section on Saturday to try and save a rose planted in memory of her late daughter, Carryn.
‘‘It’s an incredible rose,’’ said the retired GP, known during her days of practice as Dr Ballance. ‘‘I’m trying to lessen the weight on it.’’
The ‘‘beautiful pink’’ rose reminded Neumann of her daughter, who died of breast cancer in 2014.
So much was it treasured that Neumann had built a cage around it to keep the possums away.
That cage did nothing to hold back the slip, which came careering down the hill about 3am on Saturday just a few metres from Neumann’s Brook St house, smothering the shrubs, fruit trees and pavers in its path.
While some of Neumann’s neighbours described hearing a roar as the slip crashed down, it was the ‘‘beep-beep’’ of an emergency services vehicle that woke Neumann.
‘‘At 10pm [on Friday], everything was intact,’’ she said. ‘‘At 3am, I woke to the sound of an emergency truck.’’
Neumann said that although she knew more rain was forecast overnight and ‘‘everything was at its limit’’, she was not overly worried about the possibility of a slip when she went to sleep. Neumann had lived in the property for 21 years and had never experienced anything like it previously. In the past, there had been smaller slips higher up on the wooded hill and some runoff but nothing that hinted such a devastating landslide could smash through her landscaped section.
While there was water running under and to the side of her house, it was not flowing inside.
By about 10am, heavy machinery had been twice to clear the road of debris, at 3am and 8am.
As she dug into the mud covering the spot where the rose was planted, she was not feeling hopeful.
‘‘I don’t think it’s going to make it.’’