Hopes for no more flooding as recovery nears second year

DUNEDIN City Council staff are crossing their fingers and hoping to avoid a repeat of last year’s flooding, as the cleanup operation sits poised to enter its second year.

The storm, from July 20 to 22 last year, brought more than 100mm of rain in 24 hours, inundating more than 2000 homes in settlements south of Dunedin, as well as in Christchurch and Timaru.

The rain also caused millions of dollars’ damage to roads as slips came crashing down and road surfaces were stripped away.

Yesterday, nearly a year on from the event, council transport group manager Richard Saunders said the cleanup operation would continue well into its second year.

Council contractors had completed ‘‘well over 1000’’ repair jobs, including immediate response, cleanup and slip clearance work, he said.

That had been ‘‘a really big effort’’ by council staff and contractors, but there were still 22 larger slips left to fix around the city.

Some of that work was under way, while other repairs were yet to begin, he said.

Four bridges also still needed to be repaired or replaced, including a new structure to replace the historic Sutton bridge, he said.

The cleanup of the council’s transport network had so far cost about $10 million, of which about 75% had been paid by the NZTransport Agency, he said.

A further $5 million was expected to be required over the next year to finish the larger projects.

Mr Saunders was confident the work would be completed before the end of the 201819 year.

‘‘We’re really pleased with how that’s progressed and how quickly we have been able to get on to that work, but I think it just shows that in those major weather events that we do have in Dunedin, that it does cause significant challenges and can be very costly . . . to bring our roading network back up to the normal level of service that we provide.

‘‘We’ve got our fingers crossed we don’t get another large event this year, but it is something we know we will get again in the future.’’

In January, the Otago Daily

Times reported the estimated cost of the storm had more than doubled, from about $25 million in August last year to nearly $55 million.

The figures comprised costs incurred, or expected to be incurred, by the DCC, Otago Regional Council and NZ Transport Agency, as well as insurance claims received since the event.