A harvest of bitterness after disaster
Continued from p6 also struggling to see why nothing has been done sooner.
The Woodville couple are in for trying times as they wait for the deserted streets in their usually vibrant town to perk up.
Drivers are typically bypassing Woodville once they’ve been over Saddle Rd.
When Gooding and Thomson opened their shop 17 years ago they never imagined they would be down 30 per cent in profit because of gorge closures.
Bridges visited Gooding to let him know a route would be created in due course. But the minister did not say whether the road would go through Woodville or what is being done meantime.
Nevertheless, Gooding still gets up about 3.30am with a smile. His shop is his pride and joy.
Thomson, too, wants to focus on the positives. As soon as the Government finds a way to reroute traffic into the town it will be business as usual, she says.
While Woodville struggles to get traffic through its main street, Ashhurst resident Nic Green is stuck with noisy trucks rumbling past his home.
Twenty years ago the real estate agent warned Green that Saddle Rd was the alternative route to the gorge. But Green thought a day or two of gorge closures wouldn’t bother him.
Little did he know that engine brakes would serve as an alarm clock about 4.30am most days, and cats would be mown down by heavy traffic.
His faith in the Government’s promise of an alternative route within three years diminished in 2011 when his street became a motorway for 14 months. Now he’s reliving the same scenario.
The election will pass in September and Ashhurst will be forgotten again, Green says.
It’s time to return to Palmerston North, after my long and winding ride-along with truckie Marsh Graham.
The road has significantly improved in the past two weeks, since NZTA took over maintenance from surrounding councils, but it’s still hard to miss the multiplying potholes.
Marsh reckons he’s seen at least two dozen cars on the side of the road with damaged tyres from pothole mishaps. I don’t doubt this for a second.
For 48 years Richard Ririnui has called Edgecumbe home. Now he is calling it quits on the town where he raised his six children. His brick house at 20 Rata Ave is a time capsule of the April 6 devastation. Save for patches of wild grass, a red sticker and a now bulging lemon tree, it stands exactly as it did when the floodwaters subsided.
‘‘My wife has never been the same since the floods. It’s hurt her emotionally. She’ll never return to this town. We’re looking at staying in Kawerau.’’
As the rest of the country argues the merits of Jacinda Ardern and Metiria Turei in the lead-up to the election, Edgecumbe locals have concerns far closer to home: when can they return to their houses, when will insurance companies pay out; will the Government and councils take responsibility for the vulnerable stopbank. It’s enough to embitter the entire town.
Ririnui was one of 1900 residents from 493 homes evacuated from Edgecumbe as floodwaters burst through the stopbank. Four months on and half the town’s houses sit empty, most of them marked with bulging lemon trees.
Normally this fruit would be picked by children and sold in bags, turned into lemonade or squeezed over steaming fish from the local chippie. But there are no more fish ‘n’ chip picnics at Ririnui’s homestead. Nearly every possession had to be thrown out; just silt and mould and bitter lemons remain.
The real damage, though, is emotional, not financial. Stress inflamed Ririnui’s wife’s existing medical condition, leaving her in hospital. When Ririnui is not dealing with insurance companies, the earthquake commission or council offers to buy his ruined home, he drives out to be by her side at Whakatane Hospital.
‘‘She’s not doing well,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s been hard for her since the flood and yeah … Not good.’’
Ririnui stays as optimistic as he can but for many residents, the mood is as bitter as the unharvested lemons. They wait for contact from insurance companies, they wait for tradies to make progress, they wait for the council to come up with some answers, but mostly they just wait.
Sickly sweet press releases from Minister for Edgecumbe Anne Tolley claim progress is coming along nicely. ‘‘There has been a lot happening,’’ she says. ‘‘People are trying to get back to normal.’’
One of the big issues faced postflood is accommodation. ‘‘We had 129 MBIE requests for temporary accommodation after the floods,’’ she says. ‘‘We’re down to 22 now.’’
Tolley was also quick to announce a new ‘‘Edgecumbe Village’’ to be established at a Whakatane District Council-owned caravan park. After four months not a single cabin has been put on the site. ‘‘The first double bedroom is set to appear on August 8,’’ Tolley said. ‘‘Then one or two a week will drip-feed in.’’
Families with nowhere else to go make do spread out in caravans with shared cooking facilities and bathrooms. Many residents do not want to end up at the camp and say it is a further example of local and central not listening to the people they serve.
It is a feeling that goes back to the night Whakatane District Mayor Tony Bonne, wearing a hivis jacket with ‘‘Mayor’’ on the back, first addressed Edgecumbe residents after the flood.
Hundreds of them, wearing just the clothes they escaped in, filed into the Whakatane War Memorial Hall. There was no proper sound system, little information to give, no way of getting information back and it didn’t take long for them to turn on the mayor, hurl abuse and storm out.
Deputy mayor Judy Turner said that meeting was a mistake. ‘‘I think the big lesson is if you are going to hold a public meeting do it with a proper sound system and do it when you have something to say. Not a lot of information was given out that night.’’
Turner is one councillor held in regard by flood-affected residents. She didn’t need a hi-vis jacket to be seen, as she was helping coordinate residents at the evacuation centre, where she ended up spending the night there herself after being evacuated from her Ohope home.
Tolley, who was also evacuated from Ohope, spent the night at Bonne’s house tweeting from the safety of high ground about the ‘‘spectacular horizontal rain’’.
People on flat land spent the night on stretcher beds and, months on, want to stay in relative comfort near their existing homes.
Michelle and Steve McCann are in limbo. The sourness builds every time they return to their house in Puriri Cres, around the corner from 20 Rata Ave, and see no progress.
For the past four months their ‘‘normal’’ has been negotiating with their insurance company. ‘‘Our experience with our insurer has not been good,’’ Michelle says.
‘‘I think the Government needs to step in and, either pay for the cost of the repairs for insurance companies to recover or do There are times we don’t want to come back here. something.’’
Michelle wants to have her home repaired back to how it was but she believes State has been cutting corners to shave costs off their repair bill. Their house is insured for $210,000 and is valued at $280,000. The repairs their insurer wants to carry out will cost $107,000 while their builder has quoted $117,000.
‘‘We pay our premium and $10,000 is not a lot of money but they won’t budge.’’
The McCanns feel they are simply being worn down in order to make them settle for a lower amount. ‘‘It’s been stressful,’’ Steve says. ‘‘There are times we don’t want to come back here because of the way it is now.’’
A New Zealand Insurance Council spokesman said insurance ‘‘is meant to put people back into the same position they were in’’. Replacing the home’s entire damaged walls would be construed as ‘‘betterment’’ where residents have been left in an advantaged position.
However, betterment has been occurring for the uninsured, proving that not everything is sour in Edgecumbe. John Pullar and his team of volunteers at the Liveable Homes initiative have been assisting homeowners by bringing uninsured properties up to a habitable standard again.
‘‘We think of it as a hand up, not a hand-out,’’ Pullar said. ‘‘We’ve had about 20 houses to do. In some cases they have been close to total rebuilds, in others it’s only been floors and walls. It really is the community helping the community.’’
However, there is sourness spreading, and support for a classaction lawsuit is building.
Ririnui has signed up. His house is gone. His belongings are gone. His wife is in hospital and his involvement in the Edgecumbe community is diminished.
‘‘Getting back to normal’’ seems an impossible dream and words that fall on deaf ears. Whatever normal was was washed away with the floods and all that is left of it was the family lemon tree.