Huge cleanup after Gita visit
Deluges from ex-Cyclone Gita have left pockets of devastation in their wake.
One man was lucky to escape after his home was one of two wrecked by gravel and floodwaters south of Kaikōura overnight on Tuesday.
David McIlroy – who lives at at Rosy Morn between Goose Bay and Peketa on State Highway 1 – said his house was destroyed. ‘‘I was lucky to get out, but the house is completely ruined,’’ he said.
When the nearby stream flooded, water was ‘‘coming over the back and running down my drive’’. ‘‘There wasn’t much we could do. We got a wee bit out of the house, some of the important things.’’
The stream had turned into a raging torrent by nightfall.
‘‘The house was completely wrecked . . . the garage had gone, everything had flooded out.’’
The other house destroyed in the storm, further south at Kie Kie, looked much the same, said McIlroy’s friend, Julie Don. The house was still there, but water and shingle had gone through it and was ‘‘about half way up the windows so when you look out it is like looking into a fish tank’’. ‘‘It’s horrendous,’’ she said. The region received 287 millimetres of rain on Tuesday, several months worth. Kaiko¯ ura Mayor Winston Gray said there had been many slips in the Hundalee Hills area and much damage.
McIlroy said some of the damage was in areas repaired following the November 2016 earthquake. ‘‘There’s new slips, there’s old slips, there’s a lot of work for them to do again.’’
At the top of the South Island, more than 6000 Golden Bay residents remain cut off by slips on Takaka Hill. State Highway 60 was severely damaged by 16 slips between Riwaka Valley and the hill summit, with two road sections completely washed away.
The NZ Transport Agency’s Frank Porter said multiple crews were working on the road, but it was ‘‘likely to take at least several days before we’re able to reopen the road to a single lane’’.
Two Golden Bay airlines are offering services to stranded people who need to fly out.
Takaka received 204.2mm of rain during the storm, while Motueka got 180.1mm. Many Tasman residents are likely to be without power until at least today.
In Buller, access to Westport was re-established when SH6 reopened yesterday.
While Christchurch received over 70mm of rain, no flooded homes were reported.