Rain causes damage across Horowhenua
Heavy rain caused damage across the Horowhenua region over the weekend, with more rain potentially on the way.
There was significant damage to the Gladstone Rd causeway and water damage to the Shannon Library after 44.6mm of rain fell in Levin on Saturday and Sunday.
MetService forecasted more rain for the region this week, with a heavy rain watch in place for the Tararua Range.
Horowhenua District Council chief executive Monique Davidson said there had been significant damage to the temporary Gladstone Rd causeway.
The road would be closed for the rest of the week while repairs took place.
The council was in contact with impacted residents and the Trig Rd was open to residents with four-wheel-drive access.
‘‘Contractors will do a maintenance run on the Trig Rd mid-week to ensure it remains in good condition.
‘‘Repairs and maintenance are weather dependent, so may take longer if we experience additional heavy rain during the week.’’
Gladstone Rd was closed permanently last year after being plagued by slips, which led to the council deciding to build a new 1.4km road alignment bypassing the section prone to slips.
The damage over the weekend was to a temporary road that was in place while the new road was built, and there was no damage to the construction of the new road.
A slip on Mangahao Rd had been partially cleared, but there was more work to be done, and the road was open to Mangahao residents only.
The Shannon Library had also suffered water damage, and was temporarily closed as the council worked to remedy the damage.
Updates would be provided via council social media pages.
The latest update said it would be closed for the rest of the week.
Davidson said the heavy rain also had an effect on the region’s ability to treat its water.
Heavy rain could cause muddy water in the rivers, where treatment plants took water from, and this meant the intake of water was required to stop.
‘‘Due to the heavy rain over the weekend, and slips upstream of our water intakes, we stopped the intake of water in all three of our water treatment plants – Shannon, Tokomaru and Levin.’’
Levin and Shannon treatment plants were now running as normal, with Tokomaru expected to restart over the coming days depending on rainfall.
Reservoirs at the Tokomaru treatment plant were being topped up with water tankers as an interim measure.
‘‘We don’t anticipate any problems with this week’s forecasted rain, although if we experience more land slips upstream of water intakes, we may need to shut our water treatment plants down temporarily until turbidity levels decrease.’’