Volunteers shine in crisis after crisis

The scale of devastation left by Cyclone Gabrielle is so huge it’s almost incomprehensible. The human stories of loss are haunting. And the depth of need in the cyclone’s wake is overwhelming. On the East Coast, there are still so many areas that are yet to be reached, and so many houses, and vehicles to be checked, it will be days, if not weeks, before we know the true human toll.

Those who did escape have nothing much more than the clothes on their back. It’s an unfolding, escalating, disaster.

And then there is the long sting in the cyclone’s tail.

Once the water retreated, metres of mud were left in its place. Bridges and roads were destroyed, and there are still communities – on the Coromandel Peninsula, Wairoa and in Hawke’s Bay – that are cut off and isolated.

Thousands are homeless and even those whose homes might be saved face months of uncertainty before they can return.

So our hearts sink when we read stories about homeowners six months on from the Nelson floods who are still waiting for the local council to sign off on work that would let them return home. After the Christchurch earthquakes, EQC and insurance delays were similarly devastating for red-stickered homes. Some had to wrangle for years.

This is a story that seems to be stuck on repeat. The sense of urgency in the immediate wake of a disaster is rarely applied to the more consuming task of restoring communities and homes and livelihoods.

That must not be allowed to happen here. Lives and communities can’t be left in limbo while councils and insurers and central government bicker over the way forward.

The bill for the rebuild will be huge. But it’s a bill that has to be paid.

Sometime in the near future, meanwhile, there will be questions to answer. How could we have been this unprepared when there were so many warnings about the risks in places like Esk Valley? Why did our infrastructure fail so badly that communities have been cut off for days? How could the forestry industry be allowed to keep getting away with disastrous practices that added to the scale of destruction? And how can we keep picking ourselves up from disaster after disaster? Earthquakes, volcanoes, a mass shooting, a pandemic, floods and more floods. And now cyclones. How do we save our most stricken communities from a sense of hopelessness?

If there’s a bright spot, it’s that we are still, despite everything, blessed with strong, resilient and caring communities.

The frontline of the disaster response in Muriwai and Piha, in Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne and Wairoa, and up the Coromandel Peninsula and in Northland, was ordinary people making extraordinary sacrifices – people like volunteer firefighters Dave van Zwanenberg and Craig Stevens, who died after being trapped in a landslide.

In every community, volunteer firefighters, Civil Defence volunteers, marae helpers, surf lifesavers, St John Ambulance personnel and others – supermarket workers, farmers, digger drivers, local business owners and students – were the first faces on the scene. Many of them turned up even after losing their own homes.

In my own community, I know how much those volunteers mean. We’ve had need for the local volunteer fire brigade too often – car crashes outside our front gate, a neighbour’s fire – one firefighter joked to me about earning Frequent Flyer points.

They are always there within minutes – first on the scene before police or ambulance, despite the fact that they all have jobs, or their own businesses to run. It’s the same through most of New Zealand. There are 12,000 volunteer firefighters and only 1700 paid firefighters. We simply couldn’t do without them.

Nor could we do without the thousands of people who helped sandbag their neighbours’ homes, who cooked and gifted clothes and food and shelter for those made homeless.

We’ve talked a lot lately about how we’ve become more polarised and divided as a society in recent years.

It’s sad that it takes a tragedy like this to reassure us that the bonds that hold us together are still strong.

How could the forestry industry be allowed to keep getting away with disastrous practices that added to the scale of destruction?