Source: Radio New Zealand
A landslide at State Highway 35, Punaruku, on the way to Hicks Bay on the East Coast. Supplied
A crew of volunteers on quad bikes are delivering essentials and doing welfare checks for residents with cut off homes in the flood-hit East Cape.
The volunteers had been dropping off gas bottles and food to residents along with helping clear up rubbish and debris from the area.
Te Hemara Rau-Hihi, was one of those volunteers, he told Checkpoint, Wednesday involved a run to the dump for volunteers who went over to the rural community of Horoera to collect everyone’s rubbish.
He said he didn’t have many words to describe the devastation to the East Cape.
Slip clearing on the East Coast’s SH35 between Tikitiki and Te Araroa. Supplied/ NZTA
“Some have said it’s a war zone… I think we’re lucky it was only a whole day’s worth [of flooding], and we’ve actually had a lot of sunshine since. Right now it’s dusty.”
Rau-Hihi said many gardens which residents used to grow food had been water-logged and there was stock which hadn’t been accounted for due to fences being knocked over in the storm.
People in the area were used to cutting tracks, he said.
“We’ve got farmers and daredevils to a certain point, but we’re cutting a track as a lifeline to someone who is 90 plus years old needing their medicine and so on…”
Many of the problem areas were the same problem areas from previous storms, Rau-Hihi said, which he said was “not good enough”.
Aerial view of Onepoto, one of the areas where evacuations are underway. Supplied/Ben Green.
“The money that comes through isn’t enough. I’m no expert on roading but if stuff keeps on happening in the same places there’s something wrong there.”
The East Cape community was however, resilient, he said, and a proud community who had been in the area for generations.
“So regardless of what the weather will bring these people are going to be here for 100 more years, so it’s problem-solving on how we can limit the problems that arise.”
What the community needed most at the moment from the general public was donations, Rau-Hihi said.
“People here are not keen on putting their hand out and saying ‘I need this, I need that’, but donations count, any little resource counts. I know for a fact that it’s just not good enough what our situation at the moment is.
He noted a fund had been set up by Manaaki Matakāoa to help with essential supplies, fuel, recovery efforts and heli-transport for goods and stranded whānau and there was a Givealittle for a family who had to be rescued from their rooftop in Punaruku.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
