CCNZ Central Regional Manager Grant Radovanovich shares his personal reflections, one year on from Cyclone Gabrielle.
A year on from the devastating destruction of Cyclone Gabrielle, many are still living the day over and over again.
After attending a number of Cyclone Remembrance events on 14 February and talking to many locals and contractors its heartbreakingly obvious the wounds are still raw. Seeing more photos and videos and hearing more stories that I hadn’t heard before brings it all back for everyone.
Like a couple being stuck in their ute for 13 hours between slips, having to walk seven hours across waist-high still-moving slash and slips to find a home with people, only to get a shower and some food to trek a further 18 hours through gorse and blackberry to get home to their families. How long would it normally take them you ask? Ten minutes tops by car!
With many weather events hitting the region and a feeling like “give us a break”, many still wake with the first pitter-patters of rain on the roof and lie there anxious thinking ‘how bad will this be’? There are also so many people still waiting on buy outs, waiting on new homes, still roads and infrastructure yet to be repaired. Many roads have different significance for different people. Do they need them to get stock out, do they need them to get milk tankers in, do they need them to get to work?
We have all seen the stories of people who are still today paddling across rivers to get to work, of stock trucks adding hours to their travel to move stock around, of people still living in containers and caravans. But surely progress is being made? Yes is the answer, but not as fast as many around the country may think.
Take Hawke’s Bay for example. Some contractors have geared up expecting a glut of work, and now find themselves struggling to pay the bills while the cogs of a new Government slowly turn. Other contractors have made the move to the region in a “gold rush fever” only to find the work just isn’t happening yet. All this does is put more pressure on the little work there is out there at the moment. More positively, it was great to see a further $63 million dollars released this week for silt removal. This will most definitely help. But it only touches the surface and doesn’t go towards the repairs of any of the network. And while the Transport Recovery East Coast Alliance is set up and will make a difference, the purpose of TREC is to restore the State Highways, not the local roads.
I hope we’re getting closer, but it’s a long, hard road to recovery. Let’s not forget the regions hit by this cyclone, if you know a mate or company living and working in the regions, pick up the phone, give them a call and just ask “how are you doing?”. It might just be the call they need before things tip over for them. I received one of those calls the other day from a member from another region. It really lifted my spirits made me feel like people have not forgotten.
Will we get there? Yes I believe we will. Will it be rebuilt bigger and better? I hope so but we have a long way to go and winter is coming fast to put even more pressure on an already fragile network.
Read the CCNZ Hawke's Bay East Coast 'Contractors in Arms' cyclone response e-newsletter edition 1 - May 2023
Read the CCNZ Hawke's Bay East Coast 'Contractors in Arms' cyclone response e-newsletter edition 2 - June 2023
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