Team effort restores quake-hit rotary

Coats’ farm runs about 930 cows at Emu Plains, on the north side of the Waiau River, not far from the epicentre of the first of the series of quakes.

With power off and the 60-bail rotary platform flung off its rollers, farm manager Mark Williamson had to drive the herd about 9km to milk them at a neighbouring farm before dawn on the first morning after the midnight quake.

But by Wednesday the shed was back running, despite earlier fear that it would take a week. “It’s a real success story, what you would call a team approach to problem solving.”

The quick repair was a joint effort by a far-flung crew: the Greymouth engineering firm Dispatch and Garlick, which built the platform, and the heavy-lifting experience of Ashburton’s Mid-Canterbury Building Removals, all coordinated by Rakaia Engineering.

Coats had called for help from Dispatch and Garlick early on the first morning but their arrival was delayed because Lewis Pass was closed and they had to back-track and drive the long way, through Arthurs Pass.

Michael McMillan, a director of Dispatch and Garlick, says damage was “more than twice as bad” as was first described to them.

“We had to cut off and replace the bottom of every single roller stand. As soon as the guys found that out we started manufacturing them [at the Greymouth factory] and had them finished at 11 o’clock that night, Monday night.”

On Tuesday they returned with the replacement roller stands and by Wednesday the rotary platform – its estimated 40-tonne bulk realigned on the new stands with the expertise of the Ashburton building relocater – was back in full operation.

Coats says his staff had meanwhile kept the herd milked on Tuesday night once power was back on even though the rotary platform was unusable. They milked them in groups of four and five standing at the entry/exit gates of the platform – an 18-hour overnight marathon.