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Six months on from Cyclone Gabrielle and the Wairoa region is still suffering. Photo Credit: NZTA.
Six months on from Cyclone Gabrielle, despite everyone’s best efforts there is seemingly no end to the problems.
Wairoa mayor Craig Little says the scars and wounds around Wairoa are far from healed and almost on a daily basis more are occurring.
What the future holds is anyone’s guess.
“We are doing our best, but we can’t beat the weather,” says the frustrated mayor.
Little is full of praise for the work of the transport agency, Waka Kotahi, which he says is doing its best. However, most of the repairs are temporary and it’s been a case of getting roads open rather than doing major repairs.
“There are three major bridges that need repairing and in one case, every time we start to do the repairs, the rain comes and we have to stop work,” Little told Rural News.
“Just recently we had three new major slips come down in the space of a few days. It is so soul destroying because we do lots of hard work and then there is another incident and we are back to square one.”
The other worry in the minds of many farmers, according to Little, is what the summer will bring. He says some fear a drought similar to what happened after Cyclone Bola back in 1988, which was devastating for the region.
As well as the woes of the rural community, the mayor and his council are still coming to grips with dealing with the people in the town who lost their homes. He says the government funding for flood protection is most welcome and will give people certainty that they can rebuild and have a secure future.
Little believes that if this same package was offered after Cyclone Bola in the 1980s there would not have been the same degree of flood damage that there was with Gabrielle.
The recent East Coast Farming Expo, held over two days at Wairoa, offered an insight into the current state of agriculture on the east of the North Island, at a time when the locals are remembering the second anniversary of Cyclone Gabrielle.
Many companies are financially mortally wounded by the effects of Cyclone Gabrielle and may have to sell up because of their high debt levels.
Dean Smith has been in the role of CEO of Summerfruit NZ for about four months, having succeeded Kate Hellstrom at the end of September.
Just on two years ago Cyclone Gabrielle wreaked havoc in Hawke's Bay causing massive damage to NZ's largest apple growing region.
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