Gabrielle's impact still hitting

The cyclone, which devastated the region’s rural economy in February, saw Lawson update its aftermath in a presentation to the recent Horticulture Conference in Christchurch.

He says while mental health and wellbeing is at the forefront for many agencies, massive pressures remain for the rural community.

“If anything, it’s worsening, with added pressures around seasonal finance, increased RSE labour costs and wet conditions making farm infrastructure repair difficult,” Lawson explained.

He praised the work the of Rural Support Trust and other organisations in supporting both the mental and financial health of affected farmers.

Lawson says the photos of the devastation, which he showed in his conference presentation, “do not do it justice”.

“If you haven’t visited Hawke’s Bay, I encourage you to do so. There are still tractors and cars in the fields. Thousands of cars damaged. There’s still a lot of stuff to tidy up,” he told conference goers.

“When you’re standing on a road looking up at the height of the slash that’s come down the rivers, or the roads that have been impacted, what people have been going through is unbelievable.”

“We’re all impacted in a major way and there’s billions and billions of dollars of losses out there. It’s going to take decades to recover from this.”

Lawson acknowledged the efforts of everyone from the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council and industry bodies through to the many volunteers – like the bloke he met from Tauranga who had just turned up with his digger and spent a month helping clear silt and debris.

“You know that these diggers are running at $150 an hour and people are just burning diesel 24/7, trying to get crops saved, machinery out etc.”

Sited just inland from Hastings, Lawson’s own True Earth orchard, where he grows organic blueberries, wasn’t flooded despite being on old riverbed.

However, stop banks burst further downstream.

Illustrating the scale of the disaster, Lawson said the flow in the Ngaruroro, the main river that provides water to the Hastings and Napier area, reached 7.5 million litres a second.

Normally, the flow would be between a low of 2400 and a high of only 100 thousand.

He emphasised that Gabrielle was just the biggest of a number of cyclones that had hit the east coast. It came on top of a wet spring and summer, with high rainfall continuing since then.

“Our onion growers, which is a large crop for us here in the Hawke’s Bay, only managed to get half of their crop planted last winter and spring,” he added.

“They’re very sensitive to day lengths and you can’t be planting onions, just like many other crops, all year round. So, you have a narrow window of opportunity of two months here, and that window closed.”

With yields already down, Gabrielle hit at harvest time, when onions had been lifted and were drying in the fields.

Lawson says 35% of Hawke’s Bay’s crops were impacted, with some individuals losing up to 70%.

Infrastructure In A Mess

Lawson told the conference that damage to the roading network severely cut people off for a period of many days.

Ten bridges, including two main bridges, were lost in the Hastings district alone.

He says infrastructure is still “really, really damaged” and load restrictions make it difficult to move heavy machinery – such as 16-tonne axle load sweet corn harvesters – to where they are needed.

“So, there are some issues in moving and growing our food,” Lawson explained, “It cost us about an extra 30% to get our produce to Auckland. So, extra days, extra time, extra cost – and you can’t get that back out of the marketplace.”

Lawson says no major large vegetable pack houses were lost, but many small ones were and it will take a long time to rebuild.

“One apple packhouse that was lost, that was $30 million for the machinery in just one packhouse. That’s just not replaced easily.”

A high pressure gas main (yellow) was exposed but luckily undamaged at Awatoto, at the confluence of Tutaekuri and Ngaruroro rivers. Photo Supplied.

He added that water damage had written off a lot of machinery, but even when a farmer may have gotten machinery running again, it will give trouble for years to come.

“We always knew it was going to be a marathon recovery, not a sprint recovery, although sometimes it’s really hard to see those positive incremental steps happening quickly enough.”

Lawson says there has been urgent repairs to stopbanks, but river channels and drainage networks have dramatically filled with silt, so the volumetric capacity is reduced, making the region vulnerable to further events.

He added that while farmers understood that the region was prone to flooding, because the fertility came from being on floodplain, they need floodbanks and other infrastructure to protect the land.

“The big thing is, the stopbank system failed us, the infrastructure failed us,” he explained. “It’s a cyclone, sure, but we’re paying rates, we’re putting a lot of money into it. We expect our infrastructure to work.”

Lawson believes they were “very much let down” by infrastructural deficiencies.

“That’s what’s caused the breach here and we need to get to the bottom of it. Thankfully, there’s a review panel underway.”

Note: The Hawke’s Bay Regional Council has initiated an independent review into the performance of HBRCowned and operated flood protection, control and drainage schemes and recommend future improvements.