HB deployment

After a relatively quiet Sunday and another field orientation our surge team is feeling in the groove now. The CDEM people call this “rhythm” which changes depending on the event and response.

Many of us involved in the COVID emergency response will know what I mean which I say “long covid”.  In Waipa we had  2 full CDEM shifts working over several several weeks during COVID lock down 1.  It was a slow grind rhythm and an emergency of a very different kind with our focus on rolling welfare needs (food, medicine and medical needs) for those in isolation.

The recent Auckland Anniversary event in Waitomo was a short response lasting a few days. Very necessary for a rapid response to help the households that flooded, then quickly de-escalated as the scale was small and water receded quickly.

Gabrielle is different again for different parts of the Hawkes Bay, and the country. The phase 1  rapid response and urgent need for saving lives has passed and in our area we have moved into phase 2 supporting some minor isolated communities and the next phase of planning for recovery.

For Central Hawkes Bay (CHB) at least, we are still in an emergency but also partly returning back to BAU. This is important for a sense of normalcy and also so a small council with limited capacity for a long stretch can change gear.

This is also a delicate space as most people go about daily lives in the sun only inconvenienced by road closures, while others (luckily not many in this district) remain displaced from their homes. It’s this period that we start seeing community division, frustrations and a handful of people challenging any form of authority, either because they are affected and don’t understand the recovery will take time and start feeling the strain,  or they are unaffected personally and feel a sense of entitlement to exercise their rights e.g. to drive on closed roads.

There was some looting here early on with rural properties being burgled, during the emergency response, while farmers had to vacate their houses from roofs due to the Waipawa River busting a stop bank and literally changing course, to where it used to flow. Whatever the motivation to kick people when they are down this group was caught. So now comms, messaging and local leadership will become just as important as diggers and orange jackets.

Hawkes Bay compromised roads.  Central Hawkes Bay is the light shade. She’s a pretty big job…

The following series shows the breach of the Waipawa river stop bank above Waipawa town.  This and several other breaches caused wet carpets in half the town, and  downstream where the river changes its course, wet roofs in a couple of houses, roads and bridges washed out and a new lake where there was once cropping. As heard yesterday “river flats are fertile for a reason”…

And the cause of the breach…this bridge and the railway line survived, largely due to CHB having the land stability of the Ruahine ranges rather than forestry in the upper catchments.