Luckily the forecast rain and thunderstorms didn't eventuate on Saturday.
The weekend was very quiet which allowed us to do some document tidy up. Having the surge team and alternate controller in on the weekend, monitoring and "response ready", also meant that the local staff could have a well-deserved break. Not exactly riveting work, but document management is important for future checks on spend as well as lessons learned and continuous improvement for "the next one". Our southern surge counterparts have also delightfully informed us of AF8 being their "next one", while the north island team mentioned a small magma dome under a certain lake in the central North Island - helpfully without any competitive element. We all agreed it is what it is, and while being prepared is always wise, it is important to live each day for what it is.
One example of inter-council collaboration over the weekend related to a rural detention dam. Designed to temporarily hold overflow water, regional council staff were concerned about its integrity as it had been full for several days and was draining very slowly. As a regional council asset, they had arranged a geotech investigation and assessed the consequences of any failure as low, given it was mostly farmland with some houses further down out of harm's way. In this case there was no action for our EOC as the regional council had arranged for pumping and precautionary communications to the occupants downstream, but it was good to know we have capacity if we needed to provide any support. Another example was CHB supporting with disposal sites for waste material from Hastings District, mainly fencing material and silt.
While Central Hawkes Bay has largely shifted into recovery, other parts of Hawkes Bay are still very much operating in emergency response. Regional and other EOC sitreps (situation reports) show several small communities are still cut off and needing helicopter re-supply and welfare checks, along with schools remaining closed, major clean-ups underway, displaced people still unable to return to their homes and at least one further critical bridge in Wairoa being assessed as "failure, imminent".
An end of weekend afternoon run to download the cameras revealed that the cameras and bollards were still in place. The roading crew will be happy.
In the spirit of all small communities, there were a number of events scheduled to make the best of the weekend fine weather and celebrate a coming together after shared trauma. This is an important and common part of community healing and return to a new normal, usually coordinated and run by the very communities that have been affected.
Porangahau community-run long lunch images below, with community kai being provided throughout the week. We were quite pleased we didn't have to monitor or report any incidents at the place starting with T.
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