The cost of damage caused by the latest deluge and flooding in the Nelson Tasman area is expected to run into the millions, with the district’s mayor describing what was initially “a bit of a clean-up job” after last month’s event as now a “complete rebuild”.
MetService has lifted a red heavy rain warning for the Tasman district southwest of Motueka while the Nelson Tasman region remains under a state of emergency.
Up to 200mm of rain fell in some areas over Friday night into Saturday morning, about 100 homes were evacuated and thousands spent the night without power.
Speaking alongside officials, Minister for Emergency Management Mark Mitchell said the cost of the damage would be “in the millions, without a doubt”.
“There’s a lot of work going at the moment to work out exactly what the cost is and where that support is coming from.”
Mitchell thanked all the locals and NEMA who were “working bloody hard” in what was a really “difficult situation”.
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour said the challenge now was restoring water and communication networks.
“Because of the very steep terrain, the damage is spread out in a lot of places so the challenge of getting electricity back on is, it’s in lots of different places”.
Tasman District Mayor Tim King said seeing the damage from the air had been “really hard” and that there was a “lot more damage” than the last weather event.
“Some of the areas that were badly impacted last time, particularly some of the horticultural crops in Motueka Valley, have been absolutely devastated this time, so what was a bit of a clean up job is now like a complete rebuild, and that’s going to be a case right around the district.”
King, who looked to be holding back tears, said the flooding was “probably the most devastating” he had ever seen.
“It’s pretty heart-breaking when you have conversations, when you’re on the ground and there’s that kind of sense of, where do you even start?”
He said the topography meant small catchments could have sustained “really acute” damage.
“There’s big orchards and big farms affected, but there’s also small properties where pretty much their entire property has been impacted.”
Tasman District Council principal hydrologist Martin Doyle said the wet weather over the past two weeks had been “relentless”.
“We’ve had half a year’s rain in the last two weeks, and that’s really a key statistic to show how saturated everything is.”
He told 1News it was the worst he had seen in his 45 years as a hydrologist.
“It was concerning. Everything happened very quickly, and suddenly we were looking at evacuating [Tākaka ] township, and then later on Motueka township, there were a whole lot of small communities being affected quite quickly.”
While the saturation of the ground would be gone within a couple of weeks, the event had changed the landscape in many areas, he said.
“There’s places in the upper Motueka [Valley] in particular where the rivers have changed course completely. People have lost big chunks of their farms, more than half of their farms in some cases.”
