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Jamie Turner/Supplied
A large slide of mud and debris flowed down Bob’s Peak from the Skyline gondola, inundated Queenstown cemetery. (File photo)
Queenstown’s state of emergency was lifted on Saturday afternoon after the region, and Southland, were hammered by heavy rain on Friday which saw about a dozen houses being assessed by engineers.
In a Facebook post, Queenstown Lakes District mayor Glyn Lewers he is terminating the local state of emergency.
“I am now terminating the state of local emergency with regard to Queenstown, within the Otago CDEM Group area, and giving notice of a [28 day] transition period over Queenstown.”
A state of emergency was declared for the Queenstown Lakes District by Lewers at 6.30am on Friday which saw heavy rain bring down slips and more than 100 people evacuated.
There remains no public access to Queenstown Cemetery or Ben Lomond Reserve due to safety reasons, while the QLDC Parks and Reserves team liase closely with religious groups and iwi in order to update those concerned about their loved ones graves.
Lewers, earlier on Staurday, said they have “about a dozen” houses around Reavers Lane that are being assessed at the moment and people can’t be let in until that assessment is done.
They are awaiting further clarification from engineers on earthworks needed to divert the flow of water and once that’s sorted “some people may be able to go back into their houses”.
Once that work is completed, there will be further assessment on those houses. Ten properties have been red-stickered and two have been yellow-stickered.
The cordon at Brecon St has been lifted and is now open to traffic at 12pm on Saturday and all main roads have reopened with the exception of Glenorchy-Queenstown Rd between One Mile roundabout and Sunshine Bay.
A detour has been put in place for this area.
Contractors, Alliance and Skyline are helping out to clean up the “pretty large” piles of logs, slit and rocks that have come down from Bob’s Peak.
An earlier Facebook post by the council said initially 55 people were evacuated and there are now 15 people who can’t return to their homes.
Lewers said some of the homes that were evacuated, the owners had been on holiday and late last night there were only three families that didn’t have a place to stay.
Abigail Wigram/Supplied
Mud and debris from the flooding on Friday seen in central Queenstown. (File photo)
“They spent some time in the council offices yesterday and I had a good chat with them, and I must say they were extremely patient.”
Lewers said he couldn’t believe “how nice” these families were given the situation they were in.
The families were put in hotel rooms last night and the emergency management team are working “very hard” to ensure no families are caught short with accomodation.
Lewers said two years ago the council did a “fair bit of work” about debris flow in areas like The Gorge Rd and Reavers Lane but said these things do take a “bit of time”.
Everything was “pretty much” under control now and the affected areas were “really localised”, Lewers said.
“So the rest of the town, she’s all cleaned up, she’s ready to go.”
A state of emergency was the second thing to plague Queenstown this week after cases of cryptosporidium was found in the community.
Debbie Jamieson/Stuff
Queenstown Lakes District Council Mayor Glyn Lewers and property and infrastructure general manager Tony Avery answer media questions over a cryptosporidium outbreak on Thursday. (File photo)
Large parts of Queenstown are under a boil water notice and central businesses face sourcing water from tanks for months as the council work towards a $30 million solution.
Lewers said on Friday the water team got 25,000 litres split into two tanks installed in a carpark in the CBD for businesses to use. There is another tanker installed in the CBD on a reserve on the lakefront for tourists to “come and fill their bottles”.
Another two tankers totalling 25,000 litres have been put in the Queenstown Event Centre in Frankton.
Dan Gordon, mayor of Waimakariri, sent his support to Lewers yesterday and in his text he told Lewers they’ve “released some UV equipment for Queenstown”.
The local government community pulls together quite well when things happen, Lewers said.
A timing plan for when they can first get UV filters into water systems around the district will be done by the end of this week.
The best case scenario was that people were boiling water for eight weeks and worst case three months. But the council is “aiming to get it in as quickly as we possibly can”.
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