Cyclone Gabrielle: Clear skies in Gisborne but city’s water supply critical

Gisborne is waking to clear skies but is a long way from being out of the woods after being struck hard by Cyclone Gabrielle.

The major issue for Gisborne is the city’s water supply which has been severely damaged by flooding damaging the main pipeline – and getting word out to residents to start conserving it.

There is still patchy cellphone or Internet connection in the district making communications very difficult.

Mayor Rehette Stoltz said 22,000 extra copies of the local newspaper, The Gisborne Herald, will be hand delivered to every household in the city by military personnel.

“We are in a water crisis, and we are having real difficulty getting word out about this. It will take months to fix this,” Stoltz said.

READ MORE:
* Cyclone Gabrielle live updates: Deaths, destruction and evacuations as force of storm continues
* In pictures: Cyclone Gabrielle cuts path of destruction
* Cyclone Gabrielle: Search continues for missing Auckland firefighter

“So we’ll be going back to pen and paper. It’s critical that people start using less water. That is every single person,” she said.

“Nothing aside from drinking, food preparation and a very short shower should be done with water,” she said.

The city’s water treatment plant in Waingake receives untreated water from catchments in the hills to the west of the city. It is held in a dam then travels along a 30km pipeline to the city’s reticulation network before delivering to households and businesses.

While there is plenty of water in the dam, the pipe carrying it to the city is broken in numerous places.

The city has a secondary treatment plant located at the Waipaoa River. That plant was built after widespread devastation caused by Cyclone Bola in 1988. It’s only used as a back-up in the height of summer and emergency situations.

The secondary plant is operating but even at full steam it can only supply a quarter of the city’s usual use.

About 200 people across the district were still using emergency accommodation, Stoltz said.

“What we would like people outside the region to know is that we are looking after your family here. Please rest assured that even though you may not be able to reach them, we are looking after them,” she said.

Numerous houses near the rivers in the city centre have been badly damaged.

Damian Grant is one of those who’ve seen their house inundated.

Damian has cancer and should probably be taking things easy, but for the last 30-odd hours he’s been flat out getting silt out of the lower floor of his house.

It was more than 1.5m deep up the outside walls and he hasn’t been able to even get inside to gauge the damage of the kitchen and bedrooms he recently renovated.

“It’s never been like this, ever. Nothing like this,” said the 55-year-old grandfather.

“A mate let me use a small digger yesterday and my nephews came round and we spent all day digging,” he said.

Several other places on Fitzherbert St were flooded but nearby on Vogel St is the worst. All eight houses were evacuated and are surrounded in thick silt more than a metre deep in places.

Grant, who’s lived in the house for 12 years, believes the flooding was caused by the huge piles of woody debris pinned against the bridges, causing a backflow.

Still without power, Grant was trying to get a small generator going.

“It was underwater so I’m not sure that’ll work,” he said. “I’ve never made an insurance claim in my life, not even for a car. I don’t know how that all works but we’ll need to do it obviously.