Wednesday, 28 July 2021, 3:52 pm
Acting Minister of Emergency Management the Hon Kris
Faafoi was in Marlborough this morning to assess the damage
to the region caused by the recent storm.
Minister
Faafoi joined a briefing at the Emergency Operations Centre
and thanked the response team, led by Incident Controller
Richard McNamara, for its work over the last ten days.
Minister Faafoi said he was aware that Marlborough’s
multi-agency emergency management response team was a
“well-oiled machine” and had been successful in
responding to and managing the storm’s immediate
impacts.
Minister Faafoi also witnessed first-hand the
serious damage to Queen Charlotte Drive at Cullen Point near
Community Scoop » Minister Faafoi Sees Damage; State Of Local Emergency Lifted scoop.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from scoop.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Report from RNZ
About 20 Breaker Bay residents refused to leave their homes last night, after people from about 70 coastal homes were told to evacuate before the high tide. Civil Defence controller Derek Baxter said this was incredibly disappointing.
Civil Defence and police crews were stationed in the area for the night, to keep people off Breaker Bay Road, assist with any late evacuations, and to obstruct any storm-watchers who didn’t live there.
Dan Neely of the Wellington Regional Emergency Management Office said emergency response teams knocked on 146 homes yesterday, to communicate the level of threat.
“It was looking like a ‘threat to life’ scenario particularly in the Breaker Bay area when you consider the dynamics that it has poor road access, poor radio communications, that it was taking place at night time.”
Donna Cross of Three Eyes Gallery lives at 127 Breaker Bay Rd, and she intended staying put until she was asked to evacuate. She said her house was on a point a long way from the breaking waves and it “looked liked a normal stormy day”. “It’s a long, long way away from my house, so I’m really just going to ignore the warning. I’ve got a two-storey house anyway - it’s not a tsunami.”
Donna Cross/Supplied
Breaker Bay Rd resident Donna Cross has no intention of leaving her home describing the weather as “just like a normal stormy day”. This was the view from the second storey of her house on Tuesday at 5pm, an hour and half after a State of Emergency was declared along that section of the road.
State of emergency declared for Wellington s south coast rnz.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from rnz.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.