Kāinga Ora houses among worst affected in flood-hit Westport stuff.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from stuff.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Waka Kotahi NZTA
Waka Kotahi NZTA map showing road closures cutting off Nelson, at 11.20am on Sunday. ”Contractors are aiming to re-open SH1 by midday and we expect to re-open a route through to Nelson by the end of the day via SH6 and SH65. We are also assessing flood damage on SH7 north of Hanmer this morning which completes this critical link.” The damage was still being assessed, and it was too early to say when other roads would be reopened, she said. Anyone driving would need to take extra care as there was still surface flooding and debris on the roads.
Many of the hardest hit streets were those with Kāinga Ora homes, he said. Buller emergency operations centre controller Bob Dickson said building assessors were going through homes from Sunday afternoon to determine which were still habitable. People were resilient, but support would be needed long-term. “We re looking at many, many months [of work] this is a big, large-scale event.” Faafoi said the Government would provide $300,000 to the Buller District Council s mayoral fund and $100,000 to Marlborough s fund – another region affected by flooding, road closures and evacuations over the weekend. Westport s housing issues would be “one of the challenges we ll work through” once the floodwaters had receded and the damage could be better assessed.