Weekend Questions over Westport’s post-flood future loom

The Westport flood caused widespread damage and exacerbated both housing and existential crises for the town. Joanne reports.

When Marcus Shenker and Harri Jensen returned to their flooded Westport home, it wasn’t just a feeling of despair, it was de´ja` vu.

It was the second time in three years their Snodgrass Rd house had been destroyed by raging waters carrying silt, mud and debris. Their home was inundated by a sea surge during ex-cyclone Fehi in 2018, and again on July 17 and 18 this year, when a flood forced more than 2000 of Westport’s 4500-odd residents to evacuate their homes.

Flood flows on the Buller River were the largest of any New Zealand river in almost 100 years and the water level at Te Kuha peaked at 12.8 metres, hours before overflowing into the Orowaiti River, which broke its banks and surged into Westport, inundating almost 500 homes. The damage cost $85.4 million, according to provisional figures by the Insurance Council, and the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) estimated it to be a one-in-60-year event.

Shenker and Jensen’s Snodgrass Rd house was one of 70 homes redstickered after the flood, with water reaching 1.25m up the walls.

‘‘It gushed over the road, and we just filled up like a fishbowl. It was crashing right over the road. It was a pond. There was mud everywhere,’’ Jensen says.

The couple spent one night in their car before being rescued by Unimog, to spend three nights in an evacuation centre in Westport’s South School.

They then stayed for about six weeks in a motel while their house had most of its gib removed and dried out with the help of industrial heaters.

They moved back to their property in mid-September, where they spent hours cleaning and setting up a makeshift kitchen and outside bath. They’ve also received donations from Westport charity NUKU of kitchen appliances, bedding and a pallet bed.

The couple say they are in it for the long haul and want to use the insurance money to rebuild the house up on raised piles.

They were relieved when the West Coast Regional Council voted unanimously to build a $10.2m stopbank and flood wall system around the whole town, defending it against both the Buller and Orowaiti rivers – but they believe raising the house is still necessary to prevent future flooding.

Jensen believes Westport’s flood solution should be ‘‘multi-faceted’’, with stopbanks as well as raised housing, and other low-lying areas red-zoned.

‘‘Some people might be better to take the house and move it and some land will have to be sacrificed, but we can go up here, I believe, and then it can go underneath. That should be fine for 50 or 100 years.’’

Westport people needed to adapt to their environment, she says.

‘‘It’s a beautiful place to live, and everyone accepts the water will come and go. We can’t stop the rivers all the time, and you just build to your environment [when deciding] what type of house you build.’’

Another Snodgrass Rd resident, Noel Burr, is not in favour of flood walls. He believes final designs and private land acquisition will cost more than the estimated $10.2m, and will still not be enough to prevent a major flood, or be able to withstand an earthquake.

‘‘Trying to fix something that has the potential to occur could be nothing more than a huge waste of time and money. We’re simply chasing our tails trying to get ready for something big when something even bigger comes along and absolutely swamps us.’’ He wants a better flood warning system and regular dredging of the riverbed, along with better maintenance of the overflow channel between the Buller and Orowaiti rivers.

Burr believes the long-term solution is to stop building in low-lying areas, and in time move the town to higher ground.

Buller mayor Jamie Cleine says the council wanted to work with the Government and insurance companies to come up with a pilot scheme that could be used in all other flood-prone towns – but was ‘‘put in our box’’.

‘‘What happened in Westport will happen in other little towns all over New Zealand as climate change kicks in. What we’re hearing from banking and insurance is that the model now is not sustainable,’’ he says.

‘‘No-one listens . . . It’s too soon, the country is not ready to have these conversations.

‘‘What’s frustrating is all we will do is we will build a wall, and we will carry on. There’s an opportunity to learn and chart a longerterm view. But now they are going to regib that same house that’s been flooded in the same place. We can’t keep doing this to ourselves.’’

He says it is a complicated conversation for insurance companies and their clients, as most policies replace damage like-for-like, so people will have to cover the difference themselves if they want to raise their foundations.

An IAG spokeswoman says raising a foundation is not covered as part of an insurance claim, but if customers take cash settlements, they can repair their property however they choose.

‘‘However, if a foundation lift is desired or requested, we will discuss this with our customer to understand how this could potentially fit within their wider repair schedule, particularly if the property has been subjected to damage from an earlier flood.’’

Cleine says that if Snodgrass Rd is red-zoned, the river could fan out naturally – but that is not on the table at present.

‘‘The effect would be it lowers the water in the whole estuary by a foot, so you don’t need a big wall.’’

However, he questions who would pay for the land if some parts of the town are red-zoned or designated for managed retreat.

‘‘Insurance companies will pay out for the house, but the land is not covered, and EQC will not pay for the land because it’s not damaged, it’s just risk-prone. So that conversation requires the Government to say, ‘Here’s a retreat option, we can pay for the land at market value’.

‘‘But no-one is having that conversation. It’s too soon. It’s huge. Westport is the tip of the iceberg. If you were to do that you’d have to do it for every little place all around New Zealand. It’s a massive discussion,’’ he says.

In the meantime, the district council has brought in a new building policy requiring minimum floor heights of 50 centimetres above the 100-year flood model.

Cleine says while the regional’s council wall will help, it will only be part of the solution. Moving to higher ground will be discussed in the new Te Tai Poutini one district plan currently being developed for the region.

Flood wall risks

The district council has identified risks with the regional council’s ring-fence concept.

It pointed out the $10.2m wall would not be high enough to protect against the projected increase in flood flow as climate change progressed.

Some people fear that in the event of a breach, water with nowhere to go will fill the town like a bathtub.

Many have questioned whether the final design will cost more than the projected $10.2m.

Cleine says the wall might require the district council upgrading its stormwater system with pumps, at a cost to the ratepayers.

‘‘Median household income is only $42,000, the lowest in the whole country, so how the hell are they going to afford this?’’

About 71 per cent of Westport ratepayers support the $10.2m plan, which means they will have to pay $77.78 a year for 25 years for every $100,000 of capital value they have.

The West Coast Regional Council’s director of operations, Randal Beal, says the main risk from any flood protection structure is its potential failure, either from a breach or from overtopping.

‘‘Flood protection structures need to be supported with good planning rules such as floor heights and zoning to mitigate the impacts of such failure.’’

The design will allow for stormwater pipes to be placed into the stopbank for drainage where required.

Beal says the $10.2m cost is peerreviewed by an experienced contractor.

Other options will be looked at for Westport to complement the flood protection scheme, like cutting a path for the Orowaiti River to flow more directly to sea, and regular riverbed dredging.

‘‘It has been conservatively estimated that 860,000 square metres of gravel is required to be removed to lower the main channel by one metre.

‘‘This is considered a very expensive option in order to maintain the benefit of dredging over a long period of time,’’ he says.

However, if a market for the gravel can be found it will consult the community.

Housing crisis

Cleine says Buller already had a housing crisis before the flood, particularly in the rental market.

There are about 50 people still in motels, 15 in motorhomes and 17 in cabins. The rest have either moved away or are staying with friends and family.

A shortage of tradespeople and accommodation is proving to be a ‘‘key barrier’’ to the recovery, he says.

He has heard some insurance companies are estimating the rebuild will not be completed until 2023.

The council had tried to lobby for a tradie village but no-one would fund it, he says.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has not yet confirmed whether it is building a temporary housing village for homeowners in the town – it is currently conducting a feasibility study into the idea.

A steering group made up of the district and regional councils has had its first meeting to present a funding bid to the Government by the end of the year, which he estimates will be ‘‘tens of millions’’.

The mayoral relief fund has received more than $500,000 in government funding and donations. It has paid out $300,000 so far, with the rest earmarked for uninsured people.

‘‘It’s really a residential housing crisis affecting a lot of people that can least afford it. These people are not resilient financially at all on the whole. Twenty per cent were uninsured, that’s around 100-plus people,’’ Cleine says.

Lorraine and Peter Williams’ home was one of 393 that were yellow-stickered after the flood.

‘‘It was like the waves of the sea rushing in. It was so quick,’’ Lorraine Williams says.

The builders and insurance company have been ‘‘wonderful’’ to deal with.

MBIE’s temporary accommodation service provided a cabin for their property after about six weeks in a motel.

The couple moved to Westport three years ago from Tokoroa, after ex-cyclone Fehi had flooded homes on their new street. Flood risk was not mentioned when they bought the property, they say.

‘‘We’ve been married 57 years, and all our stuff was out there on the footpath, waiting to be picked up and dumped. The army came and took us out, too,’’ Lorraine says.

Peter Williams does not regret moving to Westport, but describes the flood as a ‘‘disappointment’’.

‘‘We lost pretty well everything. It wasn’t pleasant.’’