Welcome to Recovery Roundup #49
This is a poignant Recovery Roundup for us as it marks the official end of the social recovery arm of our flood recovery efforts. We look at the final day for the Community Hub and the Navigator Service, as well as celebrating the Hub’s final Housie morning tea on Tuesday (plus other events over the past year or so). We also look at work under way repairing the north eastern revetment wall (Eastern Tiphead).
The doors of the Community Hub in Westport closed today for the final time and we farewelled the amazing navigators and team of support people who have made it possible for us to support the people of Westport and wider Buller.
In July 2021, it began to rain, and this seemingly common occurrence in Westport caused devastation like nothing we had seen before. Our mighty Kawatiri River burst its banks changing its course and the lives of the people in the 488 homes that it flooded. In the days and months that followed, along with more extreme flooding in February 2022, we all received phone calls to help with the recovery, and we all said yes.
The Community Hub and Navigator service was set up in August 2021. Almost 18 months later it is time for the Community Hub on Palmerston Street to close and for the Navigators to say goodbye.
Read more here
Hub Housie fills the house (for one last time)
We had a lovely crowd at the Hub on Tuesday (24 January) to enjoy the final morning tea and Housie get together.
Thanks to everyone who has supported our morning teas and has popped in to chat and share a cuppa with our Navigators along the way 🙂
In case you missed it, we have put on and/or supported a few events and initiatives along the way as part of our social recovery programme (and when COVID allowed).
- Regular Morning teas
- Two Sir John Kirwan speaking events
- Two whenua iti outdoors resilience building events for youth
- Women’s wellness day
- Christmas elf on the shelf
- Movie passes and Swim passed for flood-impacted children
- Under 5’s Community Disco
- ‘How do I feel’ children’s books
- Wavewise surf and therapy sessions
- Rise up for Buller music event
- Michal Hempseed ( recognising and understanding distress and anxiety in children)
- Red Cross psychological first aid training
- Ab Fab Event
- Operation Outreach
- Wellness survey.
Eastern Tiphead
Work preparing the eastern Tiphead for repairs is well underway.
Formally known as the north eastern revetment wall, the tiphead was overtopped and badly damaged in the July and February flooding events. Major repairs have started.
Cordons around the work site are in place, along with the cycle path diversion and traffic management signage.
The next steps will be to transplant trees into temporary tree storage for replanting at the end of the project.
The Rosco teams are digging down to the formation level (base of rock backfill) to create a clean, level area for rock to be placed upon.
The Tiphead work is part of the programme of essential infrastructure repairs being carried out post-flood.
