Rotorua clean-up underway but council warning about streams remains

Rotorua District Council staff and contactors have coped well with a raft of weather related problems across the district during the weekend’s big storm and most efforts today were part of a systematic clean-up and inspection phase.

Rainfall records show Rotorua received around 220mm of rain over the weekend – 25mm on Saturday and 195mm on Sunday.

Meanwhile a warning remains in place for residents to avoid swimming or taking fish from streams passing through urban areas and where they discharge into Lake Rotorua, until Wednesday.

Council utilities operations manager Eric Cawte says this is a precautionary measure because of the possibility of a short period of contamination resulting from waste water overflows at the city wastewater treatment plant and at some sewer pump stations during the peak of heavy rain on Sunday.

Toi Te Ora Public Health Service routinely recommends that people avoid swimming in rivers, streams and harbour areas for 48 hours after heavy rain, as a public health precaution.

Mr Cawte also asked residents in the eastern part of Rotorua to be conservative with their use of water as power had been disrupted in the area resulting in the main eastern reservoir getting down to just 16% of water capacity overnight.

“We have had the power out in Rotoma and Rotoiti as well and this has affected our reservoir water levels in that area too, so conservative water use by residents until water levels return to normal would be helpful.

RDC works manager Peter Dine said the council had four road crews mobilised over the weekend dealing with problems on local roads. He said most callouts were made during the day on Sunday and into last night.

Over the weekend they attended to 57 incidents of fallen trees, 15 slips and 27 flooding problems.

The major slips attended to were on Mountain Road, Whirinaki Valley Road and Poutakataka Road.

Surface flooding caused the closure of the Lake Rd/Tarewa Rd intersection at one stage yesterday and part of Ford Rd had to be reduced to single lane because of flood water covering part of the road.

Problems with fallen trees and branches occurred in various locations around the city and in rural areas with some large trees blocking roads until they could be cleared.

This morning (Monday) the council had six crews working around the district some of which had been attending to problems with fallen trees blocking Malfroy Rd and Hamurana Rd, and flooding on Tawhero Street and South Road in Mamaku.

They were also carrying out inspections of the city’s infrastructure network, and clean-up work right across the district.

Other council crews had tended to flooding on properties and had assisted with sandbagging some homes in Tarewa Rd. Castlecorp business manager Mijo Katavic said that his staff had been kept busy responding to numerous calls about sewers backing up in Elizabeth, Hinemoa and Eruera streets, and dealing with fallen trees and branches.

“We also had to close The Redwoods at one stage as falling trees and branches meant there was a serious safety risk in the forest.”

On the district's state highways council crews had dealt with relatively minor slips and while there had been some surface flooding, no major disruptions has occurred.

RDC Infrastructure Services group manager Nico Claassen said Rotorua had coped extremely well with what was undoubtedly a serious weather event with the potential for major problems.

“Council crews had been very active throughout the weekend and had put a huge effort into responding to problems as they were reported. I’m proud of what they achieved in difficult conditions and I’m very pleased that our infrastructure had also coped remarkably well.

Mr Claassen also paid tribute to Rotorua residents who he said had clearly treated the weather bomb with respect and taken precautions to minimise the storm impacting on them.

“It appears that people have largely acted sensibly and not put themselves or others at risk, and as a result we have come through this storm without much in the way of serious problems.