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| Buller River Westport |
Buller district mayor Jamie Cleine said “heavy rain is expected to pass through overnight and ease to just passing showers by tomorrow afternoon.”
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| Buller Emergency Management |
“The Westport community are all doing a fantastic job of evacuating.
281 houses have been visited by Police, Fire and Emergency, Westport Land Search and Rescue and our volunteers and already over 158 households have evacuated.”
Helicopters are assisting the medically vulnerable to get out of evacuation areas. He believes we are all getting through this together.
He thanked the community for moving swiftly and wanted them to keep safe.
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| Westport |
He is “comfortable that they have evacuated enough of Westport for the present event and that evacuations are now just about complete.
There were many residents who self evacuated 48-24 hours ago when Buller Emergency Management suggested that people should start evacuating. A significant number of people made the move.
“Messaging has been going out for about 2 days for people to evacuate as they had a good idea that there was going to be a flood.”
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| Help came from all over the South Island |
There has been very good forward planning and modelling with help from the MetService. Modelling suggested the Buller River would rise to a similar level as the 2021 event, "so slightly less than the July flood at this stage”.
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| Westport |
There has been some resistance from some residents to evacuate but he said “they don’t want them to become a rescue situation in the middle of the night.”
The Buller Emergency Management have a full evacuation plan right down to a full list of streets that would need to be evacuated.
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| The Army was there to help |
“The river is being monitored and it should be at its highest at 2.30 am Saturday tomorrow.”
The Prime Minister will be in Westport tomorrow and the Government has provided everything that Westport needs.
“The community have learnt well from the July event and have acted well today.”
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| Sandbags Westport |
“Emergency Services have come from all over the South Island to help. Due to the proactive start to this event by the Buller Emergency Management and media, the public have been well informed.”
The community knew what to do as many prepared themselves to evacuate like turning off the power, water and gas which made it safer for authorities and utilities in the area.
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| Westport |
“People have been told to be prepared to evacuate for three days. At 3pm Friday, officials reassessed the situation and were comfortable enough that Westport had been evacuated enough,” Cleine said.
“Anyone outside the evacuated areas who felt unsafe could choose to leave too, and anyone who could not stay with friends or family could stay at a welfare centre set up at the old Holcim cement site near Cape Foulwind” Buller Emergency Management said.
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| Buller |
Road closure updates Buller:
• State Highway 67 between Waimangaroa to Birchfield is closed due to impassable surface water.
• Bulls Road has surface water. Drive carefully.
• Derby Street to Domett Street is closed due to surface water.
• Denniston Road is one lane and caution needs to be taken due slumps on the third corner up.
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| Buller |
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