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Ashburton
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Friday, June 21, 2013
FIRST PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 27, 1879
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College forced to postpone school ball Snow stays away but flooding aplenty More schools closed, others to stay open By Myles Hume
Horrendous weather has cast question marks over the closure of Mid Canterbury schools today, while several others decided last night they would not open. Ashburton College, Rakaia and Wakanui Schools, confirmed yesterday afternoon they would not open today due to flooding. The Methven Area Bus Group cancelled its runs last night, meaning Mount Hutt College, Our Lady of the Snows, Methven Primary and Lauriston School would remain closed for a sec-
Ashburton College has made “the extremely hard decision” to postpone its ball and after-party, causing widespread disruption for pupils and local businesses. In a letter distributed to year 12 and 13 pupils yesterday afternoon the college said they were “concerned about road conditions late at night with ice, flooding and/or snow being hazards that could affect people’s safety”. Deputy principal Helen ShoreTaylor said it was the first time the college had to postpone the ball, which now scheduled for July 12, also the last day of term. “It’s been an extremely hard decision to make, but we had a couple of people flying in from Australia, coming in from Mount Hutt College, Timaru Boys’ and Geraldine. “We don’t know what the weather is going to do with snow or flooding which could turn to ice.” The Metservice has forecasted sleety showers and a high of 5 degrees Celsius for Ashburton. The last time snow fell on the day of the Ashburton College ball is believed to have been in 2002, and the ball still went ahead. Ms Shore-Taylor said the college decided to postpone the ball and after-ball yesterday to give businesses and pupils time to change or cancel arrangements. Madison Hair studio senior stylist Justine McCormick said they had 13 appointments for this afternoon,
but the diary was now empty. “But with a bit of ringing around and a few changes we have moved them all to the 12th of July,” she said. DNA Hairdressing Ashburton also had a significant number of bookings planned for this afternoon. The studio’s senior stylist Kelly Reeves said they had moved all bookings for today forward to the new ball date. She said, fortunately, not many girls already had their hair styled. Denise Hydes, from Flowers and Balloons Ashburton, had spent a significant amount of time creating orders of corsages and button holes for ball-goers, as well as decorations for the enchanted ball theme. She said it was unfortunate the ball had been postponed but understood why. The company would honour its orders, meaning pupils would not have to make further payments. Hotel Ashburton was expecting to host 400 people for the ball, but the function room would be empty tonight. “Considering the weather conditions it’s not surprising, we were prepared for that to happen just with the weather forecast there was always that risk,” Hotel Ashburton general manager Paul Inwood said. “We had bought food for the occasion but none of that will go to waste.” He said cancellation fees were charged on a case-by-case basis, but since the college was postponing it would not have to pay any charge.
A good day for ducks
Photo Tetsuro Mitomo 200613-tm-044
While animals and humans sought shelter during yesterday’s freezing conditions, these ducks took advantage of the roadside flooding to do a spot of sightseeing on Beach Road.
in many areas, particularly in the roads leading to Wakanui School. “Yesterday was a logistical nightmare, it’s been awful, some of the buses couldn’t go on their normal routes because of flooding. The water was up around the hubs in some places and the brakes don’t work in that case. “In regards of what it has been like today and what’s been forecasted, it isn’t going to clear, my gut’s telling me no. “It’s a safety issue for the kids on the buses, you can say it’s easy to go through water but you don’t know what’s underneath it.” Ashburton College principal
Grant McMillan said the gates would remain closed today due to flooding and ceiling leaks in classrooms combined with trying road conditions which would make it difficult for pupils to get to and from college. “It’s about looking at what’s the safest and most sensible decision ... we are absolutely aware that closing schools can be really disruptive but we have tried to minimise that by making the decision early,” Mr McMillan said. Other schools around the district, particularly in urban Ashburton, were due to make a decision this morning.
Traffic making waves on one of Ashburton’s badly flooded roads. By Sue Newman The legacy of this week’s biting southerly storm is being felt in many parts of the Ashburton District as flood water rather than snow. While Ashburton received about two centimetres of snow in the early hours of Thursday morning, driving rain soon turned that snow to slush. Towards Methven, however, it was a different story with snow increasing in depth above Blands corner on the Methven Highway and continuing to fall for most of the day. Methven had received about 12 centimetres of snow by late morning when falling snow became intermittent rain. For farmers the snow meant an early start to feed-out stock, but with good reserves of dry feed on hand, that was just another, albeit chilly, chore. For Duncan Humm that meant two missions into snow covered paddocks yesterday with silage and nuts for 2000 sheep. He farms at Mt Somers and before heading down country to Springfield he’d made an early start feeding out to his deer.
ONLINE.co.nz
By Myles Hume
ond day in a row today. Last night Pearsons Coachlines, which provides transport for at least 12 of the district’s schools, was still undecided over cancelling its routes, with manager Mark Cook “leaning heavily towards saying no”. Mayfield and Mt SomersSpringburn Schools closed yesterday but would make a decision on reopening this morning. Dorie School is currently opening at 10am, but there was the possibility it could close. Mr Cook said several of the bus routes were ”borderline” yesterday, with deep surface flooding
Check out our video “We’re not concerned at the moment. We’re pretty well prepared. No time’s a good time for this but whenever these conditions are forecast you go through the same procedure,” he said. Snow was ankle deep at Springfield mid morning yesterday, but when he left Mt Somers, Mr Humm said that area seemed to have escaped the worst of the wintry blast. “It doesn’t take us long to feed out – as long as we can get the gate open.” Around Ashburton, two days of heavy rain and overnight snow
CLOSED
Ashburton College Mount Hutt College Rakaia School Wakanui School Methven Primary Our Lady of the Snows Lauriston School
Note: Pearsons Coachlines may cancel all bus runs. Other schools will make a decision this morning.
Photo Kirsty Clay 200613-KC-075
produced more water than the town’s stormwater system could handle with streets and properties flooding in many parts of town. For some Grove Street residents there was the triple whammy of an overloaded stormwater system, Carters Creek running too high to take run-off from land and paddocks at the rear of their properties flooding. Several found when daylight arrived yesterday that their back lawns and in some cases their garages were awash. A stretch of State Highway One near Grahams Road was flooded across the western side, forcing northbound traffic to choose between dodging traffic islands and oncoming traffic or creating huge water sprays. There were also several stretches of flooding on the highway north of Ashburton and on many rural roads. The Ashburton District Council’s emergency management team were in a state of readiness throughout the day, keeping one eye on the flooded streets and the other on weather predictions for today. Anticipating a big snowfall overnight, the council had deployed
heavy machinery to strategic points around the district. EA Networks was also on stand-by overnight. Emergency services manager Don Geddes said that while most of the district had got off lightly with manageable snow levels up to the foothills areas, the Ashburton Gorge appeared to have taken the brunt of the storm. By 11am yesterday, Lake Heron Station had 56 centimetres of snow with heavy falls continuing. The council was in contact with station owner Philip Todhunter, and would provide road clearing work as needed to allow heavy machinery onto the station to carve tracks so feed could be taken to stock, Mr Geddes said. In Ashburton localised flooding was being dealt with on a situation by situation basis, he said. “We’re just sitting tight here. We’re watching things very closely and it will be like this for the next 24 hours. This is not over yet.” Council assets manager Andrew Guthrie said the magnitude of the rain event was beyond the capacity of the town’s stormwater system to cope. “Most of the network dealt with it well but we had a few localised
issues. Most of those manifested on urban-rural boundaries where sheet flooding on land came into urban areas.” There was the odd event where sewage came up through gully traps and that occurred when stormwater pipes were overloaded with water and escaped through any vent available. “This doesn’t only happen in Ashburton, it happens all over New Zealand when there’s very heavy rainfall,” Mr Guthrie said. The big wet meant a busy day for Ashburton’s volunteer firefighters. They were sent scrambling from street to street, to calls from residents with flooded sections and streets. Station officer Murray Cairns said there was little the fire crews could do, but watch. “The water wasn’t draining fast enough through the stormwater drains, so we were powerless really. If there was a threat of water going into garages or houses, then we would have gone in and started lifting furniture – but there was no reason for that to happen,” he said. “It was certainly wet, but there was no major risk to any properties in Ashburton.”
Today’s weather
HIGH LOW
5
1