Communities stranded by road closure

Almost two weeks after Cyclone Gabrielle, widespread damage continues to cause disruption, with many rural residents still without power or hampered by road closures and slips.

One of the biggest frustrations is being caused by the closure of Ahuroa Road between Puhoi and Ahuroa. AT has completely closed a 750-metre stretch of the road from just west of J Tolhopf Road, blocking it with containers and bollards while engineers assess volatile slips.

As a result, through traffic is having to detour via SH1, Warkworth and Woodcocks/West Coast Road. However, that route was closed as well last week for repairs on West Coast Road, meaning drivers could only travel west and south, via Silverdale.

Ahuroa residents say this has effectively cut them off from everything they need, from work and shops to medical providers and petrol stations.

The road closure is causing most stress for Ahuroa School, where students and some staff are having to travel for more than an hour each way, instead of a previous 15-minute bus ride from Puhoi.

Last week, the 80-student school had no power, no buses and no email, with principal Terry Taylor unable to contact the families of several students. In a message to parents, he said last week he was trying to find temporary solutions with the Ministry of Education, including allowing students to be temporarily enrolled at other schools.

“At this stage we remain in an emergency situation and lateral thinking, coupled with common sense, is required,” he said.

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Communities stranded by road closure

“It is difficult to predict how long it will take to remedy the situation until we get reliable communication.”

Ahuroa resident Rhys Joule agreed that the most frustrating aspect of the road closures was a lack of information or updates from Auckland Transport.

“Although we are very distressed at being cut off, our hearts go out to those far more severely impacted. We also accept that the solution to the road damage will not be a simple fix,” he said. “The problem and thing that causes the most stress is that the key to our salvation is AT.

“In the two weeks between the weather events, we had virtually no contact from AT regards the Ahuroa Road closure. No sense of what the plan was, what the comms plan was going to be. We even had to chase AT to put signage up at the entrance points to Ahuroa Road so people would know they couldn’t get through.”

Joule said regular, meaningful updates were needed, as well as a reassurance that fixing and reopening Ahuroa Road was a priority for AT – at present, the community felt abandoned.

An AT spokesperson said he had asked for an update from recovery staff, but nothing specific to Ahuroa Road had been received as Mahurangi Matters went to press – just the following statement, taken from the AT website:

“We know that there are some locations that are causing inconvenience to residents due to detours and closed roads. We want to reassure you that we’ve deployed as many resources as possible to work on these sites to enable access as soon as possible, but there are roads that will take significant time to fully repair. We ask for your patience as we have many sites across from page 1 the region that have significant damage.” Rodney Councillor Greg Sayers could also get no joy when he asked for an AT liaison to meet with local residents. He was reminded that in a National State of Emergency, only essential travel should be being undertaken.

He was told, “Our emergency services, contractors and other responders, who are all working around the clock, need a break to try and get roads made safe so that they are passable again for the essential movement of goods.”

Sayers said that unfortunately, this kind of response only galvanised residents’ impression that AT was a “desk-bound, arrogant, non-customer-focused organisation because they have made any customer contact the responsibility of their contractors, rather than front footing answers to the community themselves”.