Storms keep council busy

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 12, Issue 562, 15 November 1994, Page 1

Storms keep council busy

The storms last week caused widespread damage throughout the District, including damage to the National Park water supply, the Waiouru and Raetihi sewerage systems, and to roads around the district. The water supply to National Park Township failed on 9 November, the fault believed to be brought about by a lightning strike causing electrical failure at the treatment plant. Manual operation was put into ef-

fect and the waterflow was restored to the town, but because of the distance between the treatment plant and the town about four hours elapsed between restarting the plant and the public receiving water, according to the council. 'The plant produces 40 of water per hour but the pipework requires about 250 nP of water tofill them. Normal water pressure takes about eight hours to be achieved," said council

chief executive Cliff Houston in a press statement. It is the second time this year the plant has had a problem. The sewers in Waiouru overflowed on 8 November when there was an extended period of electrical failure in the Waiouru area. This problem is believed to have worsened due to stormwater infiltration of the system. Once the electricity was restored the problem of overflowing was fixed, said Mr Houston.

Raetihi overflow The sewers in Raetihi overflowed on 9 November during the period of heavy rain in Raetihi. "This problem was definitely caused by stormwater infiltration into the system," said Mr Houston. "A large number of buildings in Raetihi have illegal stormwater connections to the sewer and are causing health concerns to the residents that have sewage flowing from gully traps on their properties." "The Council was planning to carry out inspections of all buildings in Raetihi to check on illegal stormwater connections next year but it would be appreciated if property owners disconnected stormwater flows into the sewer as soon as possible. It is likely that stormwater inspections will be carried out sooner and those property owners that are discharging stormwater into the sewer will receive notices to rectify the situation." Roads For three days there were numerous problems with fallen trees, slips, slump and surface flooding as a re-^0 sult of the storm Some roads^^r were Qj? blocked f

three days due to the widespread extent of the damage. The Ruatiti Valley roading network was severely affected by slips on Tuesday due to heavy rain in that area. There were four earthmoving machines working in the area until late in the day in an effort to open roads. For long periods of time the area was blocked in with slips. "The Council would like to thank the efforts of the contractors who turned out to assisted in atrocious conditions and worked long hours in an effort to keep roads open," said Mr Houston. More than 100 incident calls were received by Council from the public during the storm. "Some incidents were attended too late because the Council was not advised of the problem," stated Mr Houston. "The road maintenance contractor was not> able to carry out pa-^J trols of the roading k Turn to % Page 3 Ava!

Storm FROMPl network as all staff were attending to other notified damage." "In events such as this storm, residents should contact the Council as soon as possible so that problems can prioriti sed and attended to," he concluded.