Mayoral column - on the anniversary of Cyclone Gabrielle

This time last year, we were looking at blue skies after an intense night of planning, evacuations and watching our shores closely for some pretty dire predictions of storm surges and inundation. Cyclone Gabrielle had passed and caused some damage but to our relief, not the worst we had been expecting.

But our relief was short-lived. News started coming through from Hawkes Bay and Tairawhiti. It became clear that Cyclone Gabrielle had skimmed past us to do her worst around the coast.

The destruction was awful – tragic loss of life, whole communities cut off, houses and livelihoods wiped out.

Today marks a year since that event and our neighbours are still working through the mess the cyclone left behind.

They have done incredible work and achieved so much. But there is still so much more to get through.

I said at the time, we would be there for our neighbours all through their recovery, not just for the initial clean-up. We joined the LGNZ national campaign and offered our support directly to a community and council dear to our heart, Wairoa.

I have been in frequent contact with the Wairoa Mayor, offering our aroha, council-to-council help, sharing resources and pitching in small ways to help towards recovery. I also visited the region over the Christmas break and saw for myself both the massive scale of the damage and the strength and resilience of the community as they continue to work through clean-up and repairs. Special shout-out to all the work done at Makaraka School (where I started my own schooling just a few short years ago!).

Community-to-community support has also been strong and there has been practical local action to move needed items between our two communities.

So it is a year on and there is still so much to do – I continue to support the fundraising efforts for the Wairoa Mayoral Relief fund.