Living in a house stripped down to timber frames after Wairoa flooding

by Ashleigh McCaull of RNZ 

A Wairoa woman feels stranded in her home after the bottom floor of her two-storey house was left saturated by June’s floods. 

Rawinia Harker’s home was hit hard during Cyclone Gabrielle, but was hit even worse this time around. 

“I’m stuck with my house that I will probably never be able to sell or if I can, I won’t get anything for it. Which sucks because I don’t have a mortgage any more,” Harker said. 

She has decided not to fully refurbish her downstairs area because of how often it floods when it rains heavily and because of how frequent severe weather events are now becoming. 

“We’re just going to try and make it so we can hose it out for now on, we’re not rebuilding ... it’s still going to have a bedroom and a bathroom,” Harker said. 

Her downstairs area, like many homes in the area, has been stripped down to timber frames, and her outside area is still inundated with mud on her front lawn. 

She wants the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council to be held accountable for the floods damaging hundreds of homes. 

“I think they should be responsible for paying our insurance ... and can we even get insurance again after this? I doubt anyone is going to want to give us flood insurance any more,” Harker said. 

She is incredibly exhausted but praised the people who have volunteered their time in helping remove silt off her property and her builder “Steve” for helping to repair the lower floor. 

Harker said Steve helped lots of whānau in the area by repairing homes without insurance for free. 

Around 120 homes were yellow-stickered, meaning they need considerable work done before a resident can live in their property again. 

Harker said local Māori knowledge around the river bar had been ignored. 

“This has hit all the poorer houses, apart from some quite well-off people down here, but all of the houses that have been hit are Apatu Street, McLean Street and it’s all on the poorer side of town where a lot of people do own their homes, generationally own their homes and a lot of them aren’t insured,” Harker said. 

RNZ has contacted the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council on multiple occasions around the floods, but it declined to comment on the matter as it is subject to legal proceedings.