“Intergenerational debt” is how the Hastings mayor is describing the enormous financial impact from Cyclone Gabrielle.
The region is two years into a predicted 10-year recovery, with many residents still living in limbo, communities still cut off and no money earmarked for some broken bridges.
The cyclone ravaged Esk Valley, and while lush green fields can be spotted today, it is still bearing the scars of the devastating weather event.
Some vibrant community cul-de-sacs are now a ghostly road to nowhere. Two years on, some residents are choosing to stay put in their now category three land.
Esk Valley resident Claire O’Connor Bryant is still living in her property damaged by Cyclone Gabrielle, the building half stripped back, a constant reminder of how high the flood waters reached.
“We are sort of half and half a house, and this is throughout,” Bryant said.
With light switches hanging by the timber framing, Bryant hopes to rebuild the home. She is unable to take the buyout offer due to financial concerns.
“There’s a real fear what your future holds, so I’m making real slow calculated decisions with our lives.
“If I took a buyout I couldn’t necessarily rehome my family.”
“The area of Hawke’s Bay now has extensive flood zoning. So with regards to insurance, I can no longer get insurance here as a category three. Category one cannot get full insurance either, and a lot of houses that haven’t even been affected by Cyclone Gabrielle are no longer fully insurable.
“They are in the city limits. So when I look at my options and where I am, I mean, my house might not be pretty, but it’s solid. It’s a home base for us that we know,” Bryant said.
Waikato Gray is another Esk Valley resident wanting to live in his category three property. He now lives in a caravan with a makeshift shower beside his gutted-out home.
“I aint going nowhere, quite happy to live the rest of my life here,” Gray said.
“Well, I hope not because I am going. I just really, you know, just want to stay here because it’s us. It’s a five generation land so I’m quite happy just to get along with life it’s bad enough trying to get on with life because it’s been through a flood.”
“I want to leave this for my next generation. at the end of the day this is whakapapa land, so we really want to carry it on.”
They disagree their land should be category three – meaning there is a risk to life. Believing they can easily mitigate that with sufficient flood warnings.
Infrastructure costs mounting
The cost of recovery for the Hastings District Council alone is $1.1 billion dollars, including $800m to repair the transport network.
In the past two years up to September 2024, about $250m has been spent on the recovery.
There is a long way to go yet, with seven to ten years to fully repair and restore the area’s transport network.
Hastings Mayor Sandra Hazelhurst said it is a significant ongoing cost to ratepayers and taxpayers.
“The financial impact on our ratepayers is enormous, so that intergenerational debt, we really worry about and how we can afford to rebuild all of our communities from the cyclone and it is very worrying about the financial sustainability. That’s what that’s what keeps us awake at night,” said Hazelhurst.
“This is the conversation that we need to be having with government agencies and governments to identify, you know how we can. Affordably build back those significant bridges that reconnect our our district and our region.”
Some communities across the region remain cut off with hour-long detours in place, while the rebuild forges ahead, there are still broken bridges that remain unfunded.
“Really concerned about the enormity of the financial burden on our ratepayers.”
Hawke’s Bay buyout offers, as of February 14, 2025
- 167 eligible category three properties (Hastings + Napier).
- 98% of eligible property owners have received an offer.
- 80% of the demolition of dwellings is complete.
- Nine properties remain in the portfolio, and we are awaiting property owner decisions on whether they will accept the offer or not.
