Muriwai Lodge Re-emerges: Disaster Recovery and Community Restoration. Ep.11 Precipice Podcast.

I chat to Clare Bradley in this episode. Clare is the owner of the Muriwai Lodge, and she was the joint chair of MCA at the time of the cyclone. She is a resident of Muriwai and was not allowed to live in her home in Domain Crescent for 9 months after the cyclone. 

We discuss the impact on the lodge and her home on the night, the success of many community initiatives in the recovery and restoration period, the part that Auckland council played, dealing with MPs to get the support we needed, the cordons and how MCA could support the community with fundraising and communication.

Clare talks about the stages of reopening the Muriwai Lodge and Motutara Road, including a blessing ceremony guided by iwi, how the cyclone affected people and learnings around insurance  

Clare comments on where we’re at as a community and a nation 3 years on and what she thinks has been the hardest part of recovery.

Precipice launched on July 20th 2026. 3 seasons will be released across 4 weeks and then the full series of 26 episodes will be available for you to listen to at your leisure.

Season 1: Cyclone Gabrielle Hits Muriwai 

Season 2: Disaster Recovery and Community Restoration                     

Season 3: Community Initiatives after a Cyclone

Listen on You Tube  https://www.youtube.com/@precipicepodcast

Follow on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/precipicepodcast

Hosted and produced by Mandy Jakich. Commissioned and funded by Muriwai Community Association, supported by the Auckland Council Recovery Office.

Transcript

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Mandy 0:10

On the 13th of February 2023, the small, vibrant coastal community of Mutterwai Beach, northwest of Auckland, New Zealand, was ripped apart by Sonic Clone Gabrielle. This podcast captures what happened on the night and in the days, months and years that followed. Join me, Mandy Yaku, as I speak to fellow Murawai locals, volunteers, and those involved in the emergency and recovery effort. Hear about their experiences of lost and upheaval, the impact on their lives, and the community-led initiatives that helped Mudouai find a way forward. Welcome to Precipice. I talked to Claire Bradley in this episode. Claire is the owner of the Mudowai Lodge and she was the joint chair of Midwai Community Association at the time of the cyclone. She is a resident of Mirawai and was not allowed to live in her home in Domain Crescent for nine months after the cyclone. We discussed the impact on the lodge and her home on the night, the success of many community initiatives in the recovery and restoration period, the part that Auckland Council played. She talks about dealing with MPs to get the support we needed.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

And so living behind a cordon was nobody's idea of a good time, really.

Mandy 1:49

And how Murawai Community Association could support the community with fundraising and communication. Claire talks about the stages of reopening the Murawai Lodge and Mototara Road, including a blessing ceremony guided by Ewe, how the cyclone affected people.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

And everybody now on the surface looks like they're just getting on with their lives. But it takes very little to make people jittery.

Mandy 2:19

And learnings around insurance. Claire comments on where we're at as a community and a nation three years on, and what she thinks has been the hardest part of recovery.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

So I'm Claire Bradley. We bought land here in Muriwai in 2012. And we moved out here and rented in 2014 while we decided what we would build on the land. And at that stage we were still working in jobs in the city, so we were commuting back from Muriwai and into the city every day. And we decided after about six months that we would build our home here. And we began the building process, which was fantastic and built a really lovely home that we love living in every day in Domain Crescent. And that build was completed at the beginning of 2016. So we've been living in the house now for just over ten years. And my husband's a lawyer, as am I, by training. And he's still working, but he now works from home. And he started working from home at the end of 2022. And I guess what we're talking about today is what happened at the beginning of 2023. But just a little bit more. In the middle of 2021, I had been working uh as a l uh as the chief executive of a private tertiary education provider for international students. So I've been doing that job for about five years. At the beginning of 2020. No, 2020 when COVID hit. And so when the borders closed, that job became unsustainable, and I spent the next couple of years more or less winding down that business, which meant closing four campuses in four different locations across New Zealand and making about 350 staff redundant on a term-by-term basis as the students completed their qualifications and either went home if they could get home or into work in New Zealand where they could find it. And so in the middle of 2021, the Muruba Lodge went on the market again. It had been sold or it had been under contract a couple of years before that, but it had essentially been dormant for a couple of years. So we bought that property because we're optimists. And there was quite a lot of work to do to get it open again and running, offering short-term accommodation and providing some space in the ground floor of the lodge building for hospitality or retail. And so by the end of 2021, um we had Rose, who runs the little cool store, and the Steele brothers and Damien, who run the Murrui Delhi ready to go and bookings for the accommodation, and we opened in December 2021. And of course, we're in Auckland, so there were still lockdowns and there were COVID requirements and mandatory safety measures that needed to be taken. But that didn't seem to cause any issue, and we were off. And so through 2022, it's fair to say, you know, there were stops and starts as you know we went in and out of lockdown through that year. Um, but things were pretty much coming right, and bookings were growing for the summer of 2022 and 23 until the 13th of February 2023, uh, when the cyclone caused the land slips at Mudruai. And the first slip into Maine Crescent occurred just four doors up from where we live. And while the house wasn't damaged and we didn't think it was threatened, we were, of course, evacuated on the night, and we were not allowed to live in it for a further nine months after that. And of course, that is where Brian was working, and of course I worked from there as well, and at the lodge building, but both the house and the lodge building, the lodge site, um, were in a red zone and red stickered, and we didn't have access to them for some time. And I guess it's those first few weeks after the cyclone that were the most stressful. I mean, obviously we had a lot of our retirement um savings invested in the lodge and in the house. And at that stage there was no damage to the house, and there was very little material damage to the insured part of the lodge site. Although, as luck would have it, the uninsured part of the lodge site, the four cabins, the concrete block amenity unit with showers and toilets in it on the northernmost part of the site was completely destroyed by a slip. And we didn't have insurance on that, and there wasn't damage to any of the other properties, so there was no insurance response to the fact that we might never be able to occupy those properties again. That was worrisome and that's a huge understatement. Um it was really stressful. We were traumatized after the the night in question, anyway. Um leaving your home pretty much in what you stand up in, gathering only well, we didn't gather anything really. We just left. We were leaving as the Fenz guys came to the house to say get out. And of course we were being told to go to the surf club, but there was no way we could get to the surf club. It was the access was flooded, and we were already getting messages indicating that things weren't going too well there. But at the same time, we got a message from some friends on OIA Road, and they said, Come to us, and we went to them, and we took our neighbours um with us, or they followed us and met other people there, and they did really provide a haven for us that night. So it was my husband and myself, um, our dog and our son who was visiting from the UK. So we were grateful to have Patrick there just because it's always a comfort to have additional people to support you in that time. And then we had to set about finding somewhere to live. Initially we couldn't find anything anywhere in Muriwai. It was very hard to move away from the community when the damage was so significant and people were so displaced. And we were worried about the house, about the cat that we hadn't been able to get on the night, and about the lodge building. I knew everybody at the lodge was safe, all the people, the guests who'd been there on the night, um, the residents in the cabins that were completely destroyed on the night. I knew they were all safe. Um, but the uncertainty of not knowing when we would be able to get access to it, um, what was going to happen, and how we were going to manage our way back from it was huge. Yes, so we did find somewhere to live, and eventually we were able to move to rented accommodation on O'I Road that belonged to some friends of ours, and that was a beautiful place, and it was a real comfort to be back close to the community and to be able to be involved in some of the planning that was necessary and the engagement with agencies, uh, council, um local and national um government agencies and supporting people who really had l some of whom had lost everything. And while we were in danger of losing what might be constituted as everything, um, we actually hadn't lost everything. Um the the damage uh to the lodge site, particularly when they were excavating to try and find Dave and Craig was pretty huge. Um the movement of debris or just the amount of debris was just uh almost inconceivable. And it is I to this day I still don't know um how the death toll was as low as it was. You know, there were people in those first houses that collapsed who got out against all the odds and some with injuries, but nothing that was life-threatening. Um and it's devastating to have lost two of our key volunteer um community members and for their families, their young families. Um but it's a miracle that there weren't more. And by the time the slip came through the northern part of the lodge site where there were people uh you know, residents um and guests, um they'd been evacuated. So if that bigger, more devastating slip from next from next door from across the road had been the first one to come down, there's no doubt more lives would have been lost. Because the people in the houses that were that were swept down the hill and the people who were asleep in those cabins would have been uh, if not killed, certainly injured. Yeah. So timing. I was joint chair of the Mirawai Community Association with Haley Fitchett at that stage, and so the house that we were living in in Oyah Road was owned by uh a uh creative writer, and luckily for me, she had a series of whiteboards. So I had one whiteboard for everything I needed to do for the lodge, um, which was a lot because there was insurance and brokers and inspections and trying to get access so that it could be um made safe because you know it was doors that had to be jimmied open and things when search and rescue were making sure the place was empty, and so there was stuff that needed to be done. Um there was stuff that needed to be done for Domain Crescent, for the house. There was a lot I had to do for the business in terms of cancelling forward bookings for accommodation, um, and then there was community uh matters that needed um attention. And I think this community is extraordinary in that it consists of people who have a range of skills and talents um and who are always willing to step forward. And I mean there was never a time that it was more apparent that that was a strength here than immediately after the cyclone and the damage to people's lives as a result of it. The setting up of the ki of the stickered residence group was absolutely pivotal in pulling many of us through it. And we started it quite deliberately by saying, You're involved, you're volunteers, you don't have to feel a sense of obligation if it all gets too much. Then you tap out, you can tap out and come back in at any time. Um, and you know, we should all be enormously grateful for the people who did the heavy lifting around the setting up of that group and creating uh a plan. It's always good to have a plan. Um, a plan that that encompass um PR support, welfare, um, lobbying, getting the messages out, so communications and and overall engagement, um, it was a huge strength in the response, and it was everybody contributed to it. I mean, the people who just stepped up and created the hub down at the surf club once it once it was operational again, the clothes and household goods that were available, the coffee drop-ins, just having somebody there just to listen and give you a hug and say what do you need and amazing. The people who fired up the um PR machine and made sure we all we were all r well briefed and we knew what we were talking about when we were talking to media. We had great media coverage out here. Um the council w I think there I thought then and I still think were struggling. They didn't really have a plan, they didn't have the emergency emergency management team that they now have, um, and they were, by their own admission, making things up as they went along, and some of it worked, but a lot of it didn't. The politicians, the national politicians, although they were Labour politicians most at that stage, um they were fantastic. Uh they were here, they were responsive, um, and we found ways uh of engaging at the decision level that was really effective to get the support we needed. At that time we were still cordoned off from public public access, and that was partly because it wasn't necessarily very safe for people to come, and we didn't need a whole lot of people rubbernecking anyway, um, and it was also because there was a real concern about looting. Um, and so living behind a cordon was nobody's idea of a good time, really. Um and that continued for quite a while. I mean, it wasn't until August that they cleared the slip from Motatara Road and that road was able to be opened. Um, and it wasn't until September and October that many of us were able to go back and live at our homes once the initial geotechnical report had been done and they could start categorizing the properties. And an awful lot happened between February and then.

Mandy 19:15

As the chair of the Midway Community Association, what things were set up or what initiatives were taken for the community?

SPEAKER_01 19:24

So it was largely generated by people in the community who wanted to do something to help. So if there was a a way that the association could be used as a vehicle or entity to um accumulate the wherewithal to fund some of those initiatives, then that's pretty much what we were doing. It was what if people had good ideas, if they wanted to do things, if they needed a way of um fundraising and the mechanic of having um a bank account where things could be separated and funds could be kept for a specific purpose, then that was primarily what we were doing. And obviously we worked the the stickered residence group really became the community association for much of that time. Um and even now, you know, there's a there's a huge crossover between what became the Restore Muriwai Um initiative and the community association, which deals with other kind of community projects quite apart from the aftermath of the cyclone. Although it's fair to say those projects have dominated the work of the last couple of years. It's incredible that it's three years since the cyclone. On one hand, it feels like it was a long time ago, on the other hand, it feels like it was not that long.

Mandy 20:49

Yesterday, and then you get rain like we did last week, and you feel it feels like yesterday that we had the other rains. Yeah. It's quite haunting, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 20:59

It is.

Mandy 21:00

And so um the trust, there was a trust set up to receive donations and that kind of thing with Mike Alexander. Yeah. And so was the community association uh a sort of another place for funds to come into?

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Yes, so council made some funds available uh and uh eventually this the cyclone relief fund made things available. We had money from Red Cross. Um not as much as the Surf Club got, but that's okay. I mean it's all going in the same direction.

Mandy 21:31

And how did Red Cross know about the community association?

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Uh they were very much part of the recovery team, so they had a representative sitting with the recovery team at council, um, and they were a really useful conduit because they've got so much experience. Um and the people that uh we interacted with were really helpful and looking for ways, practical ways to help.

Mandy 22:00

You are very much a big part of our community and you're someone who exudes calmness, but also someone who gets shit done very well. So uh how how were you personally involved in the recovery?

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Well, I was part of the stickered residence group. I I had the MCA hat, I had the lodge, which my vision for the lodge had always been to create a place for the community to gather, um, to be able to eat and drink and socialise. Um but also to celebrate some of the strengths of the community. Um and I was really keen to make sure that that it was still going to be possible if we were able to get access to it. One example is the the operators of the deli, um the lads, had applied for a liquor licence because they thought, and you know, I think m most agreed that it would be good to have somewhere on our doorstep where you could have uh, you know, a social drink of a Friday night and not have to go the nine or ten kilometres to Waimauku or on to Kimu or out to Helensville to do that. So um that hearing w was to have taken place the week after the cyclone, and obviously didn't go ahead because nobody could focus on anything. But about six months after that, before we got access to the lodge, before we knew that it was category one and we were going to be able to reopen it, um the licensing um committee reached out to the lads and said, Do you want to persist with your application? And we talked about it and decided that there was no downside in going ahead with the application, because then if we were able to reopen, wouldn't it be great to be able to open with a bar which many in the community had been asking us for? So that was great. Um at the same time, there was a lot of work to do to clear the site, um, to get it up and going, to clean it, because the boys had been operating the day before the cyclone, and so all the um flour and sugar and it was an unbelievable nightmare of a mess because vermin, rats, mice had got into it. So my insurance paid for um the cleaning of that, which took nearly a month to get it to a point where it could be opened as a you know food organization. So so there was just yeah, it was a bit of a juggle, really. Yeah. Um, we were able to access the house, which went from a red sticker to a yellow sticker relatively quickly because there was no damage and there were no slips that were immediately threatening it. Um and so we were able to get there um during the day, but we couldn't sleep there. The rationale for that being that if another slip occurred during the day, you could run away, but if you were lying in your bed asleep, you might not get out. Anyway.

Mandy 25:28

Which is a funny one, isn't it? It is a funny one.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Yeah. And you know, we were um looking at organizing um and making sure we were. I guess one of the most important aspects of what we did, both with the stickered residence and with the community association, was to try and ensure that the communications that were going out were able to be relied upon. There was a lot of information and misinformation swirling around, and we really wanted our communications to be something that people could recognise as having integrity. That was pretty important.

Mandy 26:10

Creating a place where, like you said, you could bring community together was just so important after such an event.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Um I'll never forget that dawn opening of Mototara Road. Yeah. Um and the Can you tell us about that? So Mototara Road was completely blocked. On the night it it trapped vehicles and um and it was unable that nobody was prepared to move the toe of the slip where from where it was on the road because they thought more debris might come down. And so it was a long time before anybody tackled that job, uh, which meant all traffic had to go up Waitia Road, which was unfortunate for everybody, including the road. Um And then when they did clear it and it was going to be reopened, uh I can't remember now where the idea to have a blessing and then uh a a ceremony afterwards came from. But it happened. Um and it was incredibly moving. Um we were lucky to have really good Iwi representatives there to guide us through that, to take us through the fire, um, the song that George and the team Moana did. Yeah. It was just amazing. Um and the other, you know, there's always a funny side, isn't there? That was the funniest thing was Jane and I had got the big gazebo from the surf club, and we were it's enormous, and it's probably a six-person job to put it up, but it was just the two of us, and it was hilarious. Um, but you know, things like that. So there was food, there was there was warmth, there was song. Um it's very emotional. It was really emotional. I don't I don't think there's been anything since I mean the opening of the commemorative art sculp sculpture was also really emotional, but the reopening of Multatara Road and the ceremony that accompanied that is what stays with me the strongest, I think.

Mandy 28:35

Yeah. And the lodge opened not long after that and the community came together. What did you notice about the people from the community at that point?

SPEAKER_01 28:48

I I don't think there's anybody who lives here or had a really strong connection to this place that has been unaffected by what happened here. Um and everybody now on the surface looks like they're just getting on with their lives, but it takes very little to make people jittery. Strong winds, heavy rain, uh changes in wind direction will always, I think, be triggers for all of us. I mean, last Thursday's storm with the winds and the rain that we had, we're very we're not a long way away from what it had been like in the days prior to the cyclone. The cyclone, the night of the cyclone itself, the noise was incredible. I don't think I'll ever forget that either. But I looked at our dog trying to go outside for a pee last Thursday and she got to the door and she just went like this. No, it's like no thanks. Yeah. Um it is hard to know whether that's you know her channeling uh what happened on the night. She was pretty freaked out afterwards, spent a lot of time in her little um traveling crate, which was her bed for quite a few months before we got home. Um but you know, for all of us I think it's it's uh it's just under the surface. And for some people not very far under the surface. But you know, we've done a lot. Um and and not all of it shows. I think the way the community responded in those first few days is still there and still accessible if we need it. Um so then nothing needs to be forced in terms of putting together a plan for when the next one happens, and it may not be the same, but there will be another disaster. And it really saddens me that there doesn't really seem to have been a strong learning at a local and national level of how to manage a disaster like that. Nothing's nothing really seems to have been learnt or stuck from Christchurch Kaikura, from Gabrielle, from you know, some of the floods and terrible things that we've had since then. I mean, one of the things that I advocated strongly through all of the engagement we had with the task force, with the various inquiries that happened afterwards, you know, the ombudsman's inquiry and you know, all the other people who talked to us about our lived experience was why is there not a small leadership team that would that can come into a community or a city or a town where there's been a disaster and support the existing leadership with the expertise needed to manage a disaster, an emergency? It doesn't need to be a big group of people and it doesn't need to be stood up all the time, I don't think, although with the increasing severe weather we're having, maybe it should be. But it needs to incorporate things like infrastructure and um welfare and well-being and communication and engagement, and they need to be experts in managing disasters, and they can go into existing teams at councils or in communities and say, This is what works, this is how you can get through to the next stage, that would be enormously valuable, and I would have thought easy to do. I mean, even from the people that we met and came across, you know, as we stepped our way through to coming out the other side, if that's the right expression, I can think of a you know a good handful of people who were really excellent at what they did and should be recognised as such. Um and that would be that would mean you'd have a level of expertise and a consistency of approach. You wouldn't have had the huge uncertainties that we had when we had the government saying this is a local um body uh emergency that they need to respond to. This is not something that national government will respond to. And you had Wayne Brown saying um it's not council's job to help private individuals recover from a disaster or an emergency or something that's happened to their private property, which made all of us who knew we didn't have insurance cover because we didn't have material damage to our homes, think, oh my god, what happens next? When look national government and local government are both saying it's nothing to do with us, and our insurance policies don't cover the situation we find ourselves in. I mean, it was a huge surprise to me, and I'm a lawyer of some experience, to find that our contents insurance gave us cover for rental, for transitional rental. Who knew? As it happened, our cover was incredibly good and we were lucky. But not everybody was in that situation, and it isn't like we'd negotiated it into the contract, it just happened to be there, which we didn't even know about till somebody said you should check your policy. And we went, Oh, look.

Mandy 34:42

How handy. And then people had the same experience, but the other way where they're like, Oh my god, we're not covered for that.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

We're not covered for that, and we've still got a mortgage to pay, and um, and now we're paying rent as well, and we can't afford that. We don't have the wherewithal to do it, and we've lost we can't or can't can't get access to everything we need for day-to-day life. I mean, we are, you know, uh at a point in our lives where we don't have young children that we have to get to school and support through a traumatic event. Just ourselves, but still, it's pretty hard. And I mean, this is the one of the other things that I've talked to so many people about is the definition of damage in insurance policies should not require physical or actual damage. It should recognise that losing the right to use that property because of a disaster or because of an agency that tells you c that you can't live there and use it or either temporarily or permanently, um should be incorporated in the in the definition of damage. And that way insurance would cover the sort of situations that many of us found ourselves in where we had properties that were undamaged but were at risk and ultimately identified as being an intolerable risk to life, such that they became category three properties and nobody could live in them. And they are still demolishing those properties as we speak today.

Mandy 36:20

Do you think there's been any changes with insurance? There wouldn't have been, would they?

SPEAKER_01 36:24

No.

unknown 36:25

No.

Mandy 36:25

So they're not responding to the the different weather events that are starting to happen?

SPEAKER_01 36:30

No. No, no, they're not. Although I understand that the immediate response of the insurance sector, which was to be hyper aware of risk and um anxious to avoid it, is softening somewhat as everything gets a little more um settled.

Mandy 36:54

Do you think there's ever going to be situations where insurance companies aren't insuring houses that are kind of in those what can be defined as lands landslide zones?

SPEAKER_01 37:07

I suspect that's exactly what will happen. I mean, we're lucky here at Muri because we've got an incredibly detailed geotechnical report on this on these properties, these specific properties. And so and and the risks of landslip are very well known here. So nobody's having to guess at or make some sort of desktop um decision about what the level of risk is. So we're okay in Mulua, but other coastal communities that have not been part of a study like that, and that might be regarded as being vulnerable to coastal erosion or you know, any of the other things that make it uninhabitable or dangerous to stay there, they're in a different situation. They might well lose the ability to um have private insurance. And for decades, government has been looking at managed retreat and how that might be put in place in a way that didn't create devastation for the people who own those properties and made very little progress. And then that n that work needs to continue and be brought to some sort of resolution.

Mandy 38:22

So, what do you think's been the hardest part of recovery for Muraway?

SPEAKER_01 38:27

I think it's the it's the loss of the people that were part of the community that have had to move away because their houses were destroyed or declared to be category three and they weren't able to find other places to live here because our housing stock has reduced. Um so the loss of those people to the community the the fact that as I said before the certainty that I think we all lived with. I said this to somebody in one of the meetings we had with the task force, I think. One of the things that was perhaps a little unfortunate for us before the cyclone was a couple of weeks before, which was the Auckland anniversary floods, we'd all got ourselves somewhat ready for power outages and maybe having to, you know, take evasive action because of the warnings that had come out after the anniversary floods and before the cyclone. But then we weren't affected that weekend that Auckland flooded. And so I think if somebody had said to us the week in the week leading up to the cyclone, it was certainly true of us, you know, take some precautions, the cyclone's coming, it's going to be devastating, blah, blah, blah. We all went, oh yeah, it'll be just, you know, it'll be okay. We didn't get it last time. It'll be the East Coast that gets it again, not the West Coast. Well, we couldn't have been more wrong. But nobody, I mean, if somebody had said to us, yes, but the hills could collapse on all of you, we'd all all have rolled our eyes and shrugged our shoulders and said, Oh, for goodness sake. So I guess that's the other lesson out of this, is really you can't assume that things are always going to be the same. You do need to have a level of preparedness and understanding of the hazards and risks that are associated with the place that you live, um, and an understanding of how you can protect yourself in the event of those things coming to fruition. And I think that's the bit that we've still got some work to do on. I think that, you know, three years down the track, we're all a bit um a little less uh prepared or prepared to be prepared than we were immediately afterwards, and we do have a little bit of work to do on that. But, you know, we have done work with Auckland Emergency Management on ensuring that we have all recognized the various hazards that might become emergencies in this community and our local um volunteer fire um team have been very much part of that work. Um, and we will make sure that everybody in the community has the opportunity to understand what those hazards and risks are and what they should be doing to make sure that they can respond effectively when and if they happen. And I suspect it's probably more a when than an if given the frequency of the sort of weather we're getting.

Mandy 41:53

And how do you think you're going to communicate that kind of thing? Well, you can't force people to do anything.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

Um, but there is a plan. It's uh at the printers, and we will distribute it and we'll have regular events um to talk about it, but also to do some simulations and some practices, um, and hopefully that will be both fun, informative, and useful um when we get whatever is coming at us next.

Mandy 42:26

And it's also a nice way to bring the community together. Yes. And then, you know, it is good for Middle, I think, that you know, the golf club have made some changes and the surf club have made some changes, and so it feels like our kind of resources are more prepared. Yes. And then hopefully the actual residents can be. But I do think that we now as a community and probably across parts of New Zealand, flooding is something I think has a whole other connotation. Like now, if there's water charging down a bank, we will now be worried that the land the bank's going to come down. Whereas that would wasn't a consideration before.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

No. No, I think that's absolutely right. And I mean that's that that that was the finding too that came out of the Fenn's um review was that nobody had really recognised the risk of landslips here. Um there had been one. Even though in 1965, you know, the first place that came down on the 13th of February was the exactly the same property that's that was devastated by slip, and two people died there in 1965. And so we need to make sure that that kind of willful blindness and forgettedness doesn't happen again.

Mandy 43:45

Mm, exactly, which is part of the reason why we're doing this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

And very much the reason that sits behind the commemorative sculpture um installation, which is made up of recovered material from the destroyed homes. So those you know the work is partly to make sure that for generations to come people remember it is important. Yeah and and learn from Yeah and that the resilience that has been built up as you've just spoken of for the at the surf club, the golf course, the emergency hubs, the the mobile ones um that we've got set up, the emergency equipment that we've now got available to us is enough to keep us hanging on for two or three days if we get cut off in the same way that we were before.

Mandy 44:42

And you've spoken about things, you know, initiatives that worked really well for our community. Is there any advice you have for other communities either in a sort of preparedness way or other communities who have actually suffered a similar event?

SPEAKER_01 44:57

I think gathering your people and asking them what they would like to do to be part of you know a recovery or the support that lead that leads up to recovery was the most effective thing that we did. And trying to make it as coherent and cohesive and inclusive as possible. Because there were a lot of people who felt that because they weren't a stickered resident they didn't really have a voice in it. And I don't think we got that bit as right as we might have. situation developing in any community that it that even if there hasn't been a physical manifestation of whatever it is that happened that happens to you you're still affected by it. I don't think there's anybody I think I said this before I don't think there's anybody in this community who hasn't had some impact from it. They might not have been displaced, they might not have had a house destroyed they might not have had to move away but they're still affected.

Mandy 46:14

How how did the event actually affect you emotionally?

SPEAKER_01 46:22

I mean it's a it's a truism isn't it? Disasters change lives. I think we're all somewhat changed by it. Um it made me more it certainly made me more in involved and engaged in the community no question. I met so many people um and we worked together on so many things um you know in lots of ways it's been incredibly enriching um and quite a lot of work yeah a lot of work you work tirelessly for the community it's a community that really rewards um you though I mean it is so magical living here. I'm on the beach just about every morning um with George my dog and it's always different and there are always people waving or coming across to chat or patting George who talks to everybody um whether you're a person or a dog on the beach and i it's just so beautiful so wild um it's such a wonderful place to live I mean I think this remains a very special place to be a part of um and to live in and alongside the people. The people who live here are just so talented, so creative so feisty and um determined to lead the world a better place. I mean I I think of the the guys that run the deli and their involvement in events but also in their predator free work and things like that. So many people are like that here so involved in weeding you know land that is community land um planting running nurseries environmental protection it's amazing I mean I think the Murawai ecosystem is quite unique.

Mandy 48:30

It's unlike any other community I've lived in in my life Precipice was commissioned and funded by Murawai Community Association supported by the Auckland Council Recovery Office artwork by Taylor Williams soundtrack by local Midawai band Tin People written in response to Cyclon Gabrielle Nam Mahi thank you to the Mudowai community for their input and bravery and for sharing their stories and thank you for listening