Precipice
Stories of landslides and community restoration in Muriwai New Zealand following the devastating 13 February 2023 Cyclone Gabrielle.
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Precipice
Creating a Brand, Restore Muriwai: Disaster Recovery and Community Restoration. Ep.12 Precipice Podcast.
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In this episode I talk to Maria Koppens. Maria was a resident of Muriwai but lost her family home as a result of Cyclone Gabrielle and is now living in the neighbouring suburb of Waimauku.
Maria shares how she applied her marketing skills to the restoration phase in Muriwai, creating a ‘brand’ named Restore Muriwai, connecting with politicians and councillors as well as connecting across impacted communities through the creation of surveys and a database, and building a strong presence and relationship with the NZ media.
We discuss temporary accommodation support, insurance, buy outs and categorisations, the dispute and independent review processes and the Muriwai commemorative sculpture.
Maria shares her feelings around having to move away from Muriwai and settling into a lifestyle property and she has some great advice for communities impacted by a traumatic weather event.
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
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Hosted and produced by Mandy Jakich. Commissioned and funded by Muriwai Community Association, supported by the Auckland Council Recovery Office.
In this episode I talked to Maria Coppins. Maria was a resident of Murawai but lost her family home as a result of Python Gabrielle and she is now living in the neighbouring suburb of Waimoku. Maria shares how she applied her marketing skills to the restoration phase in Murawai. Creating a brand named Restore Muriwai. Connecting with politicians and counsellors.
SPEAKER_00Being able to bring these people and to walk them from house to house. There were like three of us who potentially offered up our houses and told our stories. I think that made it real for them. And it was it was quite visceral.
MandyAnd Maria explains the importance of connecting across impacted communities through the creation of surveys and a database and building a strong presence and relationship with the New Zealand media. Maria talks about temporary accommodation support, insurance, buyouts and categorisations, and also the dispute and independent review processes.
SPEAKER_00Mistakes can happen. Geotechs aren't always right. And they don't always have all of the information that they need to make the right decision.
MandyMaria shares her feelings around having to move away from Mudwai and settling into a lifestyle property.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I guess the trauma, I don't feel the trauma now, uh, but every now and then uh yeah, it's a memory. It was a it was a pretty intense period. I hope to have to go through again.
MandyAnd she has some great advice for communities impacted by a traumatic weather event.
SPEAKER_00My name's Maria Coppins. I lived in Mirawai for 18 years, uh raising a family of four kids and now live in Waimalku. On February the 13th, we evacuated our Mirawai house and took ourselves down to the surf club in the midst of the storm and never went back. Um the next day following the storm we were offered a place to stay at a local, lovely local family's house. They had a an empty basement apartment with two bedrooms. Um and so we spent six weeks after the cyclone there. Um there were yeah, six of us and two beds. Uh so it was not not not ideal. Um, but the kids managed not to kill each other, so we we got out okay with that. But uh it took us six weeks to find a rental. Um so from April we moved into the rental. Um what we were horrified to learn in the first couple of weeks following the cyclone was that our insurance cover didn't cover a landslide that was more than eight metres from the house. So while we couldn't live there, uh we also weren't going to get anything back from the insurance company, uh, which we had fully expected to since we weren't able to live there. So that was our first shock uh of a series of shocks, I guess. Um and uh so once we got into our rental and got settled, uh the focus became then to uh figure out um how we could how we could move on because it was pretty clear that we weren't going to be able to go back to our house. Uh the next door neighbour's house had slid down the hill. Um there was a landslide sort of right next to our washing line and across our driveway, and another one up above the house. Uh so yeah, there was there was really no going back, and we were quite aware of that. Um as a community, and you've probably heard heard this from some of the other speakers, pretty quickly um we got together because we're a tight-neck community and formed a committee of sorts um with people who wanted to do something. Um and because Abe and I are marketers, uh the first thing we thought of doing was to create a brand and a logo. Uh, because uh in order to be represented uh as a community, we needed an entity with which to represent the community. So we um ended up settling with Restore Miraway as a as a brand and a logo. Um one of the local graphic designers, Vic Skinner, created a great logo for us. And from there we we built a website and social media platforms. Uh, and because the community was shut off uh from the outside world, essentially no one who wasn't a resident was allowed in. Uh, we wanted a mechanism to show uh the rest of Auckland what was what was happening and what had happened in the community. Um why did you feel it was important to do that? Uh we felt that there had was a little bit of resentment building um from the windsurfers and the kitesurfers and and people who like to come to Mirawai, that that Mirawai was keeping it all for themselves in a sense. Um, and so we thought it was really important to tell the story of what happened to people outside of Mirawai who couldn't come and see it for themselves. Uh, and also uh we knew we would need help. We would need help from politicians, we'd need help, it would need public support essentially to um to be able to get the kind of support that we knew it we'd need going forward. So the first issue that we tackled was the insurance issue. Um if we're not covered by insurance but we can't live in our houses, what does that mean? Um so we we reached out to some contacts um and uh got some media coverage around um around the issue because a lot of people didn't realise that that was a thing, like just like we didn't. Um you can have a house and have insurance, but if something happens and it's it doesn't actually touch your house, then you you have no cover. Um so we uh got in touch with Patrick Smelly at Business Desk, who was a family friend of of Abe's, and he wrote a great story uh laying out that issue in the Herald on Business Desk and uh and sort of explained to the world that managed retreat was the only option for situations like landslides where insurance doesn't cover it, and you uh you know the other option is financial ruin for anyone who is you know has the bad luck to be impacted. Um we reached out to politicians, Michael Wood, and when I say we, I mean the community, the committee, the you know, everyone who was helping each other to um try and get a resolution of some sort. Um James Shaw came to visit. Michael Wood was we'd spent a lot of time talking to Michael Wood and explaining the situation to him. Um was he national or Labour? He's Labour. He came to visit uh in May and at the Surf Club. Um unfortunately in June he had to resign, so we had to start again. Um Carmel Seppelloni um we spoke to a lot as well. Um so in May we were really focused on on the issue of insurance um and and what were they going to do to uh to support people who were in that situation. Um our insurance covered uh nearly six months of temporary accommodation cost. Um that's basically all it did, um, which was great and very much needed. Um, particularly you you know, the majority of families were paying rent um and then also having to pay their mortgage at the same time. So there was there was not money to do both of those things. Um so those who did have insurance had the the supplement from the insurance, but that then pretty quickly ran out. Um is that something that's in everybody's policy? Oh, I couldn't tell you that. It was in most people's policy.
MandyIt seemed like a lot of people didn't even know it was there, but it was it was part of the policy.
SPEAKER_00No, well I didn't know it was there in the same way that I didn't know that we weren't covered um for the house, but uh uh most people who did have insurance were able to get that to a greater or lesser degree. Um but pretty soon that ran out. Uh and so that was the second issue that we started addressing was um, okay, so then what what happens? How are people going to survive uh while they wait for the government and the council to figure out what they're going to do about these houses that people can't live in that are red stickered? Um so it was quite frustrating for everybody. Whenever anyone called up um the Ministry of Social Development, they they said, Oh, there's this temporary temporary accommodation service, that's who you need to talk to. And then whenever we called up the temporary accommodation service who said, No, we don't have anything for you, you need to talk to the Ministry of Social Development. So this went on for a few weeks before we finally managed to get the attention of Carmel Seppaloni and explain that neither the Temporary Accommodation Service nor uh the Ministry of Social Development were able to provide any assistance to anybody with temporary accommodation support. Um Carmel Seppaloni came out to Miro a few times. We took her and and a lot of other politicians and the ombudsman and um uh just and the deputy mayor, all these people came came to our house and to other people's houses uh so that we could show them what the impact was of the event. Um but Carmel Seppaloni, we met with her in PA doing a similar thing, and uh had a chance to explain to her exactly what what the problem was. And she was fantastic. As soon as she understood that there was a huge gaping gap that none of the legislation covered, she um she leapt into action and put in place uh a temporary accommodation package uh once people's insurance ran out. One way that we were able to convince her that that was uh possible, even, was to work also with some lawyers in Christchurch who'd been uh working on the Christchurch earthquake back in the day. Um, and there was a precedent that we uncovered as part of that, uh, that following the Christchurch earthquakes, I think in 2004, there was a temporary accommodation uh supplement set up to support people who are exactly the same, in exactly the same position. So, because of that precedent, we were able to get it across the line with her, um, and that way people could then continue to pay their rent and their mortgage after their insurance ran out. Uh so we pretty quickly realized that um only having a Mirawai voice was not going to be enough to get the national government and local government attention that we needed to effect change. Um so we reached out then to other impacted West Coast communities to uh amplify the voice of the of the affected, I guess you'd say. So we ran um the first survey of West Auckland impacted households uh in mid-June, and that was looking at the uh accommodation issue, um, and looking at how many had mortgages and and you know when their insurance was going to run out, so that we had some data uh because it was very clear from the outset that the only thing that was going to really be compelling for decision makers was data. We built a website and then we we started building a database um uh as uh the committee, if you like, everyone to pitch in and helped. Um so we started a database first of Mirawai impacted residents, uh, and then when we reached out to the other West Auckland um uh other West Auckland communities, um, they did the same thing. So they had their own databases. So we would all send out a Google survey um to the communities, and then I would collate the results um into a report and would use that for media releases and also for the outreach to politicians as well. Um so that June survey about the temporary accommodation allowance was one of the things alongside the um the precedent that we found, the legal precedent that managed to um get the uh Labour government of the time to agree to a temporary accommodation allowance. Um there was a July survey that we ran as well, which we had at that point expanded the network to all of Auckland and created a new brand and a new website called the Auckland Stickered Residence Group, uh, where we were originally the Muraway Stickered Residence Group. So now we extended our reach to the rest of Auckland. I'd spent quite a lot of time reaching out to other impacted communities on the North Shore and in South Auckland and just encouraging them to help us build a database of impacted residents where we could then send further surveys and gather more data.
MandyAnd how did you know who to actually contact from these different communities?
SPEAKER_00Uh word of mouth. Um, and then every now and then somebody would be interviewed by media. Um so I can't remember. I think I found one person and then they put me onto another person, and I ended up reach reaching out also to Hawke's Bay to amplify that voice still further. Um they had slightly different issues, but some of the issues were the same. So that that was, you know, and it it was really interesting to learn from each other as well and to learn what the Hawks Bay Regional Council was doing to support the impacted residents and how that differed from the Auckland Council. And so it gave us some ideas. So there was a you know a lot of sharing and support that went on amongst the various communities that were impacted by Cyclone Gabrielle. Um we started focusing then on well-being. Um, and this this particular survey went out to Hawke's Bay and also all of Auckland. Um, and I think there were a hundred odd responses to that one. Uh, and it was looking at financial well-being and psychological well-being amongst those who were impacted. And that was in August. Um, and it was pretty dire by August. That was more than six months of being homeless essentially, and not knowing what the future was going to hold, not knowing if you would ever be able to buy a house again, um, and whether or not you'd lost everything that you'd worked hard for. Um, a lot of people had big mortgages, had just bought their house at the peak of the market, um, and were utterly desperate. Um, so being able to to get data on that and to be able to add quotes as well, obviously it was all anonymized, um, but that was super impactful for the politicians um and the media as well to keep the conversation going and to keep um the groundswell of support, I guess, in the wider community. Um, which I think in the end helped to get the buyouts over the line.
MandyDo you have any advice for communities for actually getting that relationship or building that relationship with the media?
SPEAKER_00Uh, because I have a marketing background, um, it it was just something I had already done before, although I did um draw on the support of some other friends and uh and locals as well who had who were PR people. So we organized media training for the community very early on. I think that was way back in in March, um reached out to some friends of mine and asked them if they wouldn't mind coming and doing some media training for the for the uh community. So that helped us then have more confidence with speaking to to the news media and and knowing what we wanted to say and the points we wanted to get across. Um from from there later on, once we had expanded our network through to the rest of Auckland and also the Hawks Bay, I reached out to Sue Kedgley, the um former MP who was based in Wellington and and was doing media training as like her new job. And I reached out to her just through her website and said, Hey, you know, this is our situation. How would you feel about offering media training uh to the other communities who haven't had the benefit of it and who also need to be able to speak to their situations and what they need? Um and she did that, bless her. Um, so we had I think three online sessions with people around the city where they got media training, and then when we did a press release, we would be able to offer up, you know, people that they could talk to, so it wasn't always directed at Miraway, it was a much broader issue. Um so all of this was ongoing, um, and and the surveys really helped to give us the data that we needed to be able to do that outreach. Uh, and um there were other people besides Sir Kidgley who were just amazing and helpful. Penny Holse is the former deputy mayor. She ended up coming to Miraway, um, took us under her wing, if you like, um, and she explained the inner workings of Auckland Council to us and made some introductions to some of the councillors. Uh, and that was um invaluable in enabling us to know how to navigate our outreach with Auckland Council when it came to talking about buyouts um later on in the year. Uh Linda Greenalch was the Auckland Council Recovery Office um community person. She was amazing. She were, you know, if we had something um that was urgent, I could just give her a call and she would she would get onto it, she would, you know, get get in into council and talk to talk to who needed to be talked to to make sure they were all aware. Um and uh Leslie Simpson, the deputy mayor, was also amazing. She came out here uh a couple of times to visit and do do some disaster tours. Um and she was she was always available too to listen and um and flag things as urgent if if they appeared to be. Um so there were lots of people, and that was the most amazing thing. It was a crazy, very busy couple of years. Um, but uh yeah, we met so many amazing people who were really helpful.
MandyAnd do you think getting those people actually into Middle Eye was key?
SPEAKER_00I think so, because it's very hard to explain what happened if you can't see it. Um it's you know, it was just extraordinary. The devastation that happened overnight and waking up to that and seeing that as, you know, you you know it was um and then then they closed the village, so nobody else could see it except for the the media footage. So actually being able to bring these people in uh to walk them from house to house. There were like three of us who who uh essentially offered up our houses and told our stories. Um and uh I think that made it real for them, and it was it was quite visceral. You know, that you could see that it impacted them. And uh Phil Wilson from Auckland Council, the CEO of Auckland Council, he came on one of those tours. I remember speaking with him afterwards, uh after we had gotten our categorization, uh, and I said to him, you know, it's just simply not possible that you have given our house a category two, uh, which means that they're expecting us to go back after making some minor sort of, I don't know, catch catch a few stones type remediations. Um he said, Yes, no, I I I remember, I remember being there and um not that not that he got involved in our out of our dispute. So the third issue that we came across after the insurance and then the temporary accommodation support was um buyouts and categorizations. Um it it the conversation started happening that the only solution was managed retreat and buying out the category three properties that would not be uh possible to live in again ever. What do you mean by managed retreat? Managed retreat being um removal from the danger, so taking people out of a place that's dangerous. So rather than saying I could go and live in that house even though a landslide will likely fall on it, um, then they'll they'll essentially pay them to go elsewhere to swap a a house they can't live in for a house that they can live in. Um so it I think it mostly refers to uh preventing the uh the situation from happening. So in a flood-prone area or a place where there's coastal erosion, um, down in Wairo, I think on the West Coast they're talking about it. Communities uh as a whole, if they're can be happy to leave their houses behind and go and move somewhere else, then um that's ultimately probably less expensive and much less traumatic than um having everything devastated by a by a natural disaster and then having to pick up the pieces afterwards. So that's the conversation that's happening now with climate change. Um it's inevitable that there will be future events that are similar in in in in different locations, and um and so how to deal with that, uh who's gonna pay? It's it's yeah, it's huge. As this conversation was happening around buyouts um and whether that you know how they were going to go about doing that, this was in September of that year, 2023. Um us in Miroway and the PH crew, and then a representative. Of the Auckland Stickin Residence Group, we together put together a deputation for Auckland Council where we were advocating for a buy-out valuation process that would be considered to be fair, so that there would be a market valuation or a CV, but but you could potentially choose. Um, in the end, they they kind of settled on a market valuation, uh, which didn't work so well for people who had bought at the peak. Um, but uh, you know, it was better than just having a C V valuation for most people. And the other thing we advocated really strongly for was the an independent review process. Um, through talking with our counterparts in Hastings, that was something that they had um they had gotten as part of their uh their settlement process was as part of part of that. There was a a process by which they could um they could dispute either the valuation that they had been given for their house or the category that they had been given for their house. And what why we thought that that was important was that mistakes can happen. Um geotechs aren't always right, um, and they don't always have all of the information that they need to make the right decision. Um so we uh gave that deputation to the governing body on the 28th of September, and then on the 6th of October, uh council decided on the buyout process that was to be put in place. Um and there was an independent review within that process, which we were very pleased about, uh, particularly as a couple of months later we were given our categorization just before Christmas, um, and it was a category two, which means that uh with some minor remediations that had to be worth less than a quarter of your CV value, uh you should go back and live in your house. There were a lot of problems with, in my opinion, the framework that they used for um the 2P process for uh getting your um you had essentially it put the onus on the homeowner to go and uh quote how much it was going to cost to get the remediation done and to establish that it was going to cost less than 25% of the CV or that it was not gonna cost less than 25% of the CV, at which point it would flip over then into a category three, which meant a buyout. Homeowners don't have experience with doing that kind of thing. Um, just getting their geotech in to do a proper study of the property costs like $30,000 or more. Um and who was were the homeowners having to pay up front for that, or was that funded? No, no, the homeowners had to do all of the research and then put a report together that showed exactly what was going to be done and exactly how much it was going to cost. They would put that to council and council would then either accept or reject it. If they accepted it, then the money would become available from council to do those remediations. Um problem is they only had a year to do that, um, to actually get it finished. Um, whereas it can take months and months just to you know get a geotech to come and have a look. The proposed mitigations were frankly laughable. Um, there was like a net that was going to catch some rocks. And you've seen what happened to our next door neighbours. There was no way a net was going to stop that whole hillside falling off. So it was just a bit ridiculous. Uh so we fought fought quite hard to get our categorization changed to a three so that we could uh just get on with our lives essentially. Um and uh and receive a payout. And receive a payout so that we could buy a house and move on um with our four kits. Um so fortunately um we yeah, we got a geotech report, we uh yeah, did a lot of work to to dispute the category and we were successful uh in the end. So that by that was by I think July the following year, 2024, we had our valuation. Um and then we we were in our next house by the end of the year, uh the end of 2024. So it was a two-year, very, very busy, very stressful period, um, with sounds strange to say, lots of highlights just because of the community support and the amazing people who all sort of banded together uh to to try and and help us get through and get a good resolution, not just for us, but for everyone else that was impacted, um, predominantly in Auckland, because Hawke's Bay had a separate council.
MandyYou bought a house in Waimoku and uh it's a lovely spot that you've got there, which is great that you found that, and it did take some time to find it. How did you feel about moving away from the community and how do you feel now?
SPEAKER_00Uh we were like most most of the impacted people in Miraway, it was a huge shock um to suddenly from one day to the next not have your house that you had been in for you know decades in many cases and raised a family in, and it was it was a great shock and it was a um a lot of grief around it. Um and most of us were very keen to remain within the community because it's a fantastic community. Um however, obviously there was limited housing stock to start with, and the fact that 68 houses, I think, were ended up being category three and and unable to demolished essentially, um, meant that there were you know not that many houses available uh to live in. Um and we also had a very heightened sense of of of risk. Um so uh every single house that we looked at and were even vaguely serious about, I read the property file, I read any geotech reports that there were, I looked at the flood map, I, you know, there was there was no way we were gonna end up in that situation again because it was really traumatic. Um so we were very careful. Um, and there wasn't a property that came up in in Mirawai that was suitable for a family of six, and uh that um you know it just wasn't one that worked for us. So the next best thing was to move close. So we did. Um, and we found a lovely, lovely spot in Waimaku, which has a similar feel to our old house in that uh there's a sort of wide open vista, if you like. We had a sea view from our old house, and and now we have a valley view which has a very similar feel to it. Um and we never would have moved into a lifestyle property had what happened not happened. Uh, but we're very happy there, so you know, all's well that ends well, I guess. Yeah. And we're close to Mirawise still, so we come here all the time.
MandyYou were involved or you actually instigated the commemorative sculpture that was built by Jeff Thompson. Can you tell us, please, how that all got started and what your intentions were for that?
SPEAKER_00Sure. Um, so as as with everything else during that couple of years, um once we'd sort of tackled one problem, we moved on to the next problem. Um once we'd tackled the problem of our category being wrong and and getting that rectified, we then had a bit of space to think about something else. And um Abe and I had spoken of, you know, oh, wouldn't it be cool to have a sculpture, something that, you know, remained after all the houses had been stripped away, just as you know, partly a cautionary tale and partly as a I don't know, a place for people who had left to go back to to sort of remember or and Abe suggested Jeff Thompson. Uh Abe's been a big fan of Jeff Thompson for years and years. We have actually a beautiful Jeff Thompson piece that we got for our wedding. So Jeff had come out and uh had a look around our garden and then gone away and and basically replicated the flora and fauna that were outside the house. This is our old house, um, and and brought it in and made a beautiful sculpture. So we'd known Jeff through that, um, and so we reached out to him uh in I think March 2024 um and said, Hey Jeff, we've got this idea. What do you think? Um, and he was really keen to get involved. So um uh I reached out then to a few fabulous locals uh who are very good at getting things done, um, like yourself, Mandy, and uh and Claire um with the MCA and uh Meta, who's another local artist, and Joss, of course, who creates many of the events that happen around art in the neighbourhood. And so we all got together and everyone was keen to be involved, which was amazing. Um and so the first thing to do was to reach out once everyone was happy to to sort of consider the project, to reach out to the trowel group who were responsible for the deconstructions of the houses, and uh to get them on board with the idea of making some of those materials from the houses available to Jeff to incorporate into the sculpture. Um, they were they were keen, um, they were pretty helpful. Uh Jeff liaised mostly directly with the trout team to to recover materials as the houses were being demolished. Um, and the the idea was to have it, you know, if possible, something from every house that's deconstructed, unless the previous owners didn't want that to happen, and there were a couple who didn't. Um, but on the whole, people people liked the idea of having a piece of their old house still remaining a murder to come back to and visit. Um so we started fundraising in November of that year, so about six months after uh we had sort of gotten the ball rolling with the materials and um getting Jeff to collect them, we settled on a um concept pretty quickly. It was fairly unanimous, wasn't it? Um and uh and the fundraising was quite extraordinary. Uh I think because everyone was just sort of so focused on on making it happen, um, we managed to raise the funds in a very short period of time uh and basically covered the entire cost of the sculpture uh through that fundraising. So there was no public funds at all put into the sculpture. Uh we did a deputation to the local board in July of that year just to get permission um from them to go ahead to use the land for that purpose. It was national uh regional parks land. Um regional parks also had to approve our application for I can't remember what it was called, but um they did, uh which was great. And so uh we were able to put the sculpture on Regional Parks Land right next to the Rangers Station, which was a kind of a a meeting point during uh during the aftermath of the cyclone.
MandyYou worked so hard, Maria, in the community to get things done. What did you do about your actual paid job?
SPEAKER_00Well, funnily enough, I did work quite hard to to get things done, um, largely out of a very strong sense of self-preservation. Um but I did manage to keep my boss happy at the same time. I know, I don't know, he'd maybe I recently left that job and and went to another one, and uh as part of the farewell morning tea speech, he uh sort of was saying, explaining what had happened um soon after I started the job and saying that he'd seen no loss of productivity at all. Um and uh which I was pleased about because I did sort of have to spend a little bit of time doing other things here and there. Uh, but I did also work quite hard because it was a distraction. Uh so work was great because I didn't have to think about the cyclone, and then working on the cyclone stuff was great because it gave me a sense of um uh control for want of a different word, you know. Some i I wasn't helpless, I wasn't waiting for things to happen. I was just trying to, you know, do my best to to get an outcome that would work for us and everyone else.
MandyHow did the experience affect you emotionally at the time? And have those feelings changed over time?
SPEAKER_00Um it was super stressful. Um, a lot of grief uh around, you know, a life that we had that was suddenly gone. You know, it's hard to it's not rational, um, but it is, I think, uh an experience that people who are displaced suddenly all have. Um, you know, fortunately we weren't in a war zone and it wasn't that everything got blown up and you know that there there are worse things in the world. But being displaced is a really horrible experience. It's very stressful. It's the uncertainty that's the worst part, um, which was why I guess I worked so hard on trying to to get certainty to happen because um that made me think less about the uncertainty. Um, but that's definitely the worst bit. So yeah, a lot of trauma. Um a lot of a lot of highlights though, too, I have to say, with the community response and just the support um was just amazing. And you know, people would turn up with a box of food uh just because um and there was so many kindnesses all the time, which and and people like Sue Kedgley who would offer up her time to run media workshops just out of the goodness of her heart, Penny Holtz, who was just amazing and spent so much just so many good things as well. Um so how has that changed over time? I think being in a a new house uh fixed that feeling of uncertainty and displacement. Um I've spent a lot of time in the garden digging holes, planting trees, uh, which is very therapeutic. Um I yeah, I I guess that the trauma, I don't feel the trauma um now, uh, but every now and then uh yeah, it's a memory. It was a it was a a pretty intense period um that I hope never to have to go through again. And uh, you know, if there's anything that I can do to share the experience that that we had, um what worked for us in terms of getting a good outcome, then I would love to be able to help anyone else who ends up being in that position or uh or yeah, any work on on the uh managed retreat process. And we have I've spoken to council, given them some of the surveys that we did so that they could understand from the perspective of you know the people who were impacted. Um suppose I've been speaking to a woman who's been re writing a book about managed retreat. Um, and she that video that I shared with you that we did for the sculpture deputation for the local board, um, she showed that at the recent Christchurch Climate Adaptation Conference. Um, yeah, so just anything like that where you can share the stories, I think it's really important. Um, because yeah, we we had no idea. We had no idea that the land was unstable and that it would do that. Um, and we had no idea that we weren't covered by insurance, we had no idea that there would be no financial support for accommodation to stop people going bankrupt while they were waiting for everyone to decide what to do with the category three houses. Um we had no idea. And nobody else, you know, a lot of people still have no idea, but the more that we can share the story, hopefully the better prepared the country will be for the challenges that will come.
MandyWhat would you say to other communities going through a similar event?
SPEAKER_00There's power in numbers. Uh that getting support from outside the community and maintaining support from outside of the community is really important. So finding a way to tell the story uh is super important so that people understand what it is that, you know, what the issues are and and uh what can be done to help resolve them. Uh reaching out to other impacted communities and banding together and telling that story together. Uh, and then the advocacy piece was was huge. Um the media reaching out to politicians in a way that will will get their attention and help them understand and and the statistics that we were able to pull together from the surveys that we did of the impact cons uh communities enabled us to tell that story in a convincing way.
MandyAnd to finish, Maria, is there something hopeful or meaningful you'd like to leave us with?
SPEAKER_00Um I think I mentioned earlier that a lot of positive uh moments happened um throughout that the couple of years following the cyclone. Um and that was the the positive things were all around humanity. Um people coming together to help as just an immediate instinct. Um, you know, people sacrificing things or time or or whatever it was that they were sacrificing to to try and and make things better. So I I think it it really made me conscious of humanity and the good that's in humanity and council, you know, as difficult as they were to deal with sometimes. They all just wanted to get the best outcome that they could, given the restrictions that they had. Uh, and the people, you know, there was so much humanity in them and in the politicians who came to visit, um, and in the community, of course. Uh so I think that in that sense that left me with quite a lot of optimism about the human response to adversity, and that uh I would hope that people would always have that instinct to help others.
MandyPrecipice was commissioned and funded by Mudawai Community Association, supported by the Auckland Council Recovery Office. Artwork by Taylor Williams, soundtrack by local Mudawai band Tin People, written in response to Cyclone Gabrielle. Nam Mahi, thank you to the Mudawai community for their input and bravery and for sharing their stories. And thank you for listening.
