Two remote communities on South Wairarapa’s south coast have been strengthened thanks to new emergency preparedness containers gifted from the Wairarapa Recovery Office on Saturday 7 June.

The communities at Ngawi and Lake Ferry were each donated a container of emergency resources to help their residents manage immediately after an emergency event, such as a cyclone, severe storm, tsunami or earthquake.

“Providing our remote communities with the emergency containers brings reassurance as well as important equipment and resources for emergency situations to people who could be isolated in extreme weather events or natural disasters,” says South Wairarapa District Councillor Aidan Ellims.

The Wairarapa Recovery Office (WRO) Programme Manager, Simon Taylor, says that the better a community is prepared and resourced for an emergency, the better it will manage after a disaster and the quicker it will recover.

“The aim is to support remote rural communities straight after an emergency when they may be cut off and have restricted access to emergency services and supplies,” says Taylor.
The containers are intended to be starter kits, including items such as medical supplies and water containers. Their contents are scaled to the needs of the specific communities in which they are situated, taking into account factors such as relative isolation.

“The hope is that communities will add to the containers over time,” says Taylor.

The Chairperson of the Cape Palliser Residents and Ratepayers Association, Donna Fenwick, also acknowledges appreciation for the use of land to house one of the containers on.
“We are very fortunate to have had the use of the land out of the tsunami zone made available to us by the Kawakawa 1D2 Trust. I would also like to thank Mel Arcus of Wellington Region Emergency Management Office (WREMO) and Nigel Carter, the Council’s Lead Advisor Health, Safety & Emergency Management, who have made all this possible for the Cape Palliser community,” says Fenwick.

Tora was the first community in South Wairarapa to have been gifted an emergency container by the WRO in February this year.

The containers donated to South Wairarapa communities are among seven provided across the wider Wairarapa region by WRO using funding from central government. The WRO was established following cyclones Gabrielle and Hale to coordinate recovery efforts across the three Wairarapa district councils.

Following the gifting ceremonies to formally handover the containers for community ownership, ongoing emergency preparedness, resilience support and training will be provided by WREMO in conjunction with South Wairarapa District Council.

Images below:

Above: Container being delivered.

Above: Left to right: Donna Fenwick (Cape Palliser Residents & Ratepayers Association), Mel Arcus (WREMO), Nigel Carter (SWDC) and Karen Mikaera (Kawakawa 1D2 Ahuwhenua Trust).

Above: Sam Lam (Lake Ferry resident), Les Jones (Lake Ferry resident), Colin Whiteman (President of the Lake Ferry Residents association).