Flood water and river levels are receding across the Timaru District, lessening the immediate risk to riverside communities, but uncovering a significant number of issues on the road network.

Rain is beginning to clear up both inland and at the coast, enabling river levels to continue dropping and removing the immediate risk to residents alongside the rivers.

Timaru District Council Civil Defence Controller Jayson Ellis said that we’re also seeing flooding across the road network beginning to recede in tandem with river levels across the district.

“While this is a good thing, the receding water also causes significant scouring (removal of gravel) from unsealed roads and can even wash out the edges of our sealed roads,” he said.

“Until we can get crews in to remediate the roads people will have to drive with extreme care on the roads, particularly in rural areas, as conditions will be rougher than usual.

“Our crews are our assessing and prioritising road conditions and will get to work repairing them as soon as it’s a bit dryer and we can get people on site.”

Timaru City residents and businesses are continuing to be asked to conserve water to ensure our reserves last long enough for the two main sources to clean up.

“With the majority of the immediate threats beginning to reduce, we’re now starting work to transition from response to recovery mode and begin the significant work to repair all the infrastructure damaged in this event.

“This refocuses our efforts on recovery, but with ground continuing to be saturated, widespread damage to roads, and weakened flood defences, both Civil Defence and the wider community need to remain vigilant in case there is another weather event such as this in the near future.”

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