Latest news with #PeterdeGraaf
RNZ News
5 days ago
- Climate
- RNZ News
Flood prone town find reasons for hope
Any time it rains heavily in Northland, residents of Moerewa brace for flooding. The small town has gone underwater in recent years more times than they'd care to remember. But now the flood-weary residents finally have reasons to be hopeful about the future. Peter de Graaf reports. To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
RNZ News
03-06-2025
- General
- RNZ News
Water finally restored in Dargaville
Many homes and businesses in the Northland town of Dargaville went without running water during King's Birthday weekend. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf Water has finally been fully restored in Dargaville after a massive outage caused by four separate pipeline ruptures last week. Friday's breakages in the 40-kilometre water supply pipeline all but emptied the town's water reservoir and left most homes without running water or under tight restrictions. Kaipara District Council said water was restored to the last homes on upper Hokianga Road, late on Sunday afternoon. However, a resident living just off Hokianga Road told RNZ her taps only started flowing again on Monday night, an outage of almost four days. The council had to scramble to set up water tankers and portaloos around town during the King's Birthday long weekend, while contractors brought in extra staff from Whangārei and Auckland to fix the pipe. In an update posted late on Sunday, the council said tap water in some parts of town was still discoloured, but it had been treated and was safe to drink. The discolouration was caused by sediment being stirred up as the tanks were refilled. A council spokesperson urged Dargaville residents to continue using water conservatively while levels recovered. As of Sunday evening, the reservoir was about 25 percent full. The delay in reinstating water to the upper Hokianga Road area - including Panorama Place, Cobham Avenue and Mountview Place - was due to problems with the booster pumps, the council said.
RNZ News
14-05-2025
- Climate
- RNZ News
Paihia's main road to be closed to fix storm damage
Huge swells triggered by ex-Cyclone Tam washed away part of the waterfront in Paihia, exposing cables and a water main. Photo: Supplied / Grant McCallum Paihia's main road will close for storm repairs for the next three weeks, as the after-effects of Cyclone Tam continue to plague the Bay of Islands. At its peak on 17 April the ex-tropical cyclone knocked out power to tens of thousands of homes across Northland, as well as flooding roads and eroding shorelines in places like Paihia and Russell. In Paihia, the storm took a large chunk out of Marsden Road/State Highway 11 near the town centre. After several days the road was partly reopened, but NZTA Waka Kotahi said it would now have to close for repairs in both directions until 6 June. Workers inspect damage to SH11/Marsden Road in Paihia during Cyclone Tam. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf The closure - between Bayview Road and Williams Road - would apply between 7am and 6pm, Monday to Friday. Traffic would be diverted through the town centre. At night and during the weekends, the southbound lane, towards Ōpua, would be open through the worksite with a reduced speed limit of 30km/h. NZTA said the footpath, a section of which disappeared into the tide, would also be repaired. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Otago Daily Times
07-05-2025
- Otago Daily Times
Home destroyed by speeding driver crashing through roof
The home of a Whangārei man in his 80s was destroyed when an allegedly stolen car landed on its roof. Photo: RNZ By Peter de Graaf and Susan Edmunds of RNZ The home of a Whangārei man in his 80s has been destroyed after a car travelling at high speed flew off the road, sailed over a neighbour's unit and crashed through his roof. The man's distraught partner said he was in hospital at the time and only found out on Wednesday morning. The car smashed through a barrier on Mill Rd and landed in the man's living room on Miller's Lane just after 11pm on Tuesday, destroying the unit. Police said it was incredibly fortunate no one was killed. Senior Sergeant Rene Rakete said officers were called to the corner of Mill Rd and Millers Lane about 11pm, after the car hit a fence at high speed then landed on a roof. Police would likely be dealing with a death if the owner had been home at the time, he said. The car eventually came to a stop in front of the unit, with both the property and the vehicle significantly damaged, Rakete said. The driver fled and a police dog was unable to track anyone from the car. The man's partner said police told her the car was stolen and the driver fled on foot. Photo: RNZ Police were, however, "following lines of enquiry". The man's partner said police told her the car was stolen and the driver fled on foot. The officer estimated the car was travelling at 180kmh when it left the road, she said. "It's obviously uninhabitable... This is his home, it's heartbreaking." She said he had lived in the brick-and-tile unit, in the suburb of Kensington, for the past nine years. She told RNZ she was waiting for an insurance assessor to come up from Auckland, and she was trying to find a builder to make what was left of his unit safe. Reportedly, the only damage to the first unit was a fence paling through the garage roof.
RNZ News
05-05-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Collaboration key to showcasing North Island tourism destinations
Overseas tourists only account for 20-30 percent of visitors to Northland. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf North Island regions hope a new collaboration will encourage more tourists to explore, stay longer and spend more. Three airports and 15 North Island regional tourism organisations have banded together to share resources as part of a new Memorandum of Understanding. The partnership was officially signed at the Auckland Airport Tourism Forum in Rotorua on Monday. Most of Northland's visitors are domestic, with overseas tourists only accounting for 20-30 percent of visitors, but Northland Inc. head of destination Tania Burt hoped that would change by working with other tourism leaders. "There's really no reason why we should get more international visitors, so to collaborate with our friends at Auckland Airport and other regions as well, who have strong international visitation, will boost the visibility of Northland." Burt wanted to see more tourists in Northland year-round, so businesses had more consistency, but promoting a region wasn't easy, when tourism funding was often tight and only getting tighter. She was pleased the different regions would share their insights and marketing to promote the North Island as a destination. "When it comes to international marketing, you have to be really smart about where you invest, because people don't have spare marketing dollars lying around. Regional tourism organisation, businesses, even Tourism New Zealand are under constraints." Collaborating was a way to showcase the regions better and create the positive change they wanted, she said. The potential for the North Island was huge. "One thing we like to work by is, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together, so it's time for the North Island to go and Northland has to be part of that." The partnership will initially focus on three key visitor markets - Australia, the US and China. Later this year, more than 60 tourism operators will meet with Australian travel sellers across the ditch at a North Island showcase. RotoruaNZ chief executive Andrew Wilson said competing against other overseas destinations for visitors was hard. "When you go in to a marketplace like Australia, where we're traditionally gone in all independently, we're all fighting for a voice and time with those buyers. Going in collectively, we've got more scale. "We've got more ability basically to encourage those buyers through the door." The North Island had a lot of room to grow and the partnership aligned well with the government's push for more tourist boots on the ground, he said. They would save time and money at a time when belts were tightening. "We've all got to continue to focus in terms of how we do more with less and this is definitely a really strong option in terms of how we do that." TRENZ - the country's largest tourism business event - kicks off in Rotorua on Tuesday. Rotorua was already buzzing before the event, which was last held in there in 2019. Wilson said people would be hard pressed to find an available room in town this week, because hotel bookings were so strong, and other businesses were also benefiting from events and more visitors to the area. "There's a huge amount of business done at TRENZ, which will have an impact obviously for the next three, four, five years in terms of how some of those itineraries are put together." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
