Case Study – Cyclone Gabrielle, January 2023

We are proud to share that our EPODs were utilised by the Wairoa community in Hawke’s Bay-Tairāwhiti during Cyclone Gabrielle.

In January 2023, prior to the arrival of Cyclone Gabrielle, we successfully delivered 20 of our Integrated Resilience EPODs to our client, Te Whare Maire O Tapuwae Whānau Ora. Being one of the worst affected regions, our EPODs provided a critical lifeline to the many communities in the wider Wairoa and East Coast region.

We had worked closely with Te Whare Maire O Tapuwae Whānau Ora to project the likely disaster effects of the region, including:

- The vast spread and isolation of the Wairoa district including 130kms of coastline and interconnected boarders between Napier (Hawkes Bay) and Gisborne

(Tairāwhiti).

- Climate change projections and extreme rainfall events, including 1-50 year and 1–100-year events (which were projected to increase).

- Potential flooding of the Wairoa River resulting in rapid run-off and surface flooding.

- Heavy reliance on state highways and roads for access and critical lifelines.

- Emergency services and significant reliance on hospitals outside of the Wairoa district.

- Closure of state highways, power outages across the district and river turbidity meaning water treatment plants couldn’t product drinking water.

As we know now, many of these implications were in fact experienced by Wairoa following Cyclone Gabrielle. We are extremely proud that our EPODs played a pivotal role in Wairoa’s emergency response and resilience which had been pre-planned and accounted for in our EPODs.