It's been about a
week now since Cyclone Gabrielle hit the Hawke’s Bay.
The last couple of days there's been civilian
plant assets who have been working along
Ohurakura Road
from both sides in order to link up
and create a whole new road
so that we can get stores and supplies
through the Tutira township
who've been isolated for quite some time.
One of the biggest challenges we've been facing is access.
The main roads largely blocked.
So we've had elements from 5/7 Battalion
out here working alongside civilians
in order to give them all the supplies that they need.
So we're out here
bringing an engineer detachment to assist them
so that we can have
a consistent supply route into these
isolated communities.
It’s taken us four days to get this far.
We've just got one more corner to cross
and then we'll
should get across the river and into Tutira and Waikoau
to catch up with those residents.
From the other side
there's been a logging crew
punching their way through the forest
to meet us at the river.
And the guys
are just making a ford so we can cross their ford
and get supplies to Waikao Tutira
community. Well if it’s Tuesday today,
today was Tuesday the day after the storm
so being pretty much isolated since last Tuesday.
That’s 7 days.
Our route was pretty good
because we had access to
forestry with a whole lot of machines.
We were tracking down on Toronui into this Esk river.
We knew these teams were coming from this end
and we were getting close to the river ae
We didn't know where they were,
but we knew they were coming.
We knew they were coming.
I mean, we're standing there.
Heart a bit of a... thought
it was a Lotus squeaking actually,
turned out it was Storm from the NZDF
And it was pretty cool.
One of the Bros too ae... like some of them we know you know.
it was all good all us all coming together.
It’s not the greatest track but it's a track.
I'll say the Army's going to get through.
It was just massive for the community, really.
Oh, it's massive. It's massive.
The catch up of mates from the other side.
They know that we’re coming, which has put
the morale up for them. It's been pretty tough for them.
Knowing that they're
safe and everyone's well,
it's awesome,
Being Territorial Force (TF)
And having the local knowledge
as well has helped our teams get this far.
That networking
within the military community
as well as our
civilian community has been pretty awesome for
for everyone. All around.
So I think that once we break through, get to that other side
can take a deep breath and say the task is complete.
Made it to Tutira,
which is a massive effort from our team.
It took all day, but we got all our stores here and
the people are happy to see us
so they know that we do care about them.
We have food, care packages and petrol.
They're real short on petrol for their generators
and that’ll keep these guys going.
You know,
the next task
is to try and get to the other communities
that we can and the people that need our help.
So it's real, real humbling.
Oh, well, you know, look, we've been very
bloody deep in mind and we've been pushing through
to get here and
we're really stoked to see these boys all turn up
Looking up and they’re filling up the fuel.
We've been asking for petrol
and no one's been coming with it,
so I appreciate the boys for filling up
this many containers that we can wrangle.
So, too much to all the boys.
Thank you very much. Cheers.