May 2010 flood

Taieri farmers are still counting the cost of the Otago Regional Council's decision to activate floodgates during the May floods.

The Waitaki District Council will discuss the issue of State Highway 1 at Big Kuri Creek, just north of Hampden, and at Richmond-Hilderthorpe - both sections of road closed recently due to flooding - with the New Zealand Transport Agency.

As Henley residents continue to clean up their homes and businesses after last week's floods, the costs of the event around Coastal Otago are starting to become clear.

The Otago Youth Adventure Trust's Berwick camp, damaged in a dramatic landslip a week ago, could be back in business sooner than anticipated, trust chairman Brian Pickard says.

He hoped that instead of it taking months, the camp could reopen, in a limited capacity, in about a month.

It seems that, metaphorically at least, lightning really does strike more than once.

Canterbury Farmers on the coast near Waimate have given Environment Canterbury the thumbs-up for river-control work which helped them escape relatively unscathed from last week's heavy rain.

The cost of last week's flooding in Otago is expected to be millions of dollars, but the region's infrastructure seems to have escaped major structural damage.

Taieri dairy farmers affected by flooding could each face costs of up $60,000 for alternative winter grazing.

Saving the goldfish was a priority for Kristine Hooper on the night Henley flooded, but she said coming home yesterday and seeing her recently renovated 150-year-old cottage surrounded by floodwater was cause for greater anxiety.

More than 130 claims - costing an estimated $1.5 million - have been received by the Earthquake Commission (EQC) so far following heavy rain and floods throughout the country over the past two weeks.