Wind event cleanup to last until mid-2026

The storm in the South on October 23 caused havoc in forests as winds flattened trees and snapped others off. Business and rural editor Sally Rae pays a visit to Wenita Forest Products’ Akatore Forest, near the Otago coast, south of Dunedin and views the salvage operation.

"Incredibly devastating."

Is how Wenita Forest Products chief executive David Cormack described the weather event on October 23, when wind gusts of up to 150kmh caused about 250ha-300ha of damage, mostly in the company’s Berwick and Otago Coast forests.

The peak of the wind might only have lasted 10 to 15 minutes but its impact was huge, leaving a mess to clean up and a cost which he expected to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That figure would not be known until the cleanup job was completed and that was estimated to take until around June next year.

While several hundred hectares of trees were down, about 500ha would have to be harvested.

The impact was very patchy with parts of the forest virtually untouched.

Fortunately, there was not a history in Otago-Southland of such events; most weather-related events involved rainfall or snow so the wind storm was "pretty unusual" and an occurrence Mr Cormack hoped was a one-in-one-hundred year event.

The MetService issued an orange weather warning; severe weather warnings were classified into one of two categories — orange or red depending on the expected severity and impact of the event.

Red warnings were reserved for only the most extreme weather events.

But, as Mr Cormack said, an upgrade to red would have made little difference for Wenita — "you can’t protect the trees".

The previous night, Wenita issued a warning to not send crews into the forest on October 23 if the weather looked iffy in the morning.

Instead, the day started eerily calm and the wind did not start to ramp up until lunchtime and the call was made to evacuate the forest.

Third-generation forestry contractor Lawson Roxburgh, of South Otago, was in Palmerston with another crew when the storm hit.

But those working further south in Wenita’s Akatore forest described it as "horrific", he said.

Wenita’s production and logistics manager Simon Walker said the forests remained closed until the following day once it was assessed if it was safe to re-enter.

Satellite images were used to assess the extent of the damage, followed by a helicopter flyover and the damage was not as bad as he had feared — "I’d been expecting whole hillsides to be absolutely flattened", he said.

Harvesting crews were mobilised almost immediately to clear roads and establish safe access.

Many internal roads were impassable and dangerous.

Since then, highly mechanised harvesting crews had been moved into the salvage areas.

Forests were unsafe except for experienced forestry workers and access permits had been cancelled and various events postponed, cancelled or re-routed, including stages of the 50th Otago Rally, held next year.

Back in the day, forestry workers armed with chainsaws would have been sent into what was a very hazardous environment.

"Everyone would have been anxious and it would have been slow, dangerous work," Mr Cormack said.

But those days were long gone, and mechanisation was now the key when it came to safety.

Even the difference from 10 years ago to now had been remarkable in terms of technology, he said.

For Mr Roxburgh, who has worked in the industry about 35 years, he felt fortunate to have so many experienced employees in his crews and he was grateful for their loyalty.

Mr Cormack said the crews were fully mechanised and it was more productive and more safe.

It was also more expensive with some harvesting operations being million-dollar or even multimillion dollar operations because of the investment in machinery.

While it was slower work, he believed Wenita would probably end up harvesting the same volume as it had planned to this year.

There would be a grade mix loss; while a tree was a tree, once cut into logs each log had a different value.

Crews were working hard to salvage the most valuable logs before they went off, meaning a considerable downgrade.

Areas where trees had previously been pruned and snapped off in the wind, rather than having roots still in the ground, were priority areas.

About 55ha had already been cleared and there was going to be a shorter Christmas break with the logging contractors finishing yesterday and being back on the job on January 5.

It had been an intense year, and staff and contractors all needed a holiday, Mr Cormack said.

There had also been a focus on the response to the wind event and while there was not much that could be done to protect the forests any better, it was about ensuring people were safe and not put in compromising situations, and for the cleanup to be done as quickly, efficiently and safely as possible.

The salvaged areas would be replanted next winter.

sally.rae@odt.co.nz