At 10.50am, Southland District Mayor Rob Scott signed a declaration of emergency for the Bluecliffs area after heavy rain and swells accelerated erosion on the township’s coastal banks.
The area is home to a hamlet of 17 houses at the mouth of the Waiau River, but Mr Scott could provide little assurance their future was securable.
"We’ve got no certainty around what opening the mouth [of the river] is going to do and how long it’s going to last," Mr Scott said.
"We can’t keep repeating this work either — this is a one-off operation to buy time.
"There’s no guarantees around that long-term stability of the situation there."
Declaring the state of emergency was a precautionary measure that allowed Emergency Management Southland to respond to threats against life and property, the Southland District Council said.
It also allowed the regional council to plan for opening the river bar.
Mr Scott said it was a "volatile situation", but one which the council was controlling to the best of its ability.
Darryl Pinn owns a holiday house in Bluecliffs Beach Rd with wife Jan and said he felt concerned for those who called the area home on a permanent basis.
"It’s got to be tough when you’re lying in bed at night thinking ‘What’s going to be there in the morning? Or what’s not going to be there in the morning?’."
Mrs Pinn said the couple had lost a large portion at the front of their property about 10 years ago under similar circumstances, and property values had only gone down.
Property owner Chris Wood, who was currently out of town, had plans to vacate the area for good.
"I’ve been trying to sell my house for the last four months. I’m trying to leave," he said.
Another resident — who did not wish to be named — said the river bar was constantly moving, and the bank at the front of where he lived had eroded between 4m and 5m in the last week.
He said it was hard to encapsulate the general feeling of the community because there were "too many eccentric people".
"You live here to be outside your normal society.
"You will never find two people that will agree with what the next step is going to be."
No date had been given for opening the bar because a number of factors needed to be taken into consideration, including weather, tides and river flows — which were controlled in part by Meridian Energy.
On top of protecting homes, the district council was also dealing with a community landfill eroding into the sea at the end of Bluecliffs Beach Rd.
The council had begun removing the landfill last year, but ceased work after reports of buried explosives came to light.
Options for managing the risk and removing the landfill were being considered, the council said.
■LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
