The Gore District Council cannot say exactly how much the big October 2025 winds cost it, but it has been reimbursed for nearly $90,000 in staff and contractor overtime costs for the cleanup.
The cost of the response could not be fully quantified as there were a lot of parts that were intermingled with normal council business, councillors were told last week in a staff report on the wind event.
However, staff and contractors worked extended hours during the initial cleanup and those costs could be quantified, which allowed for claims to be made with NZTA for the road corridor cleanup, and the Ministry of the Environment (MfE) Emergency Waste Fund (EWF) for parks and public facilities cleanup.
As per standard refund rates for that sort of work, the council received back from NZTA $45,089 of its $73,917.26 cost for extra road cleanup; and $44,389 of the $73,982.61 it claimed from the MfE for extra costs to clean up parks and public facilities.
On October 23 last year a wind event that hit Southland created several issues in the Gore district including tree damage in parks, debris on roads and in council facilities.
There were warnings and the waste collection was cancelled and temporary road signs were secured.
The council’s incident management team convened in the council chambers and managed the council’s response to the wind.
Council’s business continuity planning ensured that as power was lost across the province, generators at the council offices, and connected to the Three Waters network kept those facilities operating at an optimal level, the report said.
Other facilities such as the multisports complex, both libraries, the visitor centre, and the transfer station closed for the day.
Council contractors were tasked to prioritise work as roads were cleared and power was restored.
The cleanup was still to some extent continuing today, the report said.
A lot of the debris from trees had been stockpiled at the Gore and Mataura landfills to be processed into chip as time and circumstances allowed.
Debriefs after the event had identified areas where the council could make some improvements and those processes and mitigations would be built into future capability and responses, the report said. — Allied Media
