Clean up continues on Wellington state highways

Cleaning up Wellington’s state highway network after this week’s storms is expected to continue over the weekend said Transit New Zealand.

“The heavy rain on Tuesday and Wednesday caused a number of slips on state highway two between Ngauranga and Melling,” said Transit Wellington’s regional manager Brian Hasell.

“The slip at Horokiwi which disrupted northbound traffic for much of yesterday was cleared by peak hour, but we still have work to do to clear slips on state highway two between Dowse Drive and Melling.”

Mr Hasell said it is important to get the slips cleared as quickly as possible, which means that contractors will be working over the weekend.

He said a number of large trees dislodged by the slips need to be removed and some small water flows down the side of the banks repaired.

“To carry out the work the roading contractor will need to close the left hand northbound lane in places over the next three days. However, both lanes will be open during peak hours and when no work is taking place,” said Mr Hasell.

“The good news is that none of our state highway structures such as bridges were damaged by the storm and all state highways in the Wellington region are currently open.

“It was a very dynamic situation but our staff and contractors coped extremely well in spite of having to put in very long hours. They did a great job in such bad weather.”

“We also appreciated that many people took heed of the warning not to travel on Wednesday, and while there were some delays yesterday everything is nearly back to normal now.”

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>