Ruapehu District Council has reactivated its Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) to Level 2 as they respond to the impacts from the heavy rain event over the past few days that has left flooding and multiple road outages.

Ruapehu Controller Clive Manley said that today’s fine weather is a welcome break and allowing response crews to start the clean-up process.

“Our key focus is on ensuring the small number of people and communities isolated by flooding are ok and reopening the road network,” he said.

“We are aware of a number of households who have self-evacuated overnight.

Civil Defence Welfare is offering support to families we are aware of however we ask that people please check on their neighbours or any elderly people who may be in need of assistance.

We have also been in contact with local Marae to check on their needs however no issues have been reported.

If anyone has a critical or a life threatening issue they should call 111.”

River levels are dropping slowly however there is still a lot of water in the upper catchment and it is expected to take a few days for these to drop.

“We have had reports of some people trying to drive through flooded areas and we ask that they please do not do this as it puts themselves and first responders at risk.

Everyone will need to be patient while river levels subside.”

There are power and cell outages affecting the district with Taumarunui High School working off a generator and telling students they can stay home.

There are a number of other schools that have closed for the day including Tarrangower Primary, Maitere and Ohura Schools.

The Lines Company report that a tree fall has caused power outages for some Taumarunui customers and are bringing in generators however the road issues have slowed their delivery with power expected to be returned this morning.

Due to high river turbidity Taumarunui residents are being asked to conserve water.

There are no other issues with Water Treatment Plants.

Regional Civil Defence headquarters in Palmerston North have organised a flyover of the district for later this morning to gain more detailed intelligence on the most impacted areas and allow us to better focus our recovery efforts.

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