A Christchurch fire brigade says staff have been “subjected to abuse” from drivers following the forced closure of a road due to rockfall.<\/p>\n
Sumner’s Main Rd was closed near Rapanui \/ Shag Rock following reports of rocks and water falling from the Clifton Hill, Christchurch City Council’s head of transport Stephen Wright told 1News in a statement.<\/p>\n
The protective wire netting preventing rocks from tumbling down had also been dislodged. <\/p>\n
In a statement this afternoon, the Sumner Volunteer Fire Brigade said a “decision was quickly made to close both the road and footpath to protect the public” pending a geotechnical assessment.<\/p>\n
The fire brigade said it had “hoped for a degree of understanding and patience from the wider public” in the wake of two fatal landslides in Mt Maunganui on January 22 \u2013 but that was “not always the case”.<\/p>\n
“Our volunteers were subjected to abuse from drivers being asked to take the 15-20 minute detour over Evans Pass, and we also encountered cyclists moving barriers to access the footpath \u2014 even after being advised that both the road and footpath were closed.”<\/p>\n
The brigade said situations such as rockfalls did not simply relent to allow people through so they could get somewhere on time.<\/p>\n
“Mother Nature does not care if you are running late. When a road is closed, it is done so for the safety of all road users, pedestrians, and emergency service personnel.<\/p>\n
“To those who were understanding and cooperative \u2014 thank you.<\/p>\n
“To those who were not, please do better next time.”<\/p>\n
In a statement this afternoon, a council spokesperson told 1News a geotechnical assessment determined the rockfall was caused by a blocked wastewater pipe. <\/p>\n
It added there was a “low risk of additional falls” and one lane of Main Rd had since reopened. <\/p>\n
Motorists were advised they would be able to leave and enter Sumner, but there were “significant delays in both directions”.<\/p>\n
“Traffic is being managed via traffic lights that will be manually controlled during peak times to allow for traffic flow in and out of Christchurch.<\/p>\n
“This traffic system is likely to be in place for several days while the area dries out.”<\/p>\n
The spokesperson said the Coastal Pathway remained open, while Clifton Tce was operating on one lane and “may need to be closed at times for repair works”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Christchurch fire brigade says staff have been “subjected to abuse” from drivers following the forced closure of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[158,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-266677","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-christchurch-canterbury","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}