\u201cI remember the smell,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Hipkins\u2019 visit came on the tail end of Cyclone Vaianu, one of six major weather events since the start of the year.<\/p>\n
While much of the school\u2019s renovation work had already been completed before Hipkin\u2019s visit, the community spirit was inspiring, he said.<\/p>\n
The Labour leader told the Waikato Herald it was important for him to be present in communities during tough times and said the days of going back to the old Kiwi summer were over.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunities like \u014ctorohanga are still rebuilding while worrying about what comes next.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bex Asplet and Chris Hipkins check out a contaminated classroom.<\/p>\n
He said recovery needed to include a look at building resilient infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Asplet said that while the school was under renovation, the students had been using the hall to study in or using \u014ctorohanga South School.<\/p>\n
\u014ctorohanga Primary School is expected to reopen next week.<\/p>\n
\u014ctorohanga Mayor Rodney Dow said that although progress had been made, recovery was still in its early stages.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s only been a short time, and this is the only recovery I\u2019ve been involved in,\u201d Dow said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a dedicated recovery team working very hard, and I believe we are doing okay. But there\u2019s still a lot of work to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Twenty-three homes and buildings remained yellow-stickered, either under repair or awaiting the start of work, leaving some residents displaced.<\/p>\n
Critical infrastructure was also still being restored.<\/p>\n
\u201cRoads and parks still need to be repaired, and a lot of farms and infrastructure need to be remedied,\u201d Dow said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes time, and technical reports are needed to work through what solutions are best.\u201d<\/p>\n
Support for schools is ongoing, though Dow said updates were best provided by the schools themselves.<\/p>\n
Questions around funding remained unresolved, with discussions ongoing with central government agencies, including Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a bit early to fully answer that,\u201d Dow said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s inevitable that ratepayers and taxpayers will contribute \u2013 unless we get on Santa\u2019s list.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dow acknowledged the flooding had been classified as an extreme weather event and said the council was already taking lessons from it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are learning from this event how to better prepare ourselves in case we get another one.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the district was now in a stronger position than it had been in February.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we are better prepared now than we were on February 13, so I would be confident we could handle another storm,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have a choice but to handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom Eley is a multimedia journalist at the Waikato Herald. Before he joined the Hamilton-based team, he worked for the Weekend Sun and Sunlive. He previously worked as a journalist at Black Press Media in Canada and won a fellowship with the Vancouver Sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI remember the smell,\u201d she said. Hipkins\u2019 visit came on the tail end of Cyclone Vaianu, one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,3276,17153,6659,2837,8231,199562,19876,2740,13480,6721,13489,6722,111,43,139,69,6177,415,13194,6560,1881,4062,1961,86465,17249,14450,1524,686],"class_list":{"0":"post-384544","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-chris","10":"tag-damaged","11":"tag-deadly","12":"tag-during","13":"tag-event","14":"tag-februarys","15":"tag-flooding","16":"tag-former","17":"tag-hipkins","18":"tag-labour","19":"tag-leader","20":"tag-minister","21":"tag-new-zealand","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-newzealand","24":"tag-nz","25":"tag-primary","26":"tag-prime","27":"tag-progress","28":"tag-rain","29":"tag-recovery","30":"tag-school","31":"tag-this","32":"tag-torohanga","33":"tag-visited","34":"tag-visits","35":"tag-waikato","36":"tag-week"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384544","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=384544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}