Successful air evacuation

He says they are a capable little community, and in the thick of it they simply focused on looking after their tourists. “It was important that they were well looked after, fed and watered. We communicated with everyone twice a day and we set up social committees to keep people entertained. They played charades, board games, face painting, especially for the kids, to keep everyone engaged.”

For Lloyd Matheson, the highlight wasn’t only that no one was seriously injured but also, despite the pressure and constantly changing nature of the emergency response, they didn’t lose any of the 400-odd suitcases, bags or backpacks. “That’s a huge achievement – not even Air New Zealand can claim that.”

He believes it’s one of the largest air evacuations in New Zealand. Training and local support were crucial to the smooth running of the evacuations, with each helicopter having a local water rescue volunteer on-board as well as the pilot.

“The evacuations were probably a bit hairraising for the evacuees, but that’s what we train for and it was a good team effort.”

For the Department of Conservation, the concerns were for the wellbeing of the people and damage to the infrastructure. They had to close 75 tracks across Southland and Otago following the storm event, including two Great Walks, Milford and the Routeburn. “This caused major disruption and disappointment for walkers from all over the world who had booked their experience of a lifetime in Fiordland,” Nedra Burns says.

“Many of our rangers are long-term builders, maintainers and users of this infrastructure and have a strong emotional connection to it and to Fiordland, so they were saddened to see so much devastation.”

Nedra says she’s incredibly proud of the way the Fiordland community pulled together and supported each other. “It has obviously had a financial impact on many businesses and individuals and it’s been great to be part of the community approach to developing solutions.”

In Milford, despite being isolated, Tony says they could see there was a bigger problem brewing for Southland more widely. “We recognised that other people were far worse off than us and we wanted to be the ‘solved problem’ for Emergency Management Southland so they could focus on other areas and we could take the pressure off.”