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Tasman heavy rain forecast: hope for the best but prepare for the worst, deputy mayor says

Tasman heavy rain forecast: hope for the best but prepare for the worst, deputy mayor says

RNZ News08-07-2025
for wednesday morning
Flooding in Tasman last week.
Photo:
RNZ/Mark Papalii
Tasman's deputy mayor says residents should hope for the best but prepare for the worst as heavy rain is forecast for Wednesday afternoon.
The region is recovering from
widespread flooding
that wrecked homes and farmland. Since the flooding, 15 homes have been yellow stickered and one has been red stickered. They were in the Motueka Valley, Tapawera and Wai-iti.
MetService has issued a
heavy rain watch
over part of the Tasman District north-west of Motueka running from 1pm Wednesday until 3am Thursday.
"It's a little bit of a concern, particularly when local soils are so wet and people are still in recovery mode. A lot of people in the community are starting to feel the
weight of the previous flooding
which has been quite a burden to some people," deputy mayor Stuart Bryant said.
"More rain on top of what we've already had will just exacerbate what's already happened. There'll be soft soils at places where rivers are and we're worried that it'll crumble away into the river and more productive land will be washed away and lost.
"The other risk is, of course, silt or gravel coming over your land."
He said recovery from the previous flood had been daunting.
"Every day there's appeals for people to come and help with tidying up in different areas," he said.
"Student Army and lots of groups are stepping up but of course it all takes time to organise and co-ordinate and the clean up's not going to be exceptionally quick, it'll take weeks if not months."
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Tasman residents who have spent the last month in clean up mode have been hoping today's rain doesn't cause the same devastation seen in recent weeks. People in the district have endured two large floods and repeated orange heavy rain warnings, since the first flood caused widespread damage on 27 June. Dovedale has been hit by more rain in the latest weather event. Photo: RNZ/Mark Papalii Upper Moutere farmer Murray Silcock said it had been a worrisome few weeks. "Most farmers here were very nervous, not only farmers, the whole community is just wondering where we're heading now into the future with low lying land and flooding in houses, not just paddocks." Murray Silcock Photo: RNZ/Mark Papalii Silcock is a bull beef farmer near Dovedale. He said his farm could handle 100 millimetres of rain in one go, and on Tuesday afternoon it had already received about 60mm. 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