Air Force drops supplies at Canterbury's ground zero, a village cut off in the floods

Tuesday, 1 June 2021

Mt Somers Station receives supplies of milk, bread and groceries for the local store after selling out of products during the flooding.

The low thrum of a Defence Force helicopter signalled the good news – a much-anticipated delivery of groceries was on its way to the ground zero of Canterbury’s devastating floods.

In a paddock that up until Monday night had become a lake, Mt Somers station owners David and Kate Acland and their children Harriet, Otto and Leo waited for the stores to fill the town’s shop.

As the chopper descended, the children’s prize Suffolk sheep herd looked on curiously before dispersing as the rotors fanned the debris from the soaked ground and the crew began to unpack boxes of food and toiletries.

David Acland, of Mt Somers Station, picks up relief supplies for the local store dropped in by the Defence Force.

It was a much-needed replenishing of supplies for a community that until Tuesday had been completely cut-off from the outside world.

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Torrential downpours over the weekend and into Monday brought more than half a metre of rain to the hills surrounding Mt Somers, leaving farmland drenched and rutted, and wiping out stock fencing and winter feed crops.

Down in the village 34cm caused significant surface flooding, with one hospitality business suffering almost a metre of water in parts of a building.

The Defence Force had to bring in supplies after Mt Somers in Mid Canterbury was cut off in the floods.

Swathes of silt lie on productive farmland not far from the village, roads scarred and rutted.

Residents on the town’s water supply have had to boil their water as a precautionary measure, the system working at capacity.

But just as quickly as the water washed over the landscape it was gone, leaving only debris and months of hard work ahead for the local farmers.

While Acland's farm was hit by the weather, his farming colleagues in low-lying areas fared much worse.

Acland terms this post-flood phase “the grind” – when the adrenaline of the flood fades and Civil Defence workers and those tasked with helping in times of natural emergencies begin to move on to the next situation.

As the senior vice president of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers, Acland has an important role in co-ordinating the next phase of the recovery, and says helping downstream farmers who have lost winter and spring livestock feed supplies will be critical.

“I really feel for the guys down country. For us, it is a big event but for them, it is huge.”

Working out exactly what is needed right now was important, he said, as are the long-term needs of farmers in months to come.

Acland feels lucky that only 100 hectares of his 3800 hectare property sustained severe damage.

With 13,000 breeding sheep, 3000 deer, 1300 dairy cows and 200 head of beef cattle, Mt Somers Station is one of the larger farms in the area but did not lose many livestock in the storm.

The block had shingle blown through it by the force of the flood and kilometres of fencing will need to be repaired.

Beehives have floated away and farm tracks have been eroded. It will be a big job to fix the damage, but Acland remains philosophical, saying his neighbours have had it far worse.

Mt Somers residents for 25 years, David and Wendy Millichamp said some of their neighbours had been flooded, but the community had coped well with the deluge.

Although they had been cut off for two days, the district was used to being self-sufficient due to regular seasonal heavy snowfalls.

David said it was a “great, supportive” community to live in, and they had gathered at the local store to “lift their spirits”.

Armed with bottled water, the Millichamps felt lucky the area had not suffered damage so severed that they would be cut off for longer, and praised the Ashburton District Council for the work it had done on stopbanks.