Getting back to order after the floods

Neville Cook.

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1984 Floods

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As the water level went up, the crime rate came down.

Police liaison officer during the initial stages of the emergency, Neville Cook, says that although police were alert to the potential for looting, not only did this not happen but the reported incidence of conventional crime pretty much fell to zero.

"People were fabulous. They mucked in together, literally, and got things done. From the police point of view, I think it went really well."

Which isn't to say police didn't have heaps to do.

Mr Cook spent an initial 14 hours in the Civil Defence basement, but he does have dramatic first-hand memories, too. He was on the spot when the banks broke on the Waihopai and flooded down Bay Rd.

"(Sergeant) Bill Schuck took a police car down there to warn people they were going to get flooded. Within a few minutes the car was headed off down the road in the water. It happened that quickly.

"We called in helicopters to help rescue people off the flood banks, and then we got the air force to give us a hand. If we hadn't had them, we'd have been in big trouble.'

Mind you, there are some things a helicopter can't do, as one attempt at military mustering proved.

"We had farmers ringing up demanding helicopters to come and rescue stock. I was saying no, we're rescuing people. From their point of view that was an unreasonable decision. Some of them weren't very happy at all."

At one stage, an air force helicopter, seeing an opportunity below, did try to herd some stock from deeper to shallower water.

"The stock panicked and ran all over the place."

In contrast to the Mataura floods several years earlier, police this time didn't have to arrest any "we're-staying-put" householders and drag them out of their homes.

"We did have one or two farmers down on the Oreti flood plain refusing to leave, even when they were totally surrounded by floodwater. I think we had to be a bit formal with them."

Mr Cook doubted early advice from the Southland Catchment Board that the city airport wasn't going to go under.

"The airport would not flood; they were quite sure about that, so there was no need to evacuate anybody from down there.

"I didn't believe them and I rang the aero club (he was a member of the Southland Aero Club) and aircraft operators I knew down there and said: 'get your aircraft out'."

They did and it flooded. Happily, one of the BP tanker drivers had the foresight to take a tanker of aviation fuel out as well. It proved invaluable at the Doon St reserve, where helicopters could refuel.

Crucial though army assistance proved, the police did strike the occasional need to recalibrate communications. "Very literal, the army."

On the North Rd bridge over the Waihopai, the instruction was that nobody be permitted through unless with a permit signed by the police or the Civil Defence controller.

"They wouldn't let ambulances and the fire brigade through. We had to talk to them about this."

There mightn't have been much going on in the way of day-to-day crime, but Mr Cook does recall roguery. It wasn't a policing matter, strictly speaking, but he speaks with acute displeasure the activities of "a few dodgy visiting tradesmen" who came south for the aftermath.

"We had people signing up for job after job after job, without starting, or if they did they'd take off and it took months for them to come back sometimes and finish their work."

If there was one aspect of the emergency Mr Cook believed should have been done better, it was communication from the catchment board, which he feels was more limited and controlled than it should have been.

He is content that this would not be the case for the next emergency. The retired police officer is now an Environment Southland board member.

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