{"id":3053,"date":"2023-02-14T18:05:50","date_gmt":"2023-02-14T05:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=3053"},"modified":"2023-02-14T18:05:50","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T05:05:50","slug":"cyclone-gabrielle-firefighter-still-missing-fenz-receives-18000-storm-related-calls-in-a-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=3053","title":{"rendered":"Cyclone Gabrielle: Firefighter still missing, FENZ receives 18,000 storm-related calls in a day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fire and Emergency is using drones and seeking geotechnical advice over\u00a0a firefighter missing in Muriwai<\/a>, a media briefing has been told.<\/p>\n

Tonight, Fire and Emergency’s Urban Search and Rescue crews resumed operations at the site.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Fire and Emergency deputy national commander Steph Rotarangi said the firefighter remained missing after going into a flooded property on Motutara Road on Monday night.<\/p>\n

The property was hit by another house that collapsed during widespread rain and strong winds unleashed by Cyclone Gabrielle.<\/p>\n

A second firefighter was taken to hospital with critical injuries.<\/p>\n

Other properties on Motutara Road were evacuated.<\/p>\n

Rotarangi told the briefing, arranged by Auckland Emergency Management this afternoon, that crews remained at the scene on Auckland’s West Coast, and were trying to work out how to resume the search in a safe manner.<\/p>\n

FENZ had deployed drones and was working with the police and the Defence Force on geotechnical advice about when it would be safe for their teams to resume the search, she said.<\/p>\n

Also in Muriwai, Auckland Council regulatory services director Craig Hobbs said after a review of the area, police and FENZ determined the danger of carrying out rapid impact assessments of buildings was too high and the operation had to be stopped.<\/p>\n

“Police have alerted us that people are returning to dangerous properties in Muriwai and that is of extreme concern to us. We’re currently phoning all property owners that we can reach to advise of danger and that they must stay out of those properties,” Hobbs told the briefing.<\/p>\n

Slips, flooding and falling trees have affected the ability to assess some properties, he said.<\/p>\n

Fire and Emergency received about 18,000 storm-related incident calls in the past 24 hours.<\/p>\n

Auckland Emergency Management duty controller Rachel Kelleher said the national state of emergency declared before 9am today would assist in the recovery efforts.<\/p>\n

“The impacts to the west coast of the Auckland region have been considerable. Muriwai remains cordoned off by police.”<\/p>\n

Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson acknowledged the community support and the work of emergency personnel as well as elected members who had been helping throughout the night.<\/p>\n

Aotea \/ Great Barrier had also shown tremendous resilience after taking a big battering overnight too, she said.<\/p>\n

source\u00a0 Rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fire and Emergency is using drones and seeking geotechnical advice over\u00a0a firefighter missing in Muriwai, a media briefing has been told. Tonight, Fire and Emergency’s Urban Search and Rescue crews resumed operations at the site. Earlier, Fire and Emergency deputy national commander Steph Rotarangi said the firefighter remained missing after going into a flooded property […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3055,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions\/3055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}