Girls on green slide: Milana Hallaux (left) and Olivia Hooker, both in Year 2, enjoying their first day back at Eskdale Primary School after the cyclone clean-up. Photo / Warren Buckland
In the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle, the partially-flooded Eskdale School needed to relocate to a temporary site that required multiple new internet connections. Our team was proud to play a part in getting ākonga back online and learning again as quickly as possible.
When Cyclone Gabrielle reached the upper North Island on Sunday 12 February and began its destructive path across the motu, it was quickly evident it would be one of the most severe weather events Aotearoa had ever seen.
In the days to follow, N4L restored internet to over 290 schools that had lost connectivity during the storm. At Eskdale School, we had to go a step further, working with a team of our partners to build new connections at a new temporary location for the school.
Fatal floods in the Esk Valley
A semi-rural settlement in the Esk Valley near Napier, Eskdale was one of the communities worst affected by Gabrielle. In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the storm caused the Esk River to burst its banks. A flash flood swept through the valley, submerging properties under metres of water and burying homes in silt. Where they could, residents fled to higher ground or desperately sought refuge in attic spaces and rooftops. Tragically, some people lost their lives, contributing to Cyclone Gabrielle’s 11 fatalities.
Moving Eskdale School offsite
At the local primary, Eskdale School, the lower field and playground were totally flooded and, once the water had receded, the entire bottom field and playground were under half a metre of silt. Some of the school’s approximately 300 students had been rescued from perilous and traumatic situations. 97 ākonga were directly impacted by the cyclone, ranging from being lucky to be alive, to losing land, possessions or houses. 47 were permanently displaced from their homes.
Although none of Eskdale School’s buildings were damaged, the flooding had badly impacted septic, sewage and wastewater systems and left the school with no power, phone line, running water or internet. This meant ākonga were unable to return to school, placing yet more pressure on the already stricken community. Getting ākonga back to class was about more than learning – it was a way to give them some support and routine, and it also meant parents could focus on the massive cleanup.
Keen to resume teaching ASAP, Eskdale made the call to relocate their 300 students to six makeshift learning hubs at the local playing fields at the nearby Petane Domain.
Helping Eskdale back online
When we heard the school’s plan, our team immediately started assessing the Domain and working out how to get internet access to each of the learning hubs. It wasn’t the simplest of operations – the hubs were spaced out between the Eskdale Bowls Club, the rugby club, the soccer club rooms, and a newly-installed marquee. Each site was far away from its closest neighbour, meaning the hubs required totally new connections, rather than being able to ‘piggy-back’ onto other signals.
Working with Spark and New Era, we created new internet connections from scratch for all of these buildings.
“The support N4L provided was excellent,” recalls Eskdale School’s Principal, Tristan Cheer.
“They made things happen really quickly – which isn’t always possible for a school trying to get things sorted. The routers were sent to us and Chorus were working on the internet lines before schooling had even begun on the Domain.”
Getting Eskdale’s temporary site online had its challenges, but our priority was making it happen as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
“I was really impressed just by how much of a bespoke solution N4L were able to come up with for our situation,” adds Tristan. “They stepped up and made things happen, so our kids could get back to learning, get some normality and teachers could get back to doing their job.”
Eskdale return to their school site
At the end of March, Eskdale School was finally able to return to their regular school buildings and resume teaching there. The school and its community have shown remarkable courage and strength in the aftermath of the disaster, but the experience of Cyclone Gabrielle is never far from mind.
“You wake up and think it must have been a nightmare, but you look out your window and see some of the remnants of the damage and you realise it wasn’t a nightmare – it did happen,” says Tristan.
Like everyone else in New Zealand, our team wanted to dig in and help those who lost loved ones and their homes in Cyclone Gabrielle. We are proud to have played a small part in helping Eskdale School get back on its feet. Supporting schools with all things internet might be our ‘business as usual’, but working to get Eskdale reconnected as fast as possible was a small way of ensuring ākonga could continue to learn despite the disaster.