WREMO spokesperson Dan Neely on Wellington's red wind warnings

Widespread disruption as winds wreak havoc on Wellington.

State Highway Two Remutaka Hill was shut soon after 11 o'clock on Thursday morning, with gusts reaching 160 kilometres per hour in exposed places.

Wellington Region Emergency Management spokesperson Dan Neely gave an update to Nick Mills on Wellington Mornings, and says the winds are expected to ease from 2pm.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
It'd be Dan Nearly is Wellington's regional emergency management spokesperson,
and he joins us, now, good morning, Dan, good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
How are you doing.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm doing well? Thank you. Right. Compare it to the
other day when we had those really horrific winds. My
house shook round like hell? How compared today to then?
Was it Monday or Tuesday?

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yeah, that was just the other day, and yeah, that
was a big day and today's even bigger. Right, So
we do have some pretty severe weather right across the region,
with a red wind warning in place for the Wellington
area and wide Apple south of Carterton.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
So is it really that bad.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yeah, it's obviously causing turmult across the whole of the country.
At the moment, right across the Wellington region, we're starting
to see those winds really pick up. From now up
until probably around two to three pm. We're looking at
one hundred and sixty kilometer winds in exposed areas and
one hundred and thirty k wins in most other areas. Yes,
that's pretty it's pretty intense.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Just so you know, they've just got to text from
someone saying that on the hill and Streth Moore is
some huge gusts now, I'm not going to go out,
couldn't go out. So is that whereabouts is the worst
place to be right now?

Speaker 3 (01:19):
Probably any exposed areas right so, or you know, any
sort of areas where there'd be a lot of woodland.
So for example, right now, I know Rumatoka Hill and
why New and Mata Hill are in the process of closing.
Obviously highly exposed areas there. So we just definitely want
to encourage people not to travel if they don't need to,
and if they do have to travel, just be really

(01:39):
careful and plan ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Has there been any major incidents? Has it so far
that people should know about.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
There haven't been any major issues. We do know fire
and emergency and police have been responded to a small
number of weather related call outs throughout the morning, particularly
in the wide APPA, nothing major.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
What's your estimate for when the where the ease, When
do you think the airport will open on and what's
your gut saying to you?

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Well, speaking with met Service earlier, the crux of it
is basically right now till probably somewhere between two and
three pm it's going to start to die down and
win mornings in place until seven pm tonight, so it
will hopefully transition from pretty intense and severe right now
to horrible and gradually just a crappy Wellington Spring day

(02:25):
after that.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Okay, what's your main message for Valentonian's right now?

Speaker 3 (02:30):
We really just want people to again avoid any sort
of unnecessary travel if they do have to plan carefully,
and also just prepare your household and potentially your business
for any sort of power outages.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
You can just for you on this one, Dan and
other texts, because this is up to right up to
date for you. I mean, I know you'll have up
to date information as well. The inter island is in
the sea off the coast now there's no sea swell.
The ship is designed to handle the sort of condition.
Sam from seatun said, I mean that's pretty impressive, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
I don't have the details on that. I can't really
comment on that topic.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Okay, and way, I'm just updating our listeners as we
talk and as we have a chat. Wau Hill is
one side only you You did say that you thought
that would be closed though, didn't you.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
Yeah, we heard that we heard Rumataka Hill and wainou
Mata Hill are in the process of closing.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Okay, there you go. So if you've got to get
home to Waumata, get home to Waynumata uh and if
you are about to leave Wyuma stay So this wouldn't
you We had a couple of texts saying that we
might we might have been overreacting to this. Do you
think that that that's right or wrong?

Speaker 3 (03:33):
No, we've got to when we get this advice from
that service, we've got to take it very seriously. Right,
So public safety is always going to be a number
one priority. I don't think were reacting at all.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Okay, and how often can we expect this over this
bacteria particular time of the year, because this is where
it's sort of like, I don't know, it's kind of
weird weather. I caught it the weird weather time.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yeah, October is certainly the weird weather period for us,
isn't it. We can expect this kind of violence spring
weather every year this time of year, and from what
I was just speaking to some weather people the other day,
this has been a particularly bad weird weather season.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
There you go, Thank you very much for coming on
and letting us know.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
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