Did you know that Toe-paw Council can now specify accurately exactly precisely where global warming will occur? Amazing perception. They advised that it will occur at TRM! SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed is TRM’s Manager of everything including flood protection staff training) has now introduced evacuation procedures to deal with global warning floods. In the photo below are the rafts available for guests in the event of the global warming flood. She says She is not worried about tsunamis, only flooding.

Sadly, this is another fishy report questioning our masters – Toe-paw Council, (correct phonetic spelling of Maori pronunciation is so important in Turangi) saved from the dreaded “delete” button by your natural curiosity to know the reason life jackets are issued to management staff and new inmates as they book in. What a crazy world we live in…

This again involves the Toe-paw Council’s ongoing extreme arrogance following on from the drama of the great signage debacle – when Council fined TRM for replacing an existing sign. We really should be grateful as that saga gave TRM nationwide publicity on a scale that we could never have been able to afford otherwise?. Regular readers know all that. This time we will do even better. This time Toe-paw Council have exceeded even that level of serendipity. That is why TRM Management are wearing life jackets too? TRM is doomed. We might have to build an ark?

The letter – emailed – from TDC advised: “The plan change provides for a larger flood than we have had in the past as, in calculating the 1%AEP flood, it takes into account the changes in river flows that will result from climate change. (???!!!) That is why your property (TRM) is identified as having some low level flooding (between 10cm to 27 cm) on it.  The plan change requires any new building (not existing buildings) to have their floor level built 300mm above this flood level.”

As TRM recently had architects plans prepared for 12 new units on concrete floors (to comply with wheelchair access code) we now have to start designing again to allow for 12 ramps. In addition property insurance will increase due to new imagined risk. In addition the land value must be affected but Council refused to alter their values to reflect the risk as that would reduce our property rates. TRM lose every way. Council know all this…

So Toe-paw Council (no doubt they will blame their consultant engineers) have advised precisely where global warming will cause flooding. When the rest of the world is still debating what it is and whether it will even occur, Toe-paw Council have bravely identified exactly where – more particularly at TRM where a nice little well managed motel has survived without any flooding for over 60 years. True! But those good ol’ days have gone.

The adjoining properties to the north, east and south on the same level as TRM are not affected. (Relax Andrew!) We appealed to their common sense but got buried in engineers technical jargon. We assumed that any flooding would come from the nearby Tongariro River? But as we are several 7-8 properties back from the river it seemed reasonable that they would be affected too. Nope, only us. Therefore the flood water must fall only on TRM? Quite bewildering technical science really.

This all came about after TRM objected to the RED FLOOD zone in 2017 which resulted in appearing at the formal Council hearing on 23 October 2018 (see image above) to defend TRM’s dry reputation and to correct them. We imagined we were just tidying up a simple Council mistake as the Council plans pointed exactly where flooding would occur. Their spy satellites identified the exact spot. It just happened to coincide with the lawn where TRM’s swimming pool and two spa pools used to be. They were filled in about ten years ago but that did not matter to Council. Rather than admit they made a mistake they downgraded the potential flooding to some other meaningless silly colour on TDC Plan Change 34 – Flood Hazard plan.

They must be correct, how could SWMBO possibly question such professional experts? Their attempts to justify their mistake are mind boggling. Imagine the professional fees from an independent peer review undertaken by NIWA who confirmed the methodology was appropriate, followed by:

• Another updated peer review report by NIWA
• A peer review discussion document by Opus and signed off by NIWA
• This technical compendium by Opus technical compendium goes into more detail around the methodology used.
• A valuation report.
• etc……

Nevertheless, it is curious to understand how only this property, or certain allocated parts of TRM property will flood, as common sense might suggest that flood water would usually have to spread out over adjoining properties to get here. According to TDC, that assumption involving the usual downward thrust of gravity is incorrect. I am sorry that neither you or Newton understand the pull of gravity. Only Toe-paw Council can explain. Even stranger, it only affects this property. So water does not flow downhill as you might have imagined. According to Toe-paw Council it only flows onto TRM? Quite extraordinary and very curious indeed.

If you were taught that Isaac Newton was one of the first scientists to figure out the rules of how gravity behaves – remeber his apple tree story when one of the fruits fell down – your understanding was wrong according to Toe-paw Council. The TDC engineers can control gravity to make the water only land on TRM but not adjoining properties?. Therefore, it figures, they must be able to control the moon as well. Quite remarkable really.