An environmental engineer who helped move an entire Australian town to higher ground after catastrophic flooding says if people are at risk of repeat weather events - then relocation should be on the table.
More than a dozen people died when a metres high wall of water flooded Grantham west of Brisbane in 2011 but it wasn't the first time the town had been hit.
So a swift decision was made to up-sticks and essentially move it up a hill.
Relocation or managed retreat is an issue facing a number of New Zealand towns and cities as extreme weather becomes more frequent.
In the last week hundreds evacuated their properties in the Nelson and Tasman districts.
At least 120 homes in Nelson have been red stickered, which means they're too unsafe to enter.
Another 100 houses have been yellow stickered - so residents can go home temporarily but may need supervised entry.
In Marlborough, 29 houses have been red stickered, and 48 yellow stickered.
Over the same period flooding and slips affected the West Coast, Wellington, Waitara in Taranaki and parts of Northland with damage to housing, roads and other infrastructure expected to amount to many millions.
Earlier this month the government released its National Adaptation Plan - a long-term strategy to deal with the effects of climate change.
In the plan managed retreat was defined as the process of abandoning places where the risk from hazards like flooding or erosion make it no longer viable to live.
The plan said costs would be shared between homeowners, local and central government, insurance companies and banks.
It also said legislation would be needed to support managed retreat, including reform of the Resource Management Act and a new Climate Adaptation Bill which will set out the managed retreat framework and is due for completion next year.
A policeman at a roadblock in the aftermath of flooding that destroyed the rural town of Grantham in Queensland in January 2011. Photo: AFP
It's already a familiar scenario for environmental engineer Jamie Simmonds who was project director for the Grantham move which he said was time critical due to the loss of life that had occurred and the possibility it could happen again.
After heavy rain "an inland tsunami" of water from six creeks converged on the Lockyer Creek, leaving people little time to even climb onto their roofs.
Twelve people died and most of the rural town's main area was destroyed, Simmonds told Checkpoint.
"So it was quite a significant event and was really the epicentre of that 2011 summer of flooding that happened in Queensland."
Within five months it was decided the town needed to be rebuilt somewhere else and within 11 months the first families had moved into their new homes.
He said there were two key requirements for moving at speed. The first was "good leadership on the ground".
"An idea of trying to drive this thing from a state or federal level really doesn't work. It had to be grassroots community driven and the community had to own it so that was a really big deal."
The second factor was keeping the team small so that decisions could be made quickly in response to what the community was saying.
Damage is evident for these Grantham homes. Photo: AFP
Simmonds said the move was cost effective - $A18 million to relocate 120 families.
"So because we did it so quickly, you don't have a lot of time to rack up bills with consultants and other sorts of things. So you move very quickly and you figure out what's important."
He was working for the local council which bought the land for the new town while the state and federal governments paid half each for the relocation costs.
"So that was how it was funded in the end, but the project was really driven by the local council."
Simmonds said the Grantham model has been widely used around the world.
"What you're trying to do is galvanise a community to move forward following a disaster.
"A relocation can, and it isn't always the case, can be a very good option for a community."
He said it was essential to move fast once officials decided there would be a risk of more deaths if the town stayed where it was.
"The thought of a mum putting her kids down to sleep at night in that floodplain in Grantham, it just didn't sit well with us, and the mayor, Steve Jones, he would talk about this all the time.
"How could a community be a community when they're afraid every time it rains."
The local council drove the move from the destroyed site. Photo: AFP
