Meghan Fagan just wants to go home. She has been stuck in Nelson since Wednesday, unable to get to her home in Rai Valley.
Currently the only access to Rai Valley for residents of the small township is via Kaikōura – a more than five-hour journey, and not one that is commutable to her truck driving job in Nelson.
“I commute to Nelson every day for work and school so I can’t just go home the long way and stay there.”
She says Ministry of Social Development has offered her a weekly payment if she cannot get to work, but being a third of her weekly wage, it’s not something she can survive on.
She said she thought about going home via the detour and staying there until SH6 reopens between Rai and Nelson, but only having been in her current job for a little over a week, she doesn’t want to do that to her employer.
Meghan and her two boys, Isyiah and Ezekiel, just moved to Rai Valley three weeks ago to live a more peaceful life.
“I was loving it, you wake up and you hear the birds, in the dark you see the stars, I love it out there,” she says.
Her ex-husband also moved, and they co-parent from the same property.
“We were both renting separately but we can’t afford to be here. He was paying $440 a week in rent, I was paying $500 so we just thought ‘stuff it, let’s do something different’,” but this is not what she imagined.
Until Sunday, she didn’t yet know the fate of her home, as flooding ravaged the township, and she hasn’t yet built connections in the community to ask anyone to check on it. She then found the peace of mind that flood waters had not entered her home, and flooding has subsided around the property.
She found the meeting at Saxton Stadium on Sunday helpful, although has struggled at times with lack of services.
Following the meeting she connected with the Ministry of Primary Industries, who are going to try and get some food in for her house bunny.
She also connected with Civil Defence to look at extending her accommodation, which was due to run out on Monday but has been extended till Thursday.
Civil Defence are trying to find the family a rental property, as it looks to be some time before she will be able to commute between Nelson and Rai Valley.
Nelson MP Rachel Boyack was also planning to organise a food pack for Meghan’s family – Meghan not realising this was an offer she could take up.
“I’ve sucked out my savings – it’s cost me $1000 extra this week on everything, but I still don’t have lunch food for the kids.”
She says the lack of consistency and small space is a struggle for her children, but she is grateful to have a roof.
“I want consistency for them. My oldest has Oppositional Defiant Disorder, so he doesn’t cope well with change, my youngest is immune compromised and so am I so we can’t be jumping around too much.”
“The motel is doing my head in; I just want to take them home.”
