Network for Learning supporting Cyclone Gabrielle recovery

Year 2 students Milana and Olivia enjoying their first day back at Eskdale Primary School after the cyclone clean-up. Photo: Warren Buckland.

Few weather events are as terrifying, or powerful as a tropical cyclone. At the beginning of February this year, Cyclone Gabrielle caused devastating damage to property and lives around the country. 

Devastation was widespread, but some of the hardest hit areas were in Hawke’s Bay, Coromandel, West Auckland and Tairāwhiti.

Many schools and kura sustained serious damage, experienced short- or long-term power cuts, or were required to close (most in the short term, but some long-term), which heavily impacted local communities. 

This is where Crown-owned organisation Network for Learning (N4L) stepped in to do what they could for recovery efforts.

Reconnecting schools

N4L, on behalf of the Ministry of Education, provides managed broadband, wi-fi and cybersecurity products and services to state and state-owned schools and kura across the motu.

Almost immediately after Cyclone Gabrielle hit, they began detecting a mounting number of outages.

As schools lost their power, they also lost internet, wi-fi and/or phone coverage, so, in some cases, they were unable to even let N4L know they needed help. 

N4L, however, was able to remotely detect the outages on its systems. Initially, N4L quickly tallied 64 schools with internet outages, with the number eventually climbing to a peak of 291.

Over coming weeks, it was reduced to four schools, all of whom had networks that were impacted as well as property damage so severe, they would require a full rebuild or relocation.

Partnering with Downer, Spark, Chorus, New Era and local fibre companies, N4L proactively monitored schools’ systems for outages and reconnections, worked with Civil Defence and the Ministry to support on the ground where possible and followed up with schools to ensure reconnection, so that ākonga could quickly return to learning. 

Complex fixes were being undertaken by their partners. In some cases, underwater fibre cables were damaged or severed, and these needed to be replaced or restored. In other cases, school networks were moved over to networks with working fibre links.

Devastation at Eskdale School

As well as the focus on reconnection, N4L also helped some schools temporarily relocate. 

At Eskdale School, a primary school in Napier, the Esk River had burst its banks and completely submerged the school’s lower field and playground. Once the water had receded, the entire area was covered with half a metre of silt.

Many of Eskdale’s students had been rescued from perilous and traumatic situations. Ninety seven students at the school were directly impacted by the cyclone, ranging from being lucky to be alive to losing land, possessions or houses. Forty seven students were permanently displaced from their homes.

Fortunately, none of Eskdale’s school buildings were damaged, but the flooding had badly impacted their septic, sewage and wastewater systems and left them with no power, phone line, running water or internet, so students couldn’t return to school.

The Brisbane Broncos paid a visit to Eskdale School in May to help boost their recovery.

Helping Eskdale recover

Keen to resume teaching, Eskdale made the call to relocate their 300 students to six makeshift learning hubs at the local playing fields at Petane Domain, calling on N4L to support them in this task. 

Utilising buildings like the Eskdale Bowls Club and soccer club rooms, as well as a newly installed marquee, N4L collaborated with partners Spark and New Era to create new internet connections from scratch for all of these buildings.

Also complicating things, the different learning hubs were spread out from each other, some as much as 500 metres apart, so each building needed a totally new connection created, rather than being able to ‘piggy-back’ onto each other’s signal.

“The support N4L provided was excellent,” says Eskdale School principal Tristan Cheer. 

“They made things happen quickly – which isn’t always possible for a school trying to get things sorted. The routers were sent to us, and Chorus was working on the internet lines before schooling had even begun on the Domain. 

“I was really impressed just by how much of a bespoke solution N4L were able to come up with for our situation. 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

In late March, Eskdale was finally able to return to their usual school site and resume teaching there. 

“We’re still waiting to get our school field back,” says Tristan. “That’s getting close. Everything else is operating as it should. It’s four months ago now and it still feels like it was only just yesterday. 

“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.”

Eskdale School has been incredibly courageous, showing amazing strength and resilience. N4L say they were proud to be able to play a small part in getting them back on their feet.

For more information about N4L, visit n4l.co.nz(external link).

When the Esk River’s banks burst, it flooded Eskdale Primary School’s lower field and left thick silt in its place when the water receded.