Transcript
MATA HETLAND - We have a roof tie down project, which has been going on for a while on other islands too, but this one is for the island of Mauke and it's a roof tie down using, you know, in most cases people would use rope, but nowadays we use galvanised wire, eight mill, so therefore this goes over the roof because they're both galvanised and the hose is used to prevent any electrical shocks or any static that may happen when the wire is against the roofing itself, the aluminium roofing, so the galvanised wire is threaded through the hose and mainly in the corners or the edges of the roof and that's why we're using them. It's for 40 homes on the island of Mauke. We thought we didn't want to go and buy a new length of hose, which is quite expensive and we are recycling old hoses that are just lying about in most homes.
SELA JANE HOPGOOD - So you've mentioned that some islands have already got this project underway, what islands in Cook Islands?
MH - Now it started off as a Finpac project, which is the Finnish Met Office together with our SPREP (Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme) in Samoa, so International Federation of the Red Cross in Suva was ruled out to all the Pacific countries, so we had to come up with ideas or activities on how to use the funding that was given, relate it to weather and climate information, which includes climate change, so therefore the community of the utu in Aitutaki actually came up with this model using galvanised wire, with turned buckles down in the anchors that tightens and loosens and so unlike the rope where it's ghastly looking and some people take them off after the cyclone season and put them up again, it's quite a job, so this model is really quite successful during that project period, so Australia Red Cross together with Aus Aid who support our programme financially have agreed to rule it out as risk reduction activity for my disaster management programme, so we've done one on Mauke and there's one going on the island of Rakamu, which is the far north island, so yes it's a risk reduction, so that the roof don't get blown off, well less chance hopefully, like I said just need a little puff of wind to check it out.
SJH - Is there a reason why we're focusing at the moment on the island of Mauke? Is it because of its location?
MH - Well, yes the location and they requested as well. They agreed to have the project, so that's why we wait for them.
