It’ll be known as the great snow of 2010 for years to come. It will go down in local folklore as a “Where were you when the snow struck?” moment.
And for farmers, it couldn’t have come at a worse time with many right in the middle of lambing.
The loss of hundreds of thousands – possibly even a million - lambs comes at a time when the demand for their meat is increasing on the world stage. And it comes as the number of lambs on-farm is decreasing with the number of dairy conversions in recent years.
One estimate puts the destruction at one million lambs dead! Now that is a huge blow to the economy of Southland, if you think that in a matter of months those lambs would be fetching $90 - $130. So that’s roughly a hundred million dollars or more out of the community because of one foul snow fall.
Seeing the piles of dead slinks being collected on the news is certainly distressing and must have raised many questions from urban youngsters seeing it on the news.
Then there was the loss to the community of the Southland Stadium.
A couple of years ago, we produced the National Bank Young Farmer Contest out of Stadium Southland in Invercargill. It was July and was pretty chilly weather for the contestants working away outside on their various challenges as a cold blast came off the Antarctic.
When it came to the Grand Final broadcast, we felt so relieved to have the Stadium there, especially as the rain was bucketing down. Perhaps we might have been a little more circumspect if we’d known how flimsy the structure apparently was.
Having said that, it was a magnificent facility and a real community hub. There was a constant stream of sporty people of all ages coming and going and getting the most out of the stadium. Apparently, it attracted 10,000 people every week.
It is a tragedy for a community to lose something as pivotal as the stadium. Not only do they forfeit the facility, locals lose the ability to host great community events. The stadium has been the venue for International Netball, Davis Cup Tennis, concerts, boat shows and equestrian events plus the home of rock climbing, indoor soccer, squash and volleyball.
It is a bloody shame. But like the Cantabrians, the Southlanders are built tough and they will simply overcome it for the love of their province.
As a footnote, we did get snow on one Young Farmer Grand Final.
No, it wasn’t in Southland, Otago or Canterbury.
Instead, it happened in temperate Hawke’s Bay. The biggest snow fall in years cut all roads in and out of the Bay and extinguished power right in the middle of our broadcast.
Thank God for generators.
