Covid 19 coronavirus: almost 10 hours trying to get back to Auckland

People returning to Auckland have faced massive road delays, with one woman reporting a nearly 10-hour crawl from Taupō.

Many other families have reported spending several hours sitting in traffic trying to get through Auckland’s Covid-19 checkpoints, after the city entered an alert level 3 lockdown early yesterday morning.

Another long day of queuing is expected today, with police and road authorities urging people to “be patient.”

But people are confused about the need for checkpoints for those trying to enter the city.

At Mercer, a queue more than a kilometer long this morning, rapidly diminished to about 500 meters just after 8 a.m. M.

However, a steady stream of traffic keeps coming.

State Highway 1 is divided into two lanes: one for cars and one for trucks, which flows relatively freely.

Between 7.30 and 8 in the morning, it appeared that two cars had been rejected.

Police officers and Defense personnel are lined up on the exit ramp at Mercer, where people are asked what the reason for the trip is and if they have documents as proof of travel.

ACT leader David Seymour wrote on Twitter: “The government needs to explain why it is blocking people from entering Auckland. People report six hours of waiting and ambulances rescuing distressed motorists.”

Speaking to Newstalk ZB this morning, he described the fiasco as “absolutely extraordinary.”

“It’s amazing. I mean, I had people texting me all night; we had people in their 90s who had to go to the bathroom on the side of the road, ambulances picking up people because they had died from the heat.

“And it shows some things, firstly, the total lack of common sense of this government. Why would it stop people from entering Auckland?

“The point is to keep the virus contained within Auckland, not to prevent people from returning home.”

Seymour said he could not understand how government officials were unable to anticipate the thousands of people who would try to return to Auckland over the weekend.

“Even if you want to prevent people from entering the area, given the extraordinary circumstances of the unannounced call restrictions in the middle of the weekend, of course there will be thousands of people trying to re-enter Auckland on Sunday night. .

“I will never understand how the government failed to anticipate that and created some kind of disaster.”

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told Mike Hosking of Newstalk ZB this morning that what we saw happen yesterday was the effect of a lockdown that took place in the middle of a weekend.

The Defense Force called to help

Additional personnel from the New Zealand Defense Force have been recruited to help ease the queues, he said.

“MBIE here has done an incredible job. Yes, the first level 3 was difficult and we needed to improve at the border.

“We now have a regime where everyone can reissue their documents so they can move out right away.”

The Waka Kotahi NZ Transportation Agency issued an alert on Twitter earlier today reminding motorists of the checkpoints on State Highway 1 and SH2.

“Travel to (and) from Auckland is restricted at Covid level 3 with travel for essential purposes only.

“Please be patient with the expected delays at the police checkpoints at SH1 Te Hana, SH1 Mercer and SH2 Mangatāwhiri.”

Police said traffic at some of the checkpoints was still heavy at times during the night and they expected to release figures related to the first day of checks later today.

Motorists who contacted the Herald yesterday reported having to queue in long lines for between two and nine hours.

One woman, who did not want to be identified, said she had been in traffic south of the city for six hours.

He left Rotorua at 1pm and had not yet reached the Auckland southern border checkpoint by 10pm.

“I have not exceeded 5km, I have crawled.”

The woman said people would get out of their cars and run to a nearby gas station to get food and then get back to the car before it had moved very far.

People were also running out of their cars into the bushes on the side of the road to go to the bathroom, he said.

“It seems crazy that it took us so long to get back in. I don’t blame the police at all. I just hope they can do something a little different.”

He had food and water, but he didn’t drink it for fear of having to go to the bathroom.

Olivia Savidan, a resident of Auckland, drove back to the city from Raglan and said she covered about 7 km of highway in five hours.

She was traveling back after a “mother and daughter” trip with seven mothers and nine daughters, but the usually two-hour trip had taken the group more than seven hours.

“We are joking about how lucky and lucky we are to not have a crying baby or a pet,” Savidan said.

“The girls are entertaining themselves. They all go to the bathroom on the side of the road, it’s not exactly fancy.

“We can’t believe there is a border control going back [Auckland], we would expect it to come out. This is crazy “.

But even long delays in traffic couldn’t wipe the smiles off the daughters’ faces after their weekend away, with the young women in good spirits after hours stuck in traffic.

“One of our girls did burpees on the side of the road.

Another mother in the group, Nerolie Curran, was optimistic about the traffic delays.

“We are playing our little role in New Zealand keeping us as open as possible.”

He said he would wait in line again “any day.”

“The only reason we could go with a group of friends is because New Zealand has done so well to get this far. This is just part of making sure we can do more weekends.”

Other motorists also reported lengthy delays when returning to the city, with a woman saying she had been in the car for nearly 10 hours while driving back to Auckland from Taupō.

The trip usually takes just over three hours.

Shortest wait north of Auckland

Meanwhile, a Northland man said he crossed the northern border in about 20 minutes, most other motorists are experiencing delays of several hours, up to six hours by 6 p.m. today in at least one case.

A man on his way from Hamilton to Auckland was trapped at the northern checkpoint for almost four hours, while another motorist saw people “going to the bathroom” on the side of the road and heard the crying of babies.

By late afternoon, the police had established a dedicated “cattle lane” to help speed up the journey of vehicles carrying animals.

Those who had livestock or animals and were caught in traffic were urged to call * 555.