Hawkes Bay residents have suffered incomprehensible destruction and now, as the floodwaters start to recede, locals are sharing stories of survival
A couple rescued from the roof of their house in Hawke’s Bay’s rural Puketapu on Tuesday have finally made it to safety in Napier.
Ant and Anna Sabiston managed to get a ladder from their garage and make it to the roof of their Omaranui home at around 6.30am on Tuesday as the flood waters rose suddenly around them.
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"A friend phoned and said the neighbours had water coming through and we looked out at the river and thought there’s no water out there. It had only been light drizzle for us. But the power was out so I went to get the gas cooker from the garage and there was water there. Then it was like a tsunami, that was how fast it was."
They believe their beloved 15-year-old Labrador Meg was swept away.
"We just couldn't get her up the ladder," says Anna through tears.
Anna says she was scared the floodwaters were going to come up over the roof. But after three hours in the rain a couple of locals arrived by helicopter and picked them up. Over the next 24 hours they stayed with neighbours before making their way in an army Unimog to Ant’s sister’s house in Napier.
They told Newsroom they’ve lost everything, and so has everyone on their road.
"I don’t think people realise in town the devastation."
Ant says the sheer amount of forestry slash was unbelievable.
They say the stories of survival they’ve heard from their area are amazing, including 11 RSE workers at Bearsley’s agriculture who swam from their one-level accommodation over to their employer's two-storey house and were then choppered out.
Napier is still without power and internet today, and Civil Defence is busy still trying to account for dozens of people isolated because of flood damaged bridges and slips.
Wednesday
The skies are finally clear, the day after cyclone Gabrielle barrelled through Napier. But as the waters begin to recede the scale of the carnage is only just becoming clear.
Power and internet is still out. Residents have just heard the water is also about to be turned off at the source. Drivers are figuring out how to turn four-way traffic light intersections into roundabouts using orange cones.
"These forestry guys have gotta sort their stuff out. The size of the logs. We could see the slash coming towards us."
Groups of people huddle around the rumoured places you can still snatch some WiFi, shouting into their phones or crouched over them tapping quickly. But the WiFi spots keep changing.
On Hyderabad Road, the Party Ice HQ has set up a table and is forklifting pallets of those ubiquitous plastic bags full of ice to passing drivers who have pulled up on the curb. They’ll last a few hours in people’s chilly bins.
Drive around the city and some areas look untouched. Others though, are still submerged. Harold Holt Avenue in Pirimai is still underwater. Alarms have been going off all night in abandoned houses no one can reach.
Napier is still without power and internet today, and Civil Defence is busy still trying to account for dozens of people isolated because of flood-damaged bridges and slips.
If you walk down Brookfields Road the water will soon reach your waist. The corn fields are dying already, their legs still underwater. Dead calves float at the fence lines. Yesterday the owners of one property here swam 15 horses out in chest high water. They all survived.
With such little communication, communities are relying on word of mouth and rumour. Strangers pass information to each other on the street.
An engineer heard that a 20-foot container barreling down from the local transfer station was what took out the bridge at Waiohiki.
Others are asking: What has happened to the nearby rubbish dump behind Taradale? Or the composting plant in Awatoto? Where will all the refuse go when people start clearing their properties of water damaged items?
A beautiful concrete bridge that has been in existence for 100 years has been washed away.
In the central township there is evidence of break-ins at a petrol station and a dairy. There was one petrol station open this morning with queues down the street, people not just filling up their cars but rows of jerry cans too. The other Pak'nSave petrol station was already closed.
Stories are coming through of dramatic rooftop rescues, of houses and properties completely gone and everything lost.
An Australian tourist attempts to get back to Wellington to catch his flight home but is stopped by the floodwaters. We pull up next to him and give him our address. He has nowhere else to go.
Everyone is pulling together, but the work is just beginning. And more rain is forecast to arrive on Thursday.
Was Napier was completely cut off from the rest of the country and was without power or communications right through Tuesday.
A fibre cable was cut and the substation at Red Bridge submerged, leaving residents heading into nighttime with candles and gas cookers to make food and no way of contacting anyone.
All access routes in and out of Napier were shut down due to flooding and slips and there was no way to reach the hospital in Hastings for emergency arrivals.
Residents of Taradale, Omahu, Meeanee and Jervoistown were told to evacuate mid morning by an emergency message on mobile phones - however due to the full power and internet outage many people did not receive the warning.
The stopbanks alongside the Tutaekuri River were recently raised to prevent inundation, but by mid morning Tuesday ad been breached and water was flooding Taradale.
Multiple bridges have been washed away including part of the Redclyffe Bridge at Waiohiki and the Brookfields one-way bridge towards Hastings. With cars being turned away by police from entering the Napier-Hastings expressway there is no access to Hastings from Napier at all.
Twenty-two elderly patients from a dementia unit in Taradale, Bryant House, were evacuated to Napier Central School, which has been designated an emergency shelter, but were in need of mattresses to sleep on.
Around 20 other evacuees who were in the school’s hall were transferred to Pukemokimoki marae.
Trees have come down all over Napier, waterways are still overflowing and residents are being told to conserve water.
Residents have been frustrated and alarmed by a lack of communications on national radio, which is currently the only source of information.
A Napier resident, Nick Fitness, told Newsroom on Tuesday his parents live in Esk Valley, which was cut off, and he hadn’t been able to speak to them since early yesterday morning.
"We’re really worried. We have no idea if they’re alright. We can’t get out there, and it’s just madness to try."
His wife, Rhiannon Fitness, was frustrated at the lack of communications through RNZ.
"When it got to about 3 o'clock and they said they were going to return to normal programming and just update you - I couldn’t believe it. We have no communication - even if you’re just repeating the same messages, it’s something."
A couple from overseas who spoke to Newsroom said they drove down from Wairoa on Monday and checked into a hotel, only to wake today to have no power, communications or food. After walking 15 minutes to the only open store they discovered it had already shut for the day.
Other residents Newsroom spoke to said being completely disconnected is terrifying.
"The PM is saying on the radio 'Please let friends and family know' but we have no way of letting them know" said a Taradale evacuee.
The effects of Cyclone Gabrielle on Hawkes Bay are being described by emergency personnel as the most significant weather event this century, since Cyclone Bola in 1988.
Meanwhile, a marae and around 50 houses have been flooded in the Hastings settlement of Omahu.
Joe Te Rito, who lives in Auckland, has a house in the small settlement and was sent an image from whānau showing the marae and the whole surrounding area inundated from floodwaters breaching the banks of the Ngaruroro River.
"I've got a house there and it's probably underwater but I can't see it in that photo. But the marae is under water and the whole papakainga. I've just got the photo through family, through family, through family. It's taken from on top of Puketapu-Fernhill looking down on our community. That's the Ngaruroro River right at the front of the photo. It's flowed over the stopbank but it's also come from further upstream. On the left of that photo goes up to Taihape. That photo is facing north from the hill. I think it's come over further up as well as breaching the banks at Omahu. I think that was taken at about 4pm this afternoon (Tuesday)."
"I'm just freaking out because I've got two cousins there who I spoke to this morning. They were staying put. I'm just hoping that they evacuated with all the other people. I rang to my cousins about 8am because I've got a house there and they're living in it. Someone else had left and fled with her bag and texted me and said the water is already going over the bridge. So I rang my cousin who was at the house and they were staying put. They're two women in their 50s and one had an operation a couple of weeks ago. I don't know how they would have got out because they couldn't go the Taradale way because that's all washed out."
He's hoping everyone got out okay.
"Presumably they got picked up by the rescue people because other people got picked up. We're just trying to locate where the heck they are. All the cellphone coverage is out. But it's quite tragic, our school, our marae, our cemetery, our whole community is underwater. And I'm sitting safely here in Auckland."
"There would be a good 30 houses around in that part. In the wider Omahu there's probably about 40 or 50."
After speaking on the phone, Te Rito texted that his cousins had been found.
He says the last time he has seen anything similar in that area was Cyclone Bola in the 1980s.
"The Ngaruroro has high stopbanks and the last time I saw it top to top was 1988 during Cyclone Bola. It was really freaky because I could hear things tumbling down."
