April 2023

13 Buckden Roundabout April 2023 Hurricane Gabrielle—a personal tale “ State of emergency in New Zealand: Entire roads washed away, thousands of families displaced from their homes, and power cut off as a huge cyclone strikes the country. ” New Zealand has had a bad late summer, with storms, floods, earthquakes and a huge cyclone all occurring over a period of a few weeks from mid January until well into February this year. Christine and I were unfortunate enough to get caught up in Cyclone Gabrielle as it devastated much of the east coast of New Zealand ’ s North Island over those few days around 11th to 13th of February. In the southern hemisphere severe tropical storms are called cyclones and rotate in a clockwise direction, while in the north- ern hemisphere cyclones are usually called hurricanes or ty- phoons and rotate in an anti - clockwise direction. Extreme wind speeds can exceed 80mph, with gust speeds in excess of 100mph being recorded. The photo shows the formation of a cyclone. The eye of the cyclone can be clearly seen. This is an area of very low atmos- pheric pressure into which water is drawn up and then dis- persed sideways. So, cyclones will normally occur over the sea. However the extremities of the system can have devastating effects over coastal regions. Napier is a beautiful “ art deco ” city on the east coast of the North Island half - way down the coast of Hawkes Bay. Napier and surrounding areas took the full force of cyclone Gabrielle on the night of 12 Feb before it moved away into the South Pacific Ocean. Christine and I, on holiday in NZ, drove from Auckland to Na- pier in a borrowed car arriving on 11 Feb. to stay with some of our Kiwi relatives. We enjoyed a pleasant drive to Napier and a relaxing day on the 12 th but went to bed amid concerns ex- pressed by the locals that Gabrielle was going to hit Napier that night. They were right. I awoke at about 2am to the sounds of the most ferocious wind I have ever heard and to the sound of horizontal rain belting against the windows. First thing in the morning a quick inspection by our hosts re- vealed very little property damage to the house and garden other than poor Mary ’ s flattened Dahlias, of which she had been very proud. The cyclone had gone through, we weren ’ t flooded and all was calm. That was the lull before the storm. At about 9 o ’ clock all the power went off. No lighting, no heating, no electric cooking, no TV or radio, no WI FI and no mobile phones. So no information. Only people with stand - by generators were getting information (mainly people living in mobile homes) and then the jungle telegraph swung into ac- tion. And the first thing we knew was that the authorities had ordered everybody to move immediately to higher ground. Flooding was the fear as the rivers draining the nearby hills and mountains had turned into torrents. The rivers over- whelmed their banks, and with the added effect of the incom- ing high tide the water went everywhere. And millions of tons of silt were brought down off the mountains and spread all over the adjoining fertile agricultural land, in many places up to 2 or more metres deep. We weren ’ t unduly concerned at this stage. It ’ ll only be an hour or two before the power comes back on we thought. And our temporary residence was safely above the rising flood lev- els. The truth was it took about 5 days for the power to start coming back. But slowly the reality of what had happened be- came clear to us. Roads were closed; serious flooding in many areas; homes flooded to roof level; cars and machinery sub- merged or washed down river; agricultural produce and live- stock destroyed; no shops open, and no filling stations. Thou- sands of people unaccounted for* and already fatalities had occurred. Power lines were down. The whole of Hawkes Bay was without power, and concerns were emerging about con- tamination of water supplies. Fortunately the Kiwis are resilient people. So living from the freezer, and cooking on the bar - b - q, and early to bed, became the norm. But of course there ’ s a limit as to how long this can go on for. Stories of major road damage, with bridges down and land slips on to the road emerged. And the worst of these was the only direct route back to Auckland, and any alterna- tive routes were very much longer, with just the same risk of closure. So, we couldn ’ t drive the car back to Auckland. The road is still closed, and will remain closed for months while they get it re- paired. But we needed to get to Auckland for our flights home. Happily Napier Airport had re - opened some days after the storm, and we were able to get to it by road. So we were able to get a flight and flew back to Auckland, leaving the borrowed car behind. This will get picked up eventually by its owner, who fortunately has a second vehicle. I must finish this little drama by paying tribute to the New Zea- land rescue forces. In no time at all there were helicopters fly- ing all over the place. People were found and rescued from their isolated and largely destroyed homes in remote areas. Now, no one is registered as missing and considering the scale of the event there have been very few fatalities. Their actions have been brilliant. - Keith Lawrence * Some two weeks or so later all the seemingly missing per- sons, including us because we couldn ’ t at that time be contact- ed, had been reached and the death toll kept down to around eleven.