Chace’s things above the flood
They had minutes to evacuate, but Ryan Topperwien knew he had to make sure his most precious belongings would be safe.
Although it was tough to leave their College Rd, Edgecumbe, home last Thursday morning, Topperwien packed up son Chace’s belongings — bed and chest of precious possessions — and stacked them on top of their kitchen table.
Chace died of leukaemia in June 2012, aged 3. Since then Ryan and wife Keri Topperwien have set up the Dream Chaser Foundation, a charity supporting children and their families dealing with cancer.
Ryan Topperwien arrived at their West Bank Rd property yesterday morning to get access to his home for the first time. He wasn’t too sure what to expect — given water was bubbling out of the ground behind his house when he left — but was pleased to see it still in one piece.
Although their house appeared to be fine, Topperwien and other residents he’d spoken to were angry at the way the council had dealt with the incident. “My wife was on the phone to them at 8.25am and saying ‘is there an evacuation notice’ and they said ‘no’. I was driving down Rata St [at the same time] and the water was flowing down through all the houses.”
Topperwien said he’d just left work to do an errand when he noticed about 10 missed calls from his wife about the flooding.
Arriving home, he knew they had to get out straight away.
But before he left he piled up Chace’s belongings to higher ground and they fled — hoping for the best.
“The only stuff that I really cared about was Chace’s . . . he passed away in this bed so I wanted to make sure that it was all right, so I put it up as high as I could. That chest has all of his stuff in it. Everything else we can replace.”
He was unimpressed that despite floodwaters streaming through local streets neither council nor civil defence declared an emergency in the town.
“How are we supposed to know what’s going on when they’re the ones supposed to be protecting us. There was no alarm at the fire station. They could have had that just going constantly. That would give people a bit more of a heads-up.”