Ferocious winds shake beach home
Wind gusts of up to 145km/h recorded
When huge winds hit the Wellington region on Sunday, September 17, Waikanae Beach local Laurie Petherick was almost convinced it was an earthquake.
He was standing at the top of his staircase, just before 12am, when the whole house started shaking, and part of his weather machine broke off the roof and started banging against the side of the house.
It wasn’t an earthquake though, and when he went outside onto his deck, in the pitch black, to find the source of the banging, he was nearly blown off his feet by the heavy wind.
Chairs on his deck were also blowing around, and he said a small trellis archway in their garden looked like it would come down at any moment.
As an avid kiteboarder and an exwind surfer, Petherick had a weather machine installed on his roof decades ago, and so he checked his phone to see what speed the wind was.
Despite losing a part in the wind, his weather machine was luckily not broken, and was showing readings of wind gusts up to 78.2 knots, or 145km/ h.
The winds were certainly a lot more than what MetService recorded at Kāpiti Coast Airport: The airport recorded maximum winds of 111km/ h in the hour to 8pm, before slightly easing, with the strongest winds after midnight reacing 74km/h after midnight.
He’s lived in the Wellington region for quite a long time, and said it was the worst wind he’s felt since he was a teenager, and the worst he had recorded in over 20 years.
Petherick’s house is right on the Waimanu Lagoon, overlooking the Waikanae River boundary and the ocean, so they’re pretty exposed to the elements and get hit pretty hard by wind.
In fact, he said it’s not unusual to see small tornado-like “whirlies” in the ocean, but they usually dissipate
before they reach the shore.
He and his wife had a sleepless night, since the banging on their roof kept them awake, and they were
prepared to board up blown in windows. Luckily, their home didn’t front much damage, other than a television aerial which needed to be
fixed, but Petherick said an awful experience.
“It was the scariest thing I’ve witnessed.” it was still