‘Tornado’ hits farm, kills animals
Te Puke family distraught at the damage done by extreme weather
ATe Puke family is distraught after a tornado ripped through their farm, killing and scattering animals, destroying growing structures and ripping panels off their home.
“I haven’t slept,” Kat French told the Bay of Plenty Times yesterday. “We have been crying all morning.”
Kat and her parents, Michael and Robyn French, lost chickens, rabbits, and fruit and vegetable houses after what they believed to be a tornado touched down amid thunderstorms and heavy rain overnight.
Kat said the family was woken about midnight by the noise of “everything crashing around us” as panels were torn off the exterior of their farmhouse.
The family, still in their pyjamas, went outside with torches to assess the damage and were left picking up the pieces of “completely destroyed” fruit and vegetable houses and rescuing the animals that had survived the storm.
When daylight hit, Kat posted photos of the damage to the French’s Farm Facebook page, writing: “Unfortunately we had a tornado go thru our lil farm at midnight last night.
“This is the result this morning we have a lot of cleaning and repair work please be patient with us as we do our best to still deliver your produce and if anyone has some spare time and could help it would be greatly appreciated many thanks from the team at frenchs farm [sic].”
By noon, dozens of people had turned up to help with the clean-up.
“The support has been absolutely amazing,” Kat said.
“Total strangers who don’t know us have messaged the page wanting to help. Half a dozen vehicles turned up in the morning.”
A couple who knew French’s Farm from the vegetables it supplied to the Pa¯pa¯moa Markets were there all morning helping pick up the pieces, “pruning fig trees that are broken, moving the heavy stuff”, Kat said.
The family lived together on the farm and has been operating for three years, growing and selling spray-free fruit and vegetables, and freerange eggs to the community. They also house rescue animals including rabbits and guinea pigs on their farm.
Kat said that was now “all gone”.
Four chook houses were “floored”, six tunnel houses where they grew fruit and vegetables were “beyond repair” and her parents’ tropical fruit houses — for growing mangos, pineapples, and pawpaw — were “completely
destroyed.
“I’ve lost six rabbits and guinea pigs after their hutches were blown away, we have been picking up dead birds at the bottom of our aviary, some of my chooks are dead.
“It has been pretty hard.” Kat said it had cost the farm a lot.
Along with their animals, they had lost about six plastic fruit and vegetable houses that had cost “about $800 a pop”.
“Mum lost a whole watermelon crop. It is all underwater. There are fruit trees without fruit on them. It is all gone.”
But without insurance and with bills to pay, Kat said, “we cannot afford to stop”.
“We have to keep going.” A Te Puke grower, who would only give his first name, Gregg, said he called Kat as
soon as he read about the damage on Facebook.
“It is soul-destroying. We would have been in tears if it happened to us. We just had to help.”
Metservice meteorologist John Law said there were some very heavy showers and thunderstorms in the Bay of Plenty that night.
Heavy rain was considered to be more than 6mm of rain per hour.
Between 1pm Tuesday and 1pm on Wednesday, Tauranga had 37.7mm of rain, with 14mm falling in one hour alone.
In Whakata¯ne, 42.4mm of rain fell, with 17mm falling in one hour. Law said there had not been any reports of tornados, however, windy conditions overnight were reported to be in excess of 80km/h in Tauranga and
Whakata¯ne. The heavy downpours resulted in various call-outs to weather-related incidents in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions. State Highway 29 Tauranga to Te Poi (Kaimai Ranges) had a road hazard warning due to a slip near Mclaren Falls Rd, with no detour available.
SH25 Thames to Thornton Bay was closed between Rennie St and Nga¯rimu Heights Row, north of Thames.
Stanley Rd in the Eastern Bay of Plenty was temporarily closed at the Ta¯neatua and Wainui ends due to two slips.
Police said several rivers across the Bay of Plenty had reached flood warning levels early on Wednesday morning and there were reports of trees falling on a number of roads which contractors had worked to clear.
A police spokesman said there was also a crash reported that appeared to be the result of poor weather. The crash involved three vehicles and was the result of a tree blocking three-quarters of a road. No injuries were reported, however, and the road was cleared by early morning.
Many of the major severe weather warnings were lifted by Wednesday morning.