The week that time forgot – the good, the bad, the unimaginable
As the floodwaters washed away homes, workplaces, roads, livelihoods, Michelle Duff reports on the adrenaline, shock and exhaustion . . . and waiting.
Time has compressed in a week of unimaginable tragedy and loss so that those on the ground in Hawke’s Bay no longer know what day it is.
On Tuesday, the flood. After a night of torrential rain families woke to muddy driveways that were in some places just ankle deep. Minutes gave way to sheer terror. Babies, livestock, the elderly; walls of water came rushing through valleys, across suburban roads, into the hearts of people’s lives. Into their homes.
Water is usually replenishing. It is part of us. In small units it is soft and refreshing.
The magnitude of nature transforms it into a force of unimaginable power. It is savage, untamable. It grabs an entire house in the Esk Valley and throws it 100 metres away. It flings a shipping container across a paddock in Waiohiki, smashes the concrete bases of the Brookfields Bridge away like Lego.
It does not care for us. Floodwater isn’t like a swimming pool. It is thick and it is heavy. It is clogged with dirt and mud, trees, diggers, hay bales, sheep. Once it finds a weak spot in a bank it itches to be unleashed and it is hard to escape.
‘‘We came over here to what we thought was one family,’’ says Rotorforce pilot Joe Faram, as the landscape slips below us from Bridge Pa towards the rural settlement of Puketapu yesterday. It is a Saturday. ‘‘We came over the hill and everyone was on their roofs. It was chaos.’’
Water fell from the sky and the ranges and the Tutaekuri River burst, with the people of Puketapu caught in the middle. The same with the Esk River in Esk Valley, a narrower corridor that compressed the floodwaters into a seething snake. In Dartmoor and Pakowhai, Waiohiki and Awatoto, variations of the same; rivers merging, bursting their banks with little to no warning.
‘‘We couldn’t see the colour where the sea began, it was just filth so far out,’’ says Urban Search and Rescue operations manager Chris Kennedy. He was in Japan during the aftermath of the 2011 To¯ hoku earthquake and tsunami. This is how it looked.
He is tired. Around 90 of his workmates are still pulling wet, terrified people to safety. More than 166 live incidents are still under way. He has a family, two preschool children around the same age as Ivy Collins, 2, who floated away from her mother’s arms and died here. ‘‘It is a nightmare.’’
The people of Puketapu were airlifted to Hastings on Wednesday by New Zealand Defence force NH90s, 200 of them, dogs and cats in cages and toddlers running across the dry grass. ‘‘We don’t usually nap like this,’’ said mum Sheena McCann with her baby Charli, 17 months, outside the Hastings Aerodrome with her small child dozing on the ground in a backpack.
Napier had been plunged into darkness since Tuesday, with State Highway 51 only open to essential travel as slips, downed bridges, and debris prevented movement along much of the roading network.
Evacuation centres welcomed hundreds, while others, like Teiaono Tiubeta, survived on noodles and tinned mackerel. On Thursday morning, he gazed at the place his work had once been, Ziwi pet food factory in Awatoto. He’d recently moved from Tauranga with his partner for a job he was no longer sure existed. ‘‘I parked my car here because I thought it would be safe,’’ he said, in disbelief.
By now, adrenaline, shock, and exhaustion were echoed on the faces and in the tears of those who had escaped floodhit properties and were coming back to gather valuables, pets, and, in some cases, brothers.
‘‘I thought you were dead,’’ Philip Barber said to his brother Chris, as they collapsed in a fierce embrace along an Esk Valley road. He had watched his house engulfed as the flood waters passed the roof, and had feared the worst.
But for many, the waiting continues. Social media pages are refreshed to nothing and calls go unanswered. Friends and loved ones remain unaccounted for, up to 1000 people in Hawke’s Bay are still uncontactable or cut off, by Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence’s estimate. The death toll of Cyclone Gabrielle is nine, with grave fears held for 10 of the missing.
When State Highway 2 between Napier and Hastings finally opens on Friday, a steady stream of traffic heads through to find hot water, coffee, food that hasn’t been rotting in the freezer for three days.
Bill Eshleman walked along the road carrying three yellow plastic bags full of papers. His shirt was splattered with mud. It was all he had. ‘‘Mine’s the mud house over there,’’ he said, pointing back to the Ngaruroro River. He added, absently; ‘‘There were five of us and three dogs on the roof.’’
Yesterday, an Urban Search and Rescue team took a moment out in Meeanee between assessing houses. They wore protective suits and boots, impenetrable to water. Homeowners sloshed past in shorts and jandals.
The water is beginning to stink. A sheep carcass lies against a nearby fence. Fertiliser, sewage, chemicals, and pesticides are mixed into the mud, a hive for bacteria. As it dries, the dust will be another major health risk. ‘‘People really need to wait,’’ said Clem McGavock, a senior firefighter from Napier.
But for those who have been through one of the most traumatic events of their lives, those who have lost everything, what else is there to do? To sit around is to remember.
‘‘Where do we start?’’ said
Steve Tipu, a foster caregiver who escaped with his family of five across a raging Chesterhope Bridge before their house was destroyed.
‘‘We have to go away and think about what we’ve seen and experienced, because it has impacted our senses. I’m not too sure what we’re going to do, to be honest. It’s all gone.’’
One foot in front of the other. Another day. Another week. Mother Nature has shown us what she can do.
Only human nature can control what happens next.
‘‘We came over the hill and everyone was on their roofs. It was chaos.’’
Joe Faram
Rotorforce pilot