Wind gust guts shopfront

By ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE

A fierce wind gust ripped out a big storefront window in the Bay of Plenty yesterday and spun a utility vehicle 20m.

The gust hit the Tirohanga Beach store near Opotiki with such force that shopkeeper Laurie Riini thought a mini-tornado had struck.

He was serving a customer soon after 7 am when he heard "a lot of wind" and noticed the rain had become horizontal.

"It was parallel to the road and I knew something was going to happen. Sure enough, it did."

With "a big crash", the front of the store's iron roof lifted 20cm and the 10m aluminium-framed window was whipped out, leaving the ceiling sagging.

The woman who had come in with her two school-aged children to buy bread and milk then started screaming when she saw her unoccupied ute rolling across the shop's carpark.

It spun twice before coming to rest, undamaged, beside a fence.

"It was pretty scary," Mr Riini said.

The wind gusts moved between the four fuel pumps outside, picking up shop signs and tossing them in the air.

Mr Riini said the woman and children were "freaking out".

She ran to the door but fell over. By the time she picked herself up the ute had stopped moving.

A big pine tree a few hundred metres along the road was felled by the wind, but the neighbouring Tirohanga Motor Camp escaped damage.

MetService weather ambassador Bob McDavitt said the wind was probably a "micro-burst" rather than a twister. The bursts came from shower clouds and could be powerful.

The store stayed open for the day while repairs were made.