Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty speaking after talking to displaced people in Napier. Video / Mark Mitchell
Forty schoolgirls from Hukarere Girls’ College near Napier managed to evacuate just hours before deadly floods tore through their hostel.
The school and adjoining hostel in Eskdale were hit by raging floodwaters during the early hours of Tuesday morning which decimated the surrounding Esk Valley north of Napier.
The schoolgirls staying at the hostel were evacuated in vans about 11pm on Monday, just hours before the floodwaters turned deadly.
The school for Māori girls is now covered in mud and silt up to the windows.
Overturned and smashed vehicles are dotted near the school grounds and homes close by have been completely destroyed.
A log across a ute outside Hukarere Girls' College. Photo / Warren Buckland
The girls, in Years 9 to 13, as well as about five staff, were evacuated in school vans and driven to a marae before being moved to sister school St Joseph’s Māori Girls’ College in Napier.
“They are safe and sound,” St Joseph’s principal Dame Georgina Kingi said.
She said the two schools had a close relationship and the Hukarere girls were well cared for and were “doing fine”.
“It is the sisterhood of Māori boarding schools, we are the only two Māori boarding schools [for girls] in the country.”
She said many of the girls had now returned to their homes after staying at the school this week, including some who had flown to Ruatoria.
Hukarere School was hit hard by the floods in Esk Valley caused by Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo / Warren Buckland
She said those who could not get home were now lodging at Te Aute College in Central Hawke’s Bay.
Remarkably, not long after the girls escaped in their school vans from Esk Valley, police used those same Hukarere school vans and vans from St Joseph’s to rescue people stranded in floods on the outskirts of Hastings and Napier.
St Joseph’s Māori Girls’ College English teacher Eru Hart said he had to be rescued from a rooftop off Pakowhai Rd on Tuesday night, after becoming stranded.
He was taken to safety in one of the vans from his school.
“To see my school van being driven by a police officer coming to rescue me - I almost cried,” he said.
“I have never been so happy to see that van.”
The school and surrounding area in Eskdale. Photo / Warren Buckland
He said if it was not for brave RSE workers who helped pull him onto a roof, his situation could have been much worse. He thanked all those who came to help.
St Joseph’s Maori Girls’ College was initially used as an evacuation centre with about 600 people going through the centre on Tuesday.
