How a Napier community showed neighbourly support during Cyclone Gabrielle

Kāinga Ora neighbours Helen (left) and Darienne Hunter along with their community of five houses supported each other to make the best of what was a very challenging time in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle.

While Greenmeadows didn’t get the severe flooding that hit other parts of Hawke’s Bay when Cyclone Gabrielle passed through, the suburb did experience a loss of electricity as well as phone and internet, cutting off all communications.

Looking out for each other was the natural reaction from residents, who had lived in a group of five Kāinga Ora homes in Greenmeadows for at least 10 years.

After the power went out and communication was gone, all that the youngest resident Darienne Hunter could think was, “I need to be sure everyone is okay.”

“We had no electricity for six days and no phone or internet contact for four days and that was frightening for some of us, not being able to contact friends and family for support meant we had to rely on each other,” Darienne said.

Darienne had help in supporting her neighbours from family members who had been evacuated and had come stay with her.

It was the little things that kept the little community going, she said, whether that be making cups of tea on a gas barbecue or just having a chat. The group also made sure if they were driving anywhere they would be charging someone’s phone while out and about.

After six days, all the food in the residents’ fridges and freezers had gone off and needed to be cleaned out and the food disposed of, which was a big job in itself.

Luckily a welfare hub was set up at St Joseph’s Māori Girls’ College just across the road, so Darienne could get food for neighbours who weren’t able to have their meals on wheels delivered at the time.

Darienne’s neighbour Helen says she was grateful to have neighbours calling in and explained the floods isolated her daughter and she couldn’t get to her. Helen said she had “felt quite fed up and with no power and no phone, I just listened to the radio”.

Helen’s leg had been injured before the cyclone and wasn’t in a good way, which added to the stress of everything going on in the days after the cyclone. Darienne asked the nurses based at the welfare hub to come over and check on it.

Helen said, “The welfare hub was timely as my leg wasn’t doing too well and needed some attention from the doctor.”

Lack of contact with elderly family members was a worry for many after the cyclone - including Kāinga Ora, who tried to check on as many of their vulnerable customers as possible in the immediate aftermath, housing support team leader Rochelle Williams said.

The Kāinga Ora contact centre received a call from a son concerned about his mother. He couldn’t contact her and was very worried. He thought she may have gone to stay with a close friend who lived in one of the five homes in Greenmeadows.

When Williams received the call about the missing mother, she did a welfare check on those living in all five Greenmeadows Kāinga Ora homes.

Williams found the elderly mother safe and sound, and she also saw that the group of residents had come together as a community to support each other. She said, “It was really heartwarming to see them making the best of what was a very challenging time.”

Kāinga Ora housing support manager Casey Walker continued to keep an eye on the tight five, helping some apply for Civil Defence payments to cover their losses and making sure wellbeing support was available for those who needed it.