Brewster St mum Kere Pomana and son Te Koha (left), 10, and daughter Kaya (right), aged 12, off to school again, a week after the storm and the slip. Photo / Doug Laing
Brewster St mum Kere Pomana and son Te Koha (left), 10, and daughter Kaya (right), aged 12, off to school again, a week after the storm and the slip. Photo / Doug Laing
A Napier mother and her children "stuck" for a few days after the city's flood now says it's "all good" a week after the deluge penned them in their new Bluff Hill property.
They had been in their new flat just three days when the storm hit on the afternoonand evening of November 9, dropping a slip at the foot of their Brewster St lane, blocking their only access and all but penning themselves and the family car in for much of the next week.
It was one of dozens of slips around Bluff, Middle and Hospital hills, once known as Scinde Island and soon expected to be restored to its historic name of Mataruahou, and Pomana considers her own plight little more than a minor inconvenience by comparison with the devastation suffered by others.
"We were stuck here for a few days," she said on Monday, seven days after the storm and the first day back at school for herself in her Diploma in Environmental Management studies at the EIT, and daughter Kaya, 12, and son Te Koha, 10, at Tamatea Intermediate and Porritt schools respectively.
On the bright side, home and car were as safe as, um, houses, unharmed by the calamity which was caused by the falling of more than 230mm of rain, a quarter of the Napier CBD's annual rainfall in less than 9 hours.
Emergency services responded to dozens of slips following Napier's recent flood. Photo / File
Had she been at her parents' place, where they had been living in Tamatea for two years until the Friday before the storm and since moving back to the home town, the car would likely have been submerged in the floodwater, she said on Monday, seven days after the storm and the first day back at school.
But the big upside was meeting the new neighbours, and rescue teams such as the Red Cross, as they came to check on the neighbourhood's welfare the next day.
One neighbour told her on the first night that if the family felt unsafe they could walk up the lane to his home, but if they felt safe they could stay where they were. Another neighbour she met had to move out.
By the end of the weekend, visitors had included Minister of Emergency Management Kiritapu Allan, MP Stuart Nash and Mayor Kirsten Wise, who were able to view some of the impacts of the storm from the decking of her home.
She said her initial feelings of isolation, amid not knowing any of those living around and having not fully stocked the house since moving in, were overcome as she began meeting the neighbourhood, and the services kicked in with food parcels to help them get by.
"It was great," she said. "The next day I walked down to get some supplies [although the nearest supermarket was 1.5km away]. You could feel the spirit and the camaraderie."
"Are you all right?" they asked, when she said she had only just moved in. "It was sad this happened, but it pushed me into meeting everyone. To see the neighbours out with the shovels and helping each other … it was awesome."
