“She said there was no support group yet, and suggested I start one,” Deborah says.
“I didn’t want to run a group — I just wanted to go to one!”
But Deborah also wanted to talk with people who had “been there”.
“I was tired of telling my story to people who didn’t understand. I just wanted to talk to a bunch of people like me.”
The new group, which runs once a week at the Senior Citizens’ Rooms in Waipawa, is called the Waipawa Flood Survivors Group because, as Deborah explains, “We’re survivors, not victims.”
Deborah says on the day of the flood everything happened fast.
Her husband, Warren, had been in the shed putting things up high, just in case. “He came rushing in and said ‘the water’s at the gate, we have to go’, and off we went. We grabbed a few things and Daisy the dog and by then the water was up to our knees.”
The couple headed for Havelock North where their daughter lives.
“We met them at the roundabout ... they were coming to see if we were OK.”
After two weeks in Havelock North, the couple returned to Waipawa and stayed in an Airbnb. They had an epic cleanup job to do — their rented home had been inundated by a metre of water.
“We saved a couch and two chairs, and a fridge-freezer, but anything that was lower than a metre was gone. Beds, furniture, books, bookcases, appliances, everything you store in those bottom cupboards ... and shoes. I had great shoes. My husband saved a favourite leather pair of his, but now they squeak when he walks.”
Deborah says throughout the ordeal she was struck by the kindness of strangers. One man offered pallets so they could raise furniture off the shed floor to dry it. A call to the CHB Volunteer network brought 23 people to help with a big cleanout. “There were people I didn’t even know. We were blessed.”
“I went to get my hair done and someone had pre-paid for an appointment for a flood-affected resident. So I didn’t have to pay.”
But four months on it’s ongoing. There are still possessions to sort through and dump — or attempt to save.
There is still loss and trauma.
A recent orange rain warning had the worried couple putting things “up high”.
“But the cyclone waters had been a metre deep. I can’t put things much higher.”
Deborah found herself angry and tearful. “I feel like renters were forgotten, there’s less funding available. And some of the donations ... just because I might not have a couch, don’t deprive your dog of his. Donations should make people feel better, but some of the donations were unfit for use and made people feel they weren’t worth decent clothes and bedding.”
She heard of stressed and anxious flood survivors who couldn’t get out of bed, or couldn’t bring themselves to go to the supermarket or appointments. “They get there and can’t get out of the car.”
“A survivors group will give people a safe place to talk, or just to have a cuppa and a biscuit. It will be completely confidential — a place where you can cry or stamp your feet, where people understand.”
Deborah says the group is for everyone, not only those who had to evacuate, or lost homes.
“It’s for anybody who survived the flood. If you’re sick of mud, if you hear heavy rain and worry it might happen again. It got its claws into so many people’s lives ... right down to survivor guilt, if your house was OK while others in your street were lost.”
The Waipawa Flood Survivors Group meets at the Waipawa Senior Citizens’ Rooms, Waverley St Waipawa (behind the park) from 10am on Tuesdays. Deborah says “Come for a cuppa, I’ll be there waiting, with my packet of Krispie biscuits.”
