Waipawa, Waipukurau residents evacuate as Cyclone Gabrielle hits

Residents were evacuated from this home in Ruataniwha St, Waipawa, just before the river breached the stopbank.

Police were clearing bystanders from the Waipawa River bridge on SH2 as floodwaters breached the town’s stopbanks and poured down Harker St on Tuesday afternoon, while the nearby BP petrol station faces queues of motorists getting fuel and emergency supplies — most of them evacuees from the riverside “lower Waipawa” streets, which were being inundated with floodwaters.

Civil Defence, CHB District Council and emergency services were going door to door and streams of traffic were leaving the low-lying areas.

Several people were on foot leading small ponies from lifestyle blocks along the river’s edge.

Bibby St Waipawa was inundated on Tuesday afternoon after the Waipawa River came over the stopbank.

One woman leading a small wet pony tearfully said, “I had to leave my other pets — my rabbits, my chooks. My place was flooding and I wasn’t allowed to go back in for them.”

The Tukituki River was bank to bank at the Waipukurau Bridge on Tuesday. Both Waipukurau and Waipawa bridges were temporarily closed before being opened to one lane.

In Waipukurau, Lew Woods and Pauline Stephenson had just minutes to grab what they could and leave their home on Tuesday morning.

”I looked out at 5am and it was bone dry,” says Pauline, “so I went back to bed.”An hour later she woke to a banging on the door.”It was a firefighter. He said ‘don’t open the door, open a window’.

”The water was bubbling up through the bathroom, we chucked what we could in bags — I couldn’t even tell you what I’ve packed. We took the dog and the cats, we had to leave our car, it was under water.

”I don’t know what we’re going home to.”

Pauline Stephenson and Lew Woods with Benji the dog and ragdoll kittens Coco and Mollie, at the Waipukurau evacuation centre after they were flooded out of their Svenson Rd property.

Pauline and Lew were taken to the Waipukurau evacuation centre at the Centralines Stadium where ragdoll kittens Mollie and Coco sat cuddled on Lew’s lap, oblivious to the drama, and Benji the dog sat at his feet, wet from an early-morning swim in nearly a metre of floodwater.

Pauline said, “The firefighters were amazing. Honestly, they deserve a medal.”