Onerahi volunteer firefighters deal to one of the many fallen trees during Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo / Supplied
As the region shifts into recovery mode after Cyclone Gabrielle the Advocate looks back on some of the kind acts carried out by warm-hearted locals.
Onerahi deputy fire chief Brian Redwood humbly says his brigade was busy just like all the others in Northland as the cyclone tore past the east coast.
But busy is an understatement. The brigade responded to 25 calls for help in 48 hours at the storm’s peak.
“That is huge. A lot of them weren’t five-minute jobs either,” Redwood said.
“Most times ... we would go to a call, then from that call go to another call, then go to another call, see an incident on the road that we have to deal with, call those in, then back to it.”
The busiest the 60-year-old volunteer firefighter can remember being in previous storms was 11 callouts “on the trot”.
In the heaving rain and relentless winds, the brigade helped Whangārei residents whose homes had lost roofs or been hit by falling trees.
Most high-profile, were the calls to clear roads blocked by trees brought down by Gabrielle.
Then callouts escalated to involve flooding.
“It was an interesting 48 hours to say the least, but I’m thankful for our brigade members.”
“We try to do our best,” Redwood said.
Some of the emergency calls were from Onerahi locals worried about elderly neighbours, which Redwood said was “pretty cool” of the community.
“We managed to ease their anxiousness and make sure they were OK, and just reassured them.”
Supporting the firefighters were their wives and partners.
“They were making us breakfast, dinner, and lunch,” Redwood said.
And there had even been the odd delivery of cake, freshly baked by community members.
While the storm was exhausting for Northland’s firefighters, Redwood said they all just get on with things.
“You just focus on what you’ve got to do.”
Redwood couldn’t help but think of the two Muriwai volunteer firefighters, Dave van Zwanenberg and Craig Stevens, who died after a house collapsed in a landslide.
“Our thoughts are definitely with the brigade down there. They’re like your family.”
Leevi Ormsby says she was just doing what she was brought up to do when she opened her home to those without power so they could have a hot shower or a place to cook.
“I was raised to help others,” the 28-year-old said.
She learned at a young age the value of treating others the way you want to be treated.
“That’s just what I did,” Ormsby said.
When the power went out she didn’t hesitate to open her home via a post on the Hikurangi Community Facebook page.
Despite her encouragement for people not to be shy about taking up her offer, many were.
“I think they weren’t used to people like that,” she said.
Since her post, family members and friends had told her she had a big heart.
“I don’t know how to take that because what I did was nothing that any of them wouldn’t have done.”
Hello Pickle cafe owner Jess Olsen’s idea to shout emergency service staff and volunteers free coffee was a way to give back to those people working tirelessly to keep Northland safe.
“If I can bring some joy to people not at home, who are instead working all night and have another five hours then it’s my way of helping them out,” she said.
“We know there’s a severe staff shortage, some of them had been running double shifts doing the work of three people.”
The “overwhelmingly positive” response from customers and her own staff had been “really moving” for Olsen.
“People were paying it forward by doing lump sums of $100 to shout them coffees or buy them pies.
“Sometimes you get these horrible natural disasters but you see the community pull together,” she said.
“It has been really beautiful to see.”
Waist-high floodwaters didn’t stop Ashleigh Horsford and husband Bran from milking 180 of his parents’ cows after learning their Maromaku farm was underwater.
“I didn’t think I would be in this situation ever but here we are. You just do what you’ve got to do to get it done,” Horsford said.
The mum of two had been working at home on Tuesday when Bran learned of his parents’ predicament.
“We thought what are they going to do? They can’t not milk, no one around us has got power, they can’t walk them to anywhere because they would have to go through too deep of floodwaters,” Horsford said.
So the pair made the decision to mission through the floodwaters to the Maromaku farm five minutes down the road.
Bran’s dad led the cows, unmilked since Sunday, to the cowshed through floodwaters up to their stomach.
There, the couple stood in waist-high floodwaters, dodging cow poo for the two hours it took to milk the herd.
“The water was so cold,” Horsford said.
“The worst part was holding the cups out of the water and having to stand still as you did.
“We got the last row and Bran was just like, ‘get out your lips are blue’. I said, ‘no I’m fine’ but he said, ‘you’re shaking’.”
Once the cows were all milked - and “much happier” - the couple quickly changed before heading to Horsford’s family, along with Bran’s cousin, to help rig up a generator for their cowshed.
But their efforts were just a small part of the farming community pulling together, Horsford said.
She said a standout had been Rhys Te Nana from Kawakawa Electrical.
“He has honestly been a lifesaver for so many farmers. He has been on the road from early morning to late night hooking up powerboards and switchboards so farms can run generators.
“Then he would unhook it so they can move that generator to another farm.”
When Cyclone Gabrielle hit, the catering cancellations started coming in for Nook Espresso, the cafe’s co-owner Brittany Cox says.
“Over the course of the weekend I was getting email after email from our regular catering clients who had cancelled their meetings or were working from home, so didn’t need their orders.”
Cox understood but the cancellations were still tough as all the prep work had already been done.
“When I walked in, in the morning, it hit me that we had this huge amount of kai - what are we going to do with it?”
Some food could be sold but most of it was not your typical cafe fare.
But then Cox thought of a character in one her young daughter’s books. The character was upset because his town had been hit by a storm and his home was without power.
“To comfort him his mother had told him whenever situations like this happen to look for the helpers as there will always be people helping,” Cox said.
“It would not get out of my head.”
When she saw online that people were being evacuated from downtown Whangārei and that others had gone a long time without power she called co-owner Scott Nicholl.
Cox told him of her idea to take the food prepared by their chef up to the evacuation centre.
“He said, ‘of course’.”
She packed up the huge amount of food and with two little kids in tow began handing out food between her Onerahi home and the evacuation centre where the rest of the food was dished out.
“There was a huge community outpouring and this was my bit I could do to help,” Cox said.
The worker logged 437 hours in five weeks - all of which was unpaid.