Cyclone Gabrielle: After the disaster - the couple behind Expressway Landscape Supplies can now retire

Peter and Mary Vujcich are finally getting the retirement that seemed to disappear before their eyes as Cyclone Gabrielle swept through Hawke’s Bay 13 months ago.

They lost their two-storey home in Gilligan Road, Pakowhai.

Their all-but-sold Allen Rd business Expressway Landscape Supplies, which they had already had to relocate from Taradale Rd, Napier, in 2021, was swamped by a metres-deep torrent and all-but destroyed.

They wondered if they’d be working for the rest of their days. “I thought, there goes our retirement,” Peter Vujcich says.

But, knowing of the tragedy that hit so many others, the couple considered themselves lucky to be alive.

Peter Vujcich points to where the water level reached as the floodwaters of Cyclone Gabrielle swept through Expressway Landscape Supplies and he leapt into his truck to race the torrent to escape on the morning of February 14 last year. Photo / Doug Laing.

He first had to race the water to escape as it poured across Pakowhai Rd and into the business yard at about 8am on February 14 last year – “like Niagara Falls”.

Returning home he and his wife then spent much of the rest of the day with a growing group of neighbours looking for higher ground, all gathered on an ever-submerging roof awaiting rescue which ultimately came when they were spotted by a helicopter pilot in the late-afternoon.

The house has since been demolished, and almost everything on the property was lost. After renting for some time in Hastings they’ve bought another home.

The business has been re-established, and finally bought by customer and supplier Kent Karangaroa and his wife Kirsty.

It’s still operated out of temporary office accommodation, which would have been entirely under water had it been on-site at the time of the cyclone, but the new owners are committed to completing the recovery and further enhancing as a family business the operation which is the most comprehensive of its type in Hawke’s Bay.

The peak (right) of the roof from the single-level wing of the Vujcich home, almost disappearing in the flood waters before Peter and Mary Vujcich and friends were rescued by helicopter. Photo /Supplied.

It even played a pre-inundation role supplying sandbags to worried home and business owners as the cyclone approached.

Suddenly, although still fresh in the mind, it all seems so long ago. Peter Vujcich, a former Northland shearer who has also been a world championships shearing judge, says: “I’m over it”.

The memories of the day are minute-by-minute, with Mary Vujcich recalling the wine bottles from the ground floor clinking in the floodwaters rising up the stairs, and thinking that with nothing else to do, whether they may as well pop one open.

They both remember the expertise of a helicopter pilot just resting the skid of his machine on the peak of the roof of a single-storey wing of their home as it had all-but disappeared in the water, and ferrying them one-by-one to safety.

Kent Karangaroa says he had been interested in the business before the cyclone without actively discussing buying it, but decided to make the purchase in discussions after calling-in to see how the couple were going late last year.

Peter and Mary Vujcich had had a lot of help clearing their site and getting back to business, particularly from the community of Bledisloe School, which the couple and the business had helped in the past.

With changeover now complete, Peter and Mary Vujcich gathered at the site last Thursday with staff Erol Gore, Angus Young and Arron Berryman, and Kent and Kirsty Karangaroa and children Maggie, 8, and Ollie, 11.

A family business? “Yes, Maggie and Ollie are both keen to help out wherever they can,” Kent Karangaroa said.

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 50 years of journalism experience in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.