Cyclone Gabrielle hit the remote Piha settlement hard. It destroyed homes, flooded the township with a “cesspit” of septic waste and left residents cut off and reeling at the scale of the disaster. But faced with great adversity, the tiny west coast community rallied to look after its own. This
Cyclone Gabrielle: Storm-hit Piha devastated, homes destroyed, residents in trauma
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
It was paradise.
Like most New Zealanders on Monday, February 13, McNally kept an eye on the latest weather forecasts, tracking the approaching cyclone as it edged closer to the country from the tropics.
He had no idea his life was about to be violently uprooted by the force of nature.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
About 7pm, McNally was “couch surfing” in his living room after watching the news as heavy rain fell outside.
“I hear these rocks go ‘bang’ against the back wall. I thought, ‘That’s not good but rocks do come down’.”
He raced outside to check the property, surveying the cliff face above.
He decided to move his beloved Golf 4WD, along with Leanne’s vehicle, to protect them from any further debris.
“As I’m coming back up a big one hits the driveway and splinters.”
McNally ran inside the house to grab Leanne and their pet dog.
“I told her: ‘We’re going now darling, no f***ing hesitation whatsoever. It’s coming’.”
As they scrambled to get out, a tree smashed through the kitchen window.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
McNally grabbed a handful of belongings and jumped into his ute, reversing it “full bore” down the driveway to escape the impending slip.
They told their neighbours to evacuate, before driving south to the “razza” - the RSA which would become a refuge point for several dozen locals forced from their homes that night.
Five minutes later, the main bridge into Piha had become impassable, flooded by the swollen Piha Stream, cutting off those in the settlement’s north.
Another resident described the RSA as “like Noah’s ark” - full of cats and dogs.
“We were the first to come in with problems,” McNally says. “And the next couple that arrived had bigger problems and it went on and on from there.”
He would later learn his insured home had been badly damaged when thousands of tonnes of volcanic rock sheered off the cliff face and tumbled down the bank in a deluge of boulders, mud and foliage.
The home, which is now awaiting geoengineering assessment, remains inaccessible. The driveway is blocked by a mountain of sodden debris.
“It’s pretty rooted, still standing but red-stickered.”
The Golf and Leanne’s car, which he’d moved to the street, were both marooned in heavy floodwaters and are now written off.
Asked how he is coping, McNally takes a slug of beer and admits: “I’m out of my mind”.
He says the cliff where the boulders fell from is part of the regional park. He is determined to get his old lifestyle back through some kind of compensation.
The couple say they are yet to be contacted by authorities and are still awaiting assessments by EQC.
“I’m happy to walk away from my house for what the market value was and not lose a million bucks for something that’s got nothing to do with me.
“I don’t want the world, and just want what I’ve built and fought my f***ing life for.”
He said the house had weathered many previous storms and “hadn’t moved an inch”.
“Then all of a sudden global warming comes ripping through and tears the place to pieces.”
A few doors down, Deb Febrin and her partner were anxiously watching the worsening weather when a neighbour told them rocks and mud had fallen behind their house and they needed to leave immediately.
They grabbed important documents, blankets and clothing and fled to the RSA.
Sheltering inside with other cyclone refugees, she described the noise outside as like a jet aircraft.
A drenched couple and their grandson arrived about midnight after the house they were sheltering in was hit by another landslide further up the hill on Garden Rd.
The grandfather described seeing “beams twisting” and knew it was time to leave. The trio were kept warm and given dry clothes.
It’s understood the grandson had been staying in Piha because his own property in Titirangi was red-stickered after the January 27 storm.
At Piha’s southern end, at least seven properties were badly damaged when a huge landslide gave way above Marine Parade.
Criminal lawyer Vicki Pomeroy says she could have died when a large tree branch crushed her tiny boatshed and a slip smashed through the back wall of her neighbouring house, filling the living room with tonnes of mud, foliage and rock.
Fortunately, she wasn’t home when the slip hit.
About 7pm, locals door-knocked the street and advised residents to evacuate their homes as the floodwaters rose. Pomeroy fled to the Piha Surf Lifesaving Club where she safely rode out the cyclone with about eight others.
“If I didn’t do that I’d be dead - no question.”
She is now awaiting assessments on the two properties and hopes they can be salvaged so she can continue renting out the house as an Airbnb, though she has a huge cleanup ahead.
“You just have to get on with it, don’t you? It’s that or I wouldn’t be able to pay my mortgage and the bank will sell my house.”
‘I thought it was going to be a fizzer’
Piha Surf Lifesaving Club custodian and longtime volunteer Paul Newnham had been in Whangarei on Monday but decided to return home due to the deteriorating weather forecasts.
He admits being dubious about the dire warnings of ferocious winds and biblical rain.
“I was with Ken Ring. I thought this was going to be a fizzer. Another one of those weather bombs that never occurred.”
He arrived back in Piha about 2pm. Search and rescue teams were “revving up” for the onslaught, holding briefings and preparing their equipment.
The risk areas were well known. A primary focus would be residents living on Glenesk Rd alongside the Piha Stream, which regularly flooded in heavy rain, especially around high tide.
“We know whose houses are going to be in danger. We know where the oldies live and the sick people. And we had a couple of preggy mums who we were a bit concerned about.”
Just after 9pm, Newnham’s seven-person team was tasked by emergency services to carry out welfare checks along Glenesk Rd and evacuate anyone at risk.
By now Piha Stream was running at 700mm-800mm above the bridge, so lifeguards headed up the valley in inflatable boats.
Newnham describes the conditions at this point as “horrible”.
“It was windy as. It was tipping it down. It was raining like a bugger and a howling gale.”
But despite the worsening weather and rising waters, some residents refused to leave.
“We’re down there, we’re trying to get them out. They didn’t want to.
“One old girl, she always wants to stay in her house. She never wants to get out. We always worry about her.”
Newnham says many residents have lived there for years and know what to expect.
“Most of them have got a plan. So it’s really just checking on their welfare and making sure they’re not huddling in their home terrified with no power.”
The crew were called back out to Glenesk Rd just after midnight to rescue a pregnant woman amid fears her house was moving on its foundations, but were subsequently stood down and returned to base.
The dangerous rescue work was carried out in the most appalling conditions, which Newnham describes as “the middle of the cyclone”.
Other residents labelled them “f***king heroes” for their efforts that night.
“It’s what we live for though,” Newnham says. “To be honest, going out in an IRB at Piha on any given day is a bit hair-raising as well. We’re that kind of people.
“Why do you do it? Because you love that shit. You want to help people but the danger is part of the fun.”
After a “harrowing evening”, the exhausted lifeguard team caught some sleep. But with high tide approaching at 4am, Newnham donned a wetsuit and ventured out alone in an ATV for a “tiki tour” to check on floodwaters in the pitch black and driving rain.
He found the water level at the bridge had dropped to about 300-400mm and was now receding.
The threat to low-lying properties appeared to have eased, so Newnham returned to the club, oblivious to the widespread damage across Piha caused by slips which would only be revealed at first light.
“It wasn’t until the morning we got up and found out the full state of devastation.
“It was pretty emotional thinking about those poor people who had been tipped out.”
As the sun rose, storm-buffeted residents ventured out to survey the destruction.
There was heavy flooding about waist-deep at the southern end of Marine Parade. Flooding had also blocked Garden Rd and inundated properties on North Piha Rd.
Huge chunks of hillsides had given way overnight, plunging down cliff faces and smashing into homes. Some were mangled beyond recognition. One on Rayner Rd had been shunted onto the street.
Thirty-three homes would be deemed uninhabitable and 21 yellow stickered.
Piha Rd, the only access in and out of the township, was completely blocked by multiple landslides.
Electricity was down, cell phone reception had been cut and there was no running water to properties without tanks.
Piha was effectively cut off from the outside world and now resembled a war zone.
MetService’s red heavy rain warning had expired at 5am but a red wind warning remained in place.
Data from a Manukau heads weather station showed winds building to a peak of 151km/h at 9pm on Monday before the station was taken out by the storm.
The region had also been drenched by torrential rain, though MetService was unable to provide Piha-specific data.
Remarkably no lives had been lost in the township but this was very much a disaster.
Volunteer army kicks into action
As the scale of damage became clear, roading contractors got to work clearing slips, teams descended on the township to start repairing the damaged electricity and water networks, and medics were flown in by helicopter.
It would take several days before stinking floodwaters could be drained, as fears grew they were contaminated by septic tank overflow and raw sewage.
Most of those who had been displaced spent two nights in the makeshift refuge centre before some could be driven out when the road reopened.
The surf lifesaving club, which had its own generator, became a community hub and Piha’s “volunteer army” rallied to help those whose lives had been impacted.
Under the watch of local resident Jenene Crossan, they sought food donations that would otherwise go off in people’s warm freezers and began feeding hundreds of people breakfast and dinner.
They drew up a list of available lodgings and arranged accommodation for those made homeless by the storm.
A “grannies’ army” started looking after kids in the local library and a group of retirees were tasked with cleaning up South Beach.
Anyone with a digger began clearing the mountains of silt while people whose homes were undamaged offered a hand cleaning up flooded properties.
Crossan updated the response on her Twitter feed, posting: “We have nothing official in Piha as yet to support us, we are doing this all ourselves.
“The land is still moving, there is danger here still. It’s a unique situation to other areas. Houses still getting emergency evacuations. We need @AucklandCDEM.”
Newnham says he is proud of the local response.
“This community pulled together and did an epic job. There would be very few, if none, who were without food, water, comfort and hot showers, which were all available to them within a day or two. And that was organised by the community, for the community.”
Asked about the official response from the likes of Auckland Council and Civil Defence, he asks; “are you going to quote me”?
“I’m pretty knackered and pretty emotional. I’d prefer to let that settle for a bit.”
He hopes the inevitable review will ensure lessons are learned for future disasters.
Local plumber and gasfitter Martin Gould is less diplomatic.
“I think Piha responded quite well and without any outside help.
“You’d think someone would have come and made a song and dance.
“We’ve got on with it. There’s been some real heroes saving people. But now the thing is, the infrastructure is buggered.
“It’s all going to come out in the wash and there’s going to be questions as to what could be done better.”
Like many locals, Gould has spent the days since Cyclone Gabrielle struck cleaning up people’s homes and helping out however he can.
Power is still out in some areas and water tankers are still supplying those in need. Telecommunications remain patchy.
Auckland Emergency Management (AEM) says it is supporting affected communities such as Piha by delivering emergency provisions like bottled water, food, sanitary items and fuel by helicopter and truck.
AEM is also working with partner agencies to provide welfare, insurance and financial on-the-ground support.
Duty controller Rachel Kelleher has asked non-residents to stay away while recovery operations continue.
However, that message does not appear to have gotten through.
Newnham says as soon as the road reopened a day or two after the cyclone, tourists were descending on the township in campervans.
Some were just oblivious but others had sought out the unfolding disaster.
“They’re the ones that maliciously want to come and revel in other people’s misery.
“A lot of people were coming up and asking if the bar was open. Then some angry people would give them a mouthful and tell them to f*** off.
“Emotions are high and people do crazy shit.”
The surf lifesaving club has asked for cordons to be reinstated but none were in place when the Herald visited this week.
Rivers of mud lie drying in the hot sun, the stench of human effluent still hanging in the air.
Luxury seaside baches lie empty, their walls smashed open by boulders, red stickers plastered on their front doors.
A resident in gumboots picks up trash from North Piha Rd, where cars were floating in several feet of floodwaters just days ago.
She’s lived in Piha for 66 years and never seen anything like this - “not to this scale”.
“It’s knocked everybody. It’s so sad on so many levels.”
But amid the devastation, there are stories of joy.
Two Piha babies have been born in the storm’s aftermath. One heavily pregnant mum was evacuated out of the settlement to give birth after the road opened.
Another baby was born in his home at the weekend. A midwife had to traverse a bush track to reach the property as cars were still floating in the road.
Fittingly, the child was named Rocky. His mother’s name? Gabrielle.
