Heavy rain has returned to Esk Valley today – just as residents started to make some headway into cleaning up their ruined homes, and trying to recover any special possessions in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle.
MetService has issued an orange heavy rain warning for Hawke’s Bay, a week and a half after the cyclone hit New Zealand; claiming at least 11 lives in the North Island and also destroying countless homes and businesses.
Civil Defence says people need to be prepared to evacuate and be wary of rivers where stopbanks have already been damaged.
Hawke’s Bay Emergency Management has contingency plans in place for alerting and evacuating people if the forecast heavy rain late tomorrow and Saturday causes flooding that will threaten lives or property.
The Esk Valley – on the outskirts of Napier on SH5 on the route to Taupō – was one of the worst-impacted areas by Cyclone Gabrielle. And it is also one of the areas where heavy rain is expected to fall over the coming days.
As the rain starting falling this morning, homeowners and their friends and family continued with the heart-breaking job of working on their properties.
Among those was Ali Mahi, who was working in the wet conditions continuing to strip a house which has been in his family for generations and which was badly damaged in the flood.
Family members have been trying to clear this badly damaged property on SH5, Esk Valley, since the weekend. Photo / Neil Reid
He said the latest period of expected extended rainfall was the last thing anyone in the area needed.
“This rain is very frustrating ... it is not needed at the moment,” Mohi told the Herald.
“But there is nothing we can do about it. The weather is what it is, we just have to carry on and keep on pushing.
“But we don’t want any more flooding.”
Heavy rain returned to the Esk Valley today, and could last until Saturday morning. Photo / Neil Reid
The house on the side of SH5 was his grandparents’ home.
Also living on the section on plot was his aunty Rawinia Anderson; set up in a modern caravan parked up around trees and flowers planted by her late husband, Craig Anderson.
Craig had set up her home – which was meant to be a loving, peaceful sanctuary – prior to his death to cancer late last year.
Flooding and cyclone damage in the Esk Valley. Photo / Neil Reid
The section and caravan were destroyed by the wall of floodwater and mud. Rawinia and other family members were lucky to escape alive; she was put into a boat with youngsters while other family members sought to escape from the water by getting on the roof of the house.
On Saturday, when the Herald first visited the site, family members retrieved a large wedding photo of Craig and Rawinia from the site.
Esk Valley resident Rawinia Anderson was reunited with a wedding photo of her and her late husband, Craig, at the weekend. Photo / Neil Reid
Until early last week, the Esk Valley was a picturesque area, with vineyards and orchards dotted along SH5.
But since Cyclone Gabrielle’s destructive path the area resembles a dystopian landscape; up to 2m of silt now cover parts of the vast valley, homes have been demolished, battered vehicles lie in paddocks and on the side of the road and where bountiful crops once grew the land is brown.
Mohi – who is Rawinia’s cousin - said it was jarring what has become of a part of Hawke’s Bay that meant so much to him and his family.
A driveway up to homes in Esk Valley shows the damage and some of the objects washed away by last week's floodwaters. Photo / Neil Reid
“But, there is nothing that you can about it ... eh,” he said.
“Once Mother Nature does what she wants to do you can’t do much. And this is just the devastation that has been left behind.
“But you can’t stand back and dwell on it, if you did the more heartbroken you would get. You have to get in there and push forward, and that helps with the healing process as well.”
Family members have removed window frames from the property, as well as continuing to strip wall frames of gib, and pulling up carpets.
Waterways in Hawke's Bay, including here in sodden Esk Valley, are set to get much more rainfall. Photo / Neil Reid
The house has been yellow stickered; meaning it has suffered moderate damage, it cannot be lived in and can only be entered for a restricted time.
“It hasn’t been completely written off ... yet,” Mohi said.
“I guess that will depend what it looks like under here [pointing at the now bare floor].”
Like other properties along SH5, and nearby roads and lanes leading off it, volunteers have been turning up with shovels, wheelbarrows and other items, asking if they can help with the clean-up.
Mohi said the generosity of “complete strangers” had been immense.
“It has been great how people have helped, hard out,” he said.
“With many hands it makes light work, you can get a lot done and achieved.
“It just blows you away at how complete strangers have just been turning up and grabbing a shovel doing whatever they can to help.”
On Sunday, Rawinia told the Herald that as the clean-up continued the magnitude of what had happened, and everyone had endured, was finally starting to sink in.
“For the first couple of days’ we were in shock mode, but now everything is starting to sink in,” she said.
“I have just said to my family, ‘Look if you want to cry, cry. Don’t be ashamed if you want to break down’.
“Showing emotions is healthy, it is healthy to do that and if you admit that you can’t cope today then that is the start of the healing. Give your loved ones a hug if you think they are not doing good.”
