PM Chris Hipkins says communities may have to make some 'tough calls about managed retreat' following the destruction from Cyclone Gabrielle. Video / NZ Herald
A father hugged a portacot with his one-year-old inside while his wife held tightly onto their 3-year-old as their home somersaulted down a hill for about 30 metres after a slip crashed into their home.
Nick Hayward, his wife Corinne Hayward, and their two children Onyx, 3, and Riggs, 1, were in their home in Karekare, West Auckland last Monday evening.
Having experienced a lot of storms in their eight years living in their home at the top of a valley they were not too concerned at first when the rain from Cyclone Gabrielle began to fall.
“We were feeling like it’s raining a lot, and it’s windy, but we’re quite protected and not feeling like it was that awful,” Corinne Hayward told the Herald on Tuesday.
About 9pm they received a message from a friend in Piha who said their home was starting to flood, so the couple made the decision to move their children downstairs and sleep in the living room.
Nick Hayward routinely went outside checking the property as the evening went on. About 2am the couple felt they had experienced the worse of the rain and Nick Hayward made one last check of the property.
“I lay down on the couch and thought we are all right now, it’s probably going to ease,” Corinne Hayward recalls.
“And then just as Nick has fallen asleep and I’m just shutting my eyes kind I just heard the most incredible sound I have ever heard in my life. It was just unexplainable.”
Corinne Hayward thought a tree was coming down and yelled out to her husband who then jumped off the couch.
“Pretty much as my feet hit the ground the house started moving so I lunged at the torch... and then the whole house really started moving so I dropped the torch and grabbed on to the portacot and covered the top of it with my body with the one-year-old inside,” he said.
Meanwhile Corinne Hayward lunged back onto the couch holding her 3-year-old, Onyx.
The ceiling then began to cave in while trees fell through.
The couple believe the poles below their home “cantilevered” the property, flipping it and sending them down the hill.
“It was like being stuck in the white water of a wave, except instead of water it’s wood, and rubble and mud and glass,” Corinne Hayward said.
The home was upside down when they landed about 30m down the valley.
Nick and Corinne Hayward's Karekare home after the slip. Photo / supplied.
When they stopped Corinne Hayward was deep in mud with Onyx with wood all over them. After clearing the wood off, she tried to pull them out of the mud.
“It was extremely difficult, and I just said to Onyx ‘cling on to me and don’t let go’, and then I just clambered up as far as I could out of the mud up the bank.
“Onyx is still in his sleepsack at this stage so he can’t put his legs around me... he was just incredible, yelling at me ‘go mumma, keep going, you’ve got this.”
Further down the valley Nick Hayward was buried deep in rubble.
“I was squeezed in... there was nothing below my feet, so I was kind of holding myself up above the ground.”
He spotted a glimmer of light from his torch and managed to move into a position where he could grab it.
“As I was pulling it up I could hear Riggs start crying and I’ve never been so happy to hear a baby cry. I looked around and he was right there in his portacot still...
“He was just standing there holding the side of it staring around looking at the torch, crying, red-faced and wet, covered in mud.”
He grabbed hold of Riggs like a rugby ball, put the torch in his mouth and jimmied his way through the rubble to get to the top.
“I kept going listening to Corinne’s voice. I then found her standing there in the mud with Onyx who was draped over her shoulders holding on tight. They were both covered in blood.
“It was a bloody terrifying moment.”
The family then decided to make their way to their nearest neighbours. As they made their way about 15 metres up the bank they got a flat place which used to be the underneath of their home.
“We looked at each other almost smiling, sure we were terrified and scared but at the same time we were all there... all four of us were alive,” Nick Hayward said.
Once inside their neighbour’s home they realised Corinne Hayward’s skull was split from the impact.
Their 12-year-old dog was also missing, but was found the following day.
The couple “lived on adrenalin” the first four days afterwards until they were rescued by a helicopter. During that time their neighbours got clothes for the children and fed the family.
A week on the children were “quite traumatised”. Onyx tells his parents he’s scared at nighttime that the house is going to fall down a hill again and now hides under the bed at night while Riggs is now scared of the dark.
Large slips in Karekare after Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo / George Heard
Corinne Hayward is also having trouble sleeping, while her husband is often waking up in the middle of the night thinking the house is falling down.
A Givealittle page has been set up by Corinne Hayward’s sister to help the family as they come to terms with what has happened with their insured home destroyed and having to start from scratch.
“We feel like it’s a pivot point,” Corinne Hayward says.
“We’re taking the positives from it... we won’t be able to afford to buy a house, we’re looking at other options.
“Who knows whether we can get a piece of land someone has and we buy a caravan and stick that on it for a while. We’re not people that need a lot, but we just need something to be in with our children.”
The family have been amazed by the kindness they’ve been shown.
“The people we’ve had reach out to us who we’ve never met. It restores your faith in humanity.”
