More than 10,000 people have been displaced up and down the North Island in the wake of what's been dubbed the "storm of the century". Video / NZ Herald / Supplied
Cyclone Gabrielle caused hundreds of people to evacuate their homes, made trees topple over and left thousands without power in the Bay of Plenty, but its impact locally was minimal compared to other parts of the North Island.
Hawke’s Bay is among the hardest hit, with a weather station recording three times the normal February rainfall in 24 hours, which caused widespread flooding and resulted in more than 300 people being rescued from rooftops.
Four people have been confirmed dead following the cyclone, three of whom were in Hawke’s Bay: a young person was located dead in Eskdale yesterday, and on Tuesday, a woman died after a landslide on her property and a body was found washed up at Bay View Beach, north of Napier that evening.
The body of a volunteer firefighter was recovered from a landslide in Muriwai yesterday afternoon.
The Coromandel was also cut off on Tuesday from the rest of the country, with all major arterial roads closed.
MetService meteorologist Andrew James said the Bay of Plenty dodged the most severe weather due to its geography.
“The straightforward answer is that as the storm system rolled down, the winds were moving clockwise through the Bay of Plenty, so the rain was driven into the Raukūmara Ranges,” James said.
“The modelling was very clear. Cyclone Gabrielle did a little pivot near the Coromandel and then continued to track southeast. It’s done just that.”
Flooding and debris on the road to Hahei at Cook's Beach. Photo / Mike Scott
James said the Bay of Plenty would see a broader easing trend in the weather.
“There are still some afternoon showers, especially tomorrow, scattered through the afternoon and evening. After that, high pressure brings in a settling influence on the weather.”
Bay of Plenty Civil Defence public information manager Lisa Glass said the centre of the cyclone tracked in a straight line from Northland to East Cape before it swirled around to hit the east coast and Hawke’s Bay.
But the region only just missed the devastation of the storm by the narrowest of margins, she said.
“It really was touch-and-go in the wee small hours of Monday,” she said.
“We were poised to do some significant evacuations if the sea got much higher, and you only need to look at the tide marks around the place to see how high it got.
“It was a nervous wait until high tide on Monday night, and although we do have lots of damage across the place, when you see the devastation in Tairāwhiti and Hawkes Bay right now, we can count our blessings.”
Glass said all it would have taken was for that course to shift slightly “and that could have been us right now”.
Glass said her team were “still activated” at the moment, so the time for reviewing actions and what lessons, if any, could be learned was still to come.
