The millions announced for Cyclone Gabrielle recovery, the future of forestry in flood-hit regions remains uncertain and truancy officers return to schools in the latest New Zealand Herald headlines. Video / NZ Herald
Opinion by Dyan Nankervis
OPINION
The warnings were written and televised; a cyclone with the name of an archangel circled our shores. Be prepared.
While the upper north sandbagged, Hawke’s Bay stocked up on toilet paper and food to weather the storm.
There was no evacuation of properties close to the riverbanks or ranges- only concerns for water mains and drainage of impacted suburban streets of media footage past.
In Napier, while I slept cradling my daughter beneath her bedroom window, the force of Gabrielle could not be ignored, with severe winds freezing me awake, paralysed in fear.
Across town in Eskdale, the ranges were dispersing their pent-up anger and raining down on the lives and livelihoods of innocent victims within hours. The warnings weren’t there.
A car smashed through a house by the force of floodwaters on Shaw Rd in Eskdale near Napier. Photo / Warren Buckland
A warm bed of fear versus a torrent of water pushes families onto their kitchen benches and ceiling cavities and finally isolated on roofs with less hope. Loved ones were swept away by a river that didn’t belong, and properties were devastated beyond recognition.
Tuesday bought a lack of sleep, cellphone network, or power. A city of isolation and bewilderment, reaching out to loved ones within reach - like lost sheep trying desperately to flock together and seek a direction.
What now? The emergency messages we were supposed to turn to on, for example, Facebook, were only applicable with a working mobile or power supply.
There were no evacuation sirens, only relayed hearsay and delayed aggressive mobile notifications dispersed at random.
If you weren’t one of the “earthquake prepared” with a transistor radio, Marcus Lush couldn’t soothe your nerves and guide you through the darkness.
Then the riverbanks burst, and darkness seemed insignificant. Bridges crumbled like matchsticks, and railway lines warped as toy train tracks. Orchards and livelihoods were swallowed up, taking pets, cars, and containers with them in a flood of water and silt.
Apples are jammed between the cables where the water level used to be, on SH2 just south of the bridge between Napier and Hastings. Photo / Angus Dreaver, RNZ
Wednesday, the only access road connecting the two cities was shrouded in misgivings. “It’s down to one lane”, “It’s collapsed under the weight of slow vehicles in both directions”, “It’s under structural assessment”.
Yet the traffic queues continued to stretch the length of Marine Parade, still directed towards the bridge of no hope - desperation to reach the other side and be reunited with whānau or in search of food and power.
Even traffic management fuelled the miscommunication train with the hardline: “Hey, the bridge is gone”.
Lush later reassured listeners with nerves already on edge that the bridge was open. For essential workers only - so why direct traffic to a hopeless dead end, wasting people’s valuable petrol, I ask?
The only service station in Napier received the angst of a three-hour fan base of cars and gas bottles, the only means of mobile charging and campfire cooking by candlelight.
Day two ends with fear, anger, frustration, and heartbreak. Does anybody know we are still alive, safe, feeling isolated, and yet available to help?
I always felt Napier and Hastings were “Hawke’s Bay”. We were one part of the other, the import and the export. Today, Napier feels alone - no way of reaching out. Kotahi tatou lost in translation.
Thursday and Friday see the Kiwi spirit arise; a rebirth of courage, caring, and hard work.
Energy contractors strive tirelessly to produce staged power and network coverage raising a flag of hope. Only then dawns comprehension of the devastation outside your postcode. Aerial images depict hectares of submerged lands and sunken rooftops barely visible through water and silt.
A car semi-submerged in silt in from of a Hukarere school in Esk Valley. Photo / Warren Buckland
Harrowing stories of hearts ripped apart and buried dreams.
The perspective I’m living in is insignificant when my fellow region is feeling absolute pain. Frustration mixed with envy surfaces on word that in Hastings it is business as usual. Lattes and hot lunches, while others queue for the last of supermarket stock and scramble for a working generator.
News of fatalities emerge, a dear friend is in hospital, found in their stranded vehicle, which was swept away by a slip on the Napier-Taupō Road. Her beloved companion passes away shortly afterward in the hospital.
The Port of Napier is converted into a mortuary.
Saturday and “The Sunny Hawke’s Bay” brings hope as the flood waters recede.
The helicopters above are frequent, their reassuring hum brings hope of search, and of rescue.
Dyan Nankervis.
I walk around the house, numb with a depressed feeling of helplessness. Now I have them, I only feel guilty about the roof over my head, running water, and power. These are things we take for granted every day, and when they are stolen by Mother Nature, carrying your loved ones with them, they lose any meaning.
I mourn those without homes, lost whānau and livelihoods, and hunt for a sense of perspective in the form of volunteer work - a light at the end of the cyclone.
- Dyan Nankervis is a married, mother of two daughters who resides in Napier, Hawke’s Bay.
