Alastair Needes was one of many people stuck on their roof with water rising, looking at swimming for safety and watching animals drown.
“We’ve been through hell, really.”
Alastair Needes and his wife have lived in Pakowhai, just outside Hastings, for 12 years. On Tuesday morning, Alastair thought they were ready for the storm.
“We knew that obviously the river was getting high and we kept checking on the river and we thought it was going to be okay,” he said.
“And then I was checking on the neighbours and got a lady out of her house that wasn’t well so we could get her to the hospital.
“And then suddenly the water started coming across the road and I tried to help my neighbour with her horses.
“And then the water just came up to about my waist height and then I went over to check my wife and she was up on the roof at the house and I got on the container.
“I couldn’t keep the horses alive.”
Needes is a professional dog trainer. He lost his three dogs in the flood.
“I was watching it come up the fence and then watching it come up the side of the container thinking, ‘shit, this is just going to be a disaster’.
“I was going to jump off the shipping container and try and swim to another house and get on the roof of another house. And I was just thinking I was going to die.”
Fortunately he and his wife were airlifted from the rising waters by helicopter at the last minute.
Fola Samoa Faatuuala is one of many RSE workers caught up in the flooding. He is from Samoa and was reminded of the tsunami there in 2009.
“[The water was] really fast,” he said.
“Our caravans at the peak, they are floating away. Twelve of us are staying there.
“It’s really scary.
“It’s, it’s, it’s ... Yeah, I can’t explain it.”
Todd Morris is a sheep and cattle farmer, in Pakowhai. He’s lost everything.
“A lot of sheep. Thousands of sheep and cattle,” he said.
“There was just sheep in pockets, the chopper driver was saying.”
Morris woke on Tuesday to water at his doorstep.
“I got all my dogs out and chucked them on the roof of my house. And [the water level] was slowly coming up, up, up.
“I sat on the roof and rung 111 and they said ‘Oh we’ll have to wait to come down to you’, and then they came and the chopper landed on the roof and came and got me out.”
