It’s often stormy on the coast and the residents are used to floods and power cuts. They don’t seem to mind: it’s the price they pay for living in paradise. But Gabrielle was different.
Severe Tropical Cyclone Gabrielle killed 11 people, including the two volunteer firefighters at Muriwai, a beach settlement north of Karekare. At one point, 6960 people were officially unaccounted for.
Simon Wilson sat down with those who lived through the night the floods came to Karekare, to talk about how they survived it — and all the frightening moments when some of them almost didn’t.