Cyclone Gabrielle: Waipapa family ‘traumatised’ after trees crash on to home

Ashton Edwards, 6, with his parents Tane and Monique and the gum trees Cyclone Gabrielle toppled on to their home. Photo / Peter de Graaf

A Waipapa family say they’ve been left traumatised after two huge trees crashed on to their house, puncturing the roof and bringing the ceiling crashing down on to one of their children.

With Cyclone Gabrielle already starting to make itself felt the Edwards family, who live just north of Waipapa, decided to settle in for some movies on Sunday morning in their newly built lounge extension.

Mum Monique Edwards, who’d just got back from seeing Ed Sheeran in Auckland, dad Tane and boys Ashton, 6, Liam, 10, and Kihon, 11, could hear the wind picking up outside.

“I said to Tane, ‘I don’t know about that bloody gum tree’. About 20 minutes later came the biggest crack and bang you’ve ever heard,” Monique Edwards said.

“Gib board dropped and whacked our middle boy, Liam, on the head. The kids just screamed. I’ll never forget it. I was a stunned mullet but Tane said, ‘just get out!’.”

Monique Edwards sent the boys to the safety of the campervan while Tane Edwards’ father, who lives next door, heard the crash and came running over.

Tane Edwards said one of the branches had punched a hole through the roof where rain was coming through, so he had rigged up a tarp and drum to catch the water. The impact had also broken a roof truss.

Monique Edwards said the damage to the newly built lounge was devastating.

“We’re hugely traumatised. We’re not sleeping. Or youngest kept asking if we were going to die,” she said.

The family didn’t want to stay home so a friend, Kerikeri identity Monika Welch, put them up until the storm started easing.

They returned home on Tuesday but were only using the far end of the house, where they had set up a temporary lounge in a converted garage to give the boys some normality.

The Edwards family in what remains of their newly built lounge after it was hit by two “bloody huge” gum trees. Liam (left) with Frankie the dog, 10, Tane, Monique, Ashton, 6, and Kihon, 11. Photo / Peter de Graaf

The “bloody huge” gum trees were draped right over the house with the trunks resting on the lounge and branches scattered over a deck on the other side of the house.

Tane Edwards believed the ground was so sodden after the wet summer it couldn’t hold the trees any longer when a big gust from Cyclone Gabrielle hit.

Just getting an arborist to carefully remove the fallen trees was expected to cost thousands of dollars. An insurance assessor visited the property on Tuesday to see the damage firsthand.

Liam suffered bruising but was not seriously hurt.