Wellington storm: Lower Hutt woman trapped under fence, trees uprooted

A Lower Hutt woman was trapped under a collapsed fence and left screaming for help as a freak storm ripped through the central city yesterday.

Jenny Ryan was bringing in her wheelie bin when she heard a huge noise and saw debris coming up over the building next door.

“Then I realised it was a tornado so I squatted down behind the fence to shelter from all the stuff that was flying around.

“The fence started shaking really rapidly then all of a sudden it kind of slowed down. I looked down the driveway and it was just a slow-motion kind of wave of it falling down.”

Ryan said she tried to stand up and get out of the way but she wasn’t quick enough and became trapped.

“I ended up underneath it covered from basically the armpits down so, I was underneath, my arms up, and screaming for help.”

She thought no one had heard her screams until all of a sudden half a dozen people swooped in to help free her.

“It’s a bit of a blur really.”

A garage on Cornwall St in Lower Hutt was severely damaged by the storm. Photo / Marty Melville

Storm damage was evident across Lower Hutt on Wednesday morning, with council crews out in force working to restore power and clear debris from city streets.

Several businesses remain closed as the clean-up continues, including the Salvation Army family store on the corner of Cornwall St and Kings Cres.

A notice in the front window read: “A tornado ripped through our store. Massive amount of damage. We are not open until further notice. We are not taking donations until further notice”.

Nearby at the New World supermarket windows have been boarded up, with staff going through items one-by-one to see what can be salvaged.

Trees uprooted and power out

Leo Wong was picking up his kids from school when a freak storm ripped through Lower Hutt yesterday, downing trees, tearing roofs off buildings and smashing glass windows.

”It started hailing, it was windy, and raining obviously. The car was shaking a little bit and my daughter who’s only 7, she got a little bit scared.”

The family got stuck in traffic, had to take a detour, and when they finally made it to their street, Kings Cres, there was debris everywhere.

”There was a trampoline, there were other fallen trees ... and then I noticed our tree on the road and I was like ‘okay, that’s us’,” Wong said.

The storm caused extensive damage to Leo Wong's property in Lower Hutt. Photo / Georgina Campbell

“By that time the police had already blocked off the road so, that was causing the traffic backlog.”

One word came to Wong’s mind when he saw the full extent of the damage to his home: “Crap”.

A large gum tree had been ripped from the ground by the tornado-like whirling wind and was completely covering the driveway, narrowly missing the house itself. Wong said luckily the only damage to the roof was some spouting.

A second tree had also been uprooted, taking some of the concrete driveway with it, and crashed through the fence and onto the road.

”It’s a bit of shock,” Wong said.

Hutt South MP Chris Bishop now has an electorate office without a roof. Photo / Marty Melville

The family were still without power this morning but hoped to have it restored by midday and Wong has already been on the phone to the insurance company.

The one silver lining is Wong’s brother has a wood burner.

”At least it’s going somewhere and it’s going to be reused.”

Fire and Emergency New Zealand Lower Hutt Assistant Commander Gareth Hughes said they received 64 calls yesterday.

The most serious of those related to a roof that had flown off a commercial premises and a large wall of glass that had been torn out from New World supermarket.

Luckily there were no serious injuries, Hughes said.

“There were lots of little injuries of cuts and grazes and bruises and probably a bit of shock from people who experienced a severe weather event that happened so quickly.”

Part of a roof was blown into a tree on Pretoria Street in Lower Hutt. Photo / Marty Melville

Hughes said he had never experienced such a rapid onset of extreme weather.

“Like many people in the Hutt Valley, I experienced a darkening of the weather as the front came through and then a severe burst of wind and hail and strong rain.”

Hutt City Council assessing damage, three commercial building secured

Hutt City mayor Campbell Barry said the focus today was to support those affected by the “significant” weather event and continue cleaning up.

”Overnight, three buildings, commercial buildings were secured by Fire and Emergency New Zealand, one residential house in particular where there was quite a bit of damage done.

“Council teams will be out today assessing the damage just to make sure that they are obviously safe and we can get people back into them as soon as possible, with the repairs that will be necessary.”

The Lighting Direct Store on Knights Rd was also damaged. Photo / Marty Melville

Barry confirmed the council completed various welfare checks overnight.

”We know that there were a small number of residential properties that people weren’t able to go home to last night.

”So that’s absolutely a top priority today, but again, it’s a relatively small number, which is a good thing, but for those who have been impacted, obviously quite significant for them.”

Barry told the Herald that despite the damage, he was grateful there weren’t any serious injuries.

”There were some minor injuries, where people did need to go into hospital, but it doesn’t appear that there are any significant or serious injuries, which is really positive.”

MetService issued a severe thunderstorm watch for the wider Wellington region just before 3pm yesterday, and within minutes torrential downpours, hail and severe gusts were pummelling the lower North Island.

Torrents of rain left roads flooded, stopped flights at the airport and caused widespread damage to homes and offices.

Several people required medical attention, including two who needed to be hospitalised. By this morning one person remained stable on a ward and the other had been released home.

More than 2000 properties lost power during the storm and multiple roads were closed while emergency services dealt with the chaos.

Hail covered the region during the storm. Photo / Marty Melville

MetService meteorologist Lewis Ferris told the Herald that despite earlier reports, they were still unable to confirm whether the severe wind was a proper tornado.

“We don’t want to completely discount some people seeing the rotation and thinking that it may have been a tornado, but from what we have seen, it did kind of look more likely that it was really an intense gust front.

“It’s very hard because the system was moving so quickly the radar signals don’t exactly support it being like a fully-fledged tornado,” Ferris said.

Fire and Emergency received 51 weather-related calls for assistance between 3pm and 9pm, with the majority coming from Lower Hutt.

A spokesperson said the calls were mainly about roofs lifting in the wind, broken windows/glass, fallen powerlines and trees blocking roads.

Georgina Campbell is a Wellington-based reporter who has a particular interest in local government, transport, and seismic issues. She joined the Herald in 2019 after working as a broadcast journalist.