What a yarn: In a caravan swept away by Cyclone Gabrielle, 82-year-old pulled out her crochet needles

As Pam Yarnold’s home on wheels was swept along by the flooding that hammered Esk Valley, the 82-year-old knew she had to do whatever she could do to stay as relaxed as possible.

The artist and grandmother’s caravan – along with others based at Eskdale Caravan Park – was in the direct line of the devastating and lethal flooding that surged its way through the outskirts of Napier on the night of February 13 and morning of February 14, 2023.

A year on, Yarnold still counts herself lucky that she escaped with her life from the disaster which killed 11 people.

A resident waits to be plucked to safety by a New Zealand Defence Force helicopter on the morning of February 14. Photo / NZDF

There was no mistaking that her caravan was on the move through Esk Valley - a once pristine area where orchards, homes, businesses and lifestyle blocks were decimated by the storm.

And as she looked out one of its windows, still in the hours of complete darkness, the artist had no idea where the caravan was heading.

Wanting to stay relaxed, Yarnold collected her crochet gear and got to work.

“I don’t know how long I was crocheting for,” Yarnold told the Herald. Time just [went by]. I ended up in the middle of an orchard at 6.30 in the morning. I still wasn’t found until 1.30pm.

Pam Yarnold with the crochet octopus she created while in a caravan that was swept through Esk Valley on flood waters created by Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo / Neil Reid

“All of that time just went by. For a while I was crocheting ... it was relaxing. When I was crocheting that morning, I was just making sure I was thinking of what I was doing.

“Somebody said to me ‘you must have been terrified’. And they are probably right. But I didn’t sit there, do nothing, and think about how scared I was.

An Esk Valley property still inundated with water and mud almost two weeks on from Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo / Neil Reid

“I kept myself busy and that is how I got through it, keeping as busy as I possibly could.”

Yarnold’s moving caravan was ultimately stopped further down Esk Valley by a pile of wooden apple bins and downed power cables.

Two chilling moments have stuck in Yarnold’s mind about her ordeal during Cyclone Gabrielle.

While Yarnold’s caravan was on a “terrible angle”, and she could hear the water rushing around her home, a fridge landed on her head and then left her “pinned”.

So many properties and homes in Esk Valley were left in ruins by the floodwaters and swift-moving wall of mud and silt that raged through the area. Photo / Neil Reid

“I didn’t want to drown,” she recalled. “From nowhere I felt the strength to push the fridge off of me and made my way down the other end of the caravan.”

She also has a vivid memory of rapidly slashing through mosquito netting covering a window as a potential means of escape.

“The mosquito netting was as tough as old boots,” she said.

“[I used a plug] to make a hole in the mesh and was able to rip it and open up the window. It meant if the caravan did end up on its side, I would be able to get out.”

Cyclone Gabrielle survivor Pam Yarnold with a pot plant that she recovered from the silt at her old home in an Esk Valley caravan park. Photo / Neil Reid

Help eventually came after management of the Eskdale Caravan Park started moving around wider the area and saw her caravan in an orchard further down SH5, and heard Yarnold calling for help.

Yarnold’s ordeal ended about 1.30pm, more than 13 hours after the flooding had started hammering the area.

An Esk Valley resident later told her they had watched the caravan being swept through the valley, with it being swirled around at one stage “as if it was in a washing machine”.

Yarnold, her precious crochet, her late son’s memorial and an address book weren’t the only things lucky to survive the surging floodwaters that first consumed the Eskdale Caravan Park, and then swept her home on wheels away.

Growing in a pot at the suburban Napier home she now lives in is a plant that has survived both Cyclone Gabrielle and an earlier flood through parts of Esk Valley in 2018.

An upturned car washed away down SH5, through Esk Valley, is pictured in what was once a paddock four days after the storm hit. Photo / Neil Reid

“[In 2018], when that flood subsided, that plant was found right across the other side of the caravan park still in its pot,” Yarnold said.

“[After Cyclone Gabrielle] when I went out there and retrieved some of my pot plants, a tiny piece about an inch and a half high was growing in the top of some silt, believe it or not.

“I bought it home and it has just flourished. That plant is something you can’t kill.”

Yarnold’s return to her cherished former home was a painful one.

Pam Yarnold said returning to her former home in Esk Valley is no longer as painful as it once was. Photo / Neil Reid

The plant was one of the few objects she could retrieve; other possessions were either swept away, never found or destroyed.

She was “devastated” at losing most of her artwork.

“You can pretty much replace most other things, but you can’t replace your art.”

Yarnold’s caravan and car – which were both insured - were written off.

The scene of devastation near where Pam Yarnold's caravan used to be based three weeks on from Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo / Neil Reid

For a time, she was unable to visit Esk Valley.

Now she goes back three times a week to help a friend deliver newspapers for NZME.

“To see it, it is sad now, but it doesn’t hit me as hard,” Yarnold said.

“But what makes me smile is all the red roses on a fenceline; they are still blooming, and it makes me think that something is still happy out there. They survived, but don’t ask me how.”

The scene of some of the terrible flooding in Esk Valley captured three weeks on from the destructive Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo / Neil Reid

Twelve months on, Yarnold said there were still events that acted like a trigger that took her back to the morning of February 14.

Early on after the disaster, those included being in a carwash and being left feeling “sick” as waterblasters sprayed down the car she was in.

Now it might be reading an article “about someone’s trauma”.

Pam Yarnold photographed with her crochet at Bay View, two days after being rescued from nearby Esk Valley. Photo / Neil Reid

Her post-cyclone coping mechanisms included knowing there were lots of people a lot worse off than her and also the power of laughter.

“People will ask me how I am doing, and I tell them I’m doing fine,” she said.

“And you have to laugh. You can’t let it get to you. I am sure they think I am mad, but I try to laugh about some things.”

Neil Reid is a Napier-based senior reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014 and has 30 years of newsroom experience. He was on the frontline of NZME’s coverage of Cyclone Gabrielle when it hit Hawke’s Bay and has covered the clean-up operation that followed.