Rotorua comes out of Cyclone Cook without major incidents

The road around Sulphur Point was closed during Cyclone Cook. Photo/Stephen Parker

Cyclone Cook blew through Rotorua this week creating supermarket chaos and delaying Easter travel but also leaving some locals feeling underwhelmed.

The storm was expected to pack a big punch, despite being downgraded to an extra tropical low before it hit New Zealand.

Rotorua was told to prepare for heavy rain, power outages, road closures and possible high winds.

But the city escaped relatively unscathed, with only minor surface flooding, power outages and trees downed. According to the MetService website, 50.2mm of rain fell on Thursday, less than half the 123.6mm that hounded Rotorua as the remnants of Cyclone Debbie passed earlier this month.

Civil Defence controller Stavros Michael said it was much quieter than expected.

"Thank God for that," he said.

"We didn't face a significant impact, but people heeded our advice and a lot people were using our website for information, so that was good."

Mr Michael said every opportunity that Civil Defence was spreading a message like that was a good learning opportunity for them.

"It's a very long, slow process for people's awareness to be gained and maintained," he said.

"There's absolutely things we can learn from this event."

Addressing the issue of the website crashing during the storm, Mr Michael said they would be looking into how it could be prevented in the future.

"If we are directing people to our website for information, we need to make sure it's responsive," he said.

Mr Michael said he would like to reassure the public that "the system in general coped quite well".

"I would like to remind people that we got away lightly, but we can't become complacent," he said.

"People should steer away from not taking it seriously next time they hear the word cyclone.

Early Thursday morning The Ministry of Education advised schools to close early before the predicted heavy rain and winds hit that afternoon.

All Earlybird Educare Centres closed at 1pm and the majority of schools contacted by the Rotorua Daily Post also closed early.

Galatea School and Horohoro School were closed all day with Huiarau School in Ruatahuna and Murupara Area School closed from Wednesday.

A state of emergency was declared by Civil Defence shortly before midday and people were advised to travel only if they absolutely had to and stock up on food and water.

As the storm neared supermarkets became crowded with Rotorua residents taking the advice of Civil Defence.

At Countdown on Fenton St, Nickie Waerea was buying bulk bottled water for a friend who owns a farm in Mamaku.

"She's worried about the tank water so I'm taking this to her," she said.

Inside there were crowds around the shelves containing candles and matches, while many shoppers had trollies full of bottled water.

Summer Martin stocks up for Cyclone Cook at Countdown Rotorua. Photo/Ben Fraser

Cyclone Cook made landfall in the Bay of Plenty about 6.30pm.

Metservice meteorologist Arno Dyason said the rain would pick up but that it would clear later that night.

"It's a fast moving system, things change fairly quickly," she said.

That was true as by 7.30pm Rotorua was being lashed by heavy rain and strong gusts of wind.

More than 350 customers in Lake Rotoma were the first to lose power.

Shortly after, 137 homes across Braymoore Pl, Gloucester Rd, Hamurana Rd, Maxwell Rd and Tauranga Direct Rd, residents of Murupara and parts of Galatea also lost power.

Widespread outages across all regions caused the Unison app to crash.

At 8pm on Thursday the centre of Cyclone Cook lay close to Rotorua before moving south toward Wairarapa.

By 10pm the worst appeared to be over for Rotorua, after 50.2mm of rain.

Heavy rain eased over the Bay of Plenty and the severe weather warnings were lifted.

Rotorua Fire Brigade senior station officer Colin Rolfe said his crews had only had one storm-related call overnight.

Ngongotaha Fire Brigade chief Francis Boag said his crews had been to four callouts.

He said they were clearing trees blocking Hamurana Rd shortly after Unsworth Rd, heading away from Ngongotaha and their other appliance was dealing with flooding along Parawai Rd.

"We've found at least five lots of trees down," he said.

Some Rotorua residents took to Facebook yesterday morning, describing Cyclone Cook as a "storm in a tea cup".

One man saying the event had just felt like a regular night of rain.

Alex Cookson posted this picture of his "front yard" following Cyclone Cook. Photo/Alex Cookson

The NZ Transport Agency urged motorists yesterday to continue delaying their travel, even if they had woken up to sunshine.

Multiple roads across the Bay of Plenty remained closed due to slips and fallen trees.

A major slip came down on State Highway 30 near Whakamaru about 11am, completely blocking both lanes.

Contractors were working on clearing the slip, however it was likely to take several hours to clear and motorists were asked to take alternative routes.

A slip on State Highway 30 near Whakamaru. Photo/Katie Holland

Rotorua Lakes Council said road inspection teams would be out checking for road damage.

"There were no major weather-related incidents overnight in the Rotorua district but there is still a high risk of slips and tree falls, so please continue to take care if out driving, particularly on rural roads," the council said in an announcement yesterday.

Fallen trees on Tarawera, Dansey, Hamurana and Whirinaki Valley roads were cleared early yesterday morning to allow traffic to flow.

Power remains out across areas of the Bay of Plenty, but Unison relationship manager Danny Gough said the network in Taupo and Rotorua had held up well.

Power was reconnected to Murupara at 8am yesterday morning.

Rainfall was unexpectedly light with EOC reporting there had been no problems with stormwater systems and river flows.