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One of the worst storms to hit New Zealand in living history, Cyclone Gabrielle left a trail of destruction from Northland to Napier and beyond, as it tracked down the East Coast of the North Island. NZ Plumber talks to Hawke’s Bay plumbing business owner Grayson Allen about this devastating event and its lasting impact on families, homes and livelihoods.

AUTHOR: BEVERLY SELLERS

The first sign of Cyclone Gabrielle’s arrival in Hawke’s Bay came with darkening clouds on Sunday night, 12 February. By Monday, the rain was falling heavily and didn’t stop all day. The wind picked up around 5pm and accelerated quickly as the evening drew on. By the end of the day, the power was out.

“My family didn’t get any sleep that Monday night,” recalls Grayson Allen of Peak Plumbing in Havelock North. “Our 1928 bungalow was rattling and cracking, and water was coming in under the window flashings. We could hear the rain hammering and branches snapping, and then we heard one of our big trees go over and smash onto the lawn. Nothing was coping. It was fierce.”

Fortunately for the Allens, their property is on a knoll, but when they looked outside in the morning, the neighbour’s driveway was under three feet of water and the surrounding orchards were flooded.

Power and comms out

Cellphone and internet coverage was lost overnight, with cellphone towers knocked over in the galeforce winds, and all the local radio stations were off air. “We had to rely on an old-fashioned transistor radio in our emergency pack to get information from RNZ National,” recalls Grayson.

With the power and comms out, and trees across the roads, the Allens could only check on the safety of their immediate neighbours that Tuesday. “We couldn’t let family and friends know we were fine, or check on anyone else’s safety.” Everyone had to wait till the Wednesday to check on their wider neighbours.

A sobering sight

Grayson recalls a sobering sight that day, as he drove through local communities to drop off generators and help properties in semi-rural areas get their pumped water and sewerage supplies going again, if they hadn’t been totally flooded out.

“With no communications, we hadn’t realised that all the main rivers in Hawke’s Bay had breached their banks early that Tuesday morning,” he says. “The flooding had knocked out communications to Eskdale and Puketapu, which is probably why they didn’t get any prior warning to evacuate.”

Much like Canterbury, Hawke’s Bay is surrounded by high ranges, which are the headwaters for several rivers flowing out through fertile plains to the sea.

Grayson reels off a list of riverside and coastal communities—Wairoa, Twyford, Pakowhai, Meeanee, Omarunui and many more—that were devastated by the rushing torrents of floodwater, sewerage, silt, debris, forestry slash, fallen trees, rotting produce and dead livestock. The stench is something locals have got used to living with, he says.

Clients in need

One of Grayson’s staff had just completed a high-end tourist accommodation project at the home of an orchardist client. After the cyclone, the client’s house had been yellow stickered and all the new accommodation flooded. He wouldn’t be able to live in his home until an assessor had decided if it could be repaired or would need replacing. Everything had to be stripped out of the new accommodation—kitchens, bathrooms, laundry and plasterboard up to 1.5m.

The client was running on adrenaline, using a forklift and digger to try and remove the silt that smothered his property. The river of debris had knocked out the concrete gateposts and electric gates to his driveway and slammed two Portacoms up against the fence.

Orchard fuit that hadn’t been washed away was also badly bruised and winddamaged. “It’s estimated that only three percent of pip fruit in the Hawke’s Bay region had been harvested before the cyclone,” says Grayson. “And with sludge up to 1m in some orchards, it’s hard to get any labour prepared to climb up and down ladders to pick fruit that’s undamaged.”

Another client in Omarunui had rung 111 at the peak of the cyclone to say the flood waters were rising fast, cows were tangled and drowning in his tennis court net, his vehicles were awash, his boats upended and—worst of all—his wheelchair-bound wife was stuck in the house with no means of escape. With no emergency services able to attend, the client had to rely on a neighbour to bring his boat round to the first floor of their home and carry his wife out to safety.

Rural communities cut off Grayson’s extended family were badly affected too. His wife’s parents, who are dairy farmers in Patoka, were cut off with no power or communications for 18 days, and their remote community was relying on helicopter drops for food and other supplies. Food supplies and diesel for diggers, tractors and generators were in low supply and high demand.

“They drove out for the first time at the beginning of March, when the