Te Araroa grandmother describes harrowing escape from wall of floodwaters

Source: Radio New Zealand

A grandmother who fled rising floodwaters with her moko is overwhelmed by the scale of destruction in her East Coast community.

“I’ve probably walked around in circles a thousand times,” Philippa Wright told RNZ from her Te Araroa home, “not really knowing where to begin”.

As a digger shifted mud and logs on the property, Wright said she, her 10-year-old grandson, and husband Steve were “extremely lucky” to survive the storm that laid waste to the township last week.

“Seeing what they’re digging out … I knew it was deep, but it’s deep alright, and you couldn’t see the logs for the mud, but now … they’re scraping them all out.”

As the rain came down on 21 January, Wright and her moko sat in the car, poised to evacuate.

She periodically flicked the headlights on watching the water, while her husband monitored the levels from inside their tiny home.

The property, which now had a few dwellings and a deck, was just a bare paddock with some trees when they bought it five years ago.

“And as soon as we walked on this land we just knew it was us,” Wright said, and after years of work, they had finally made it their off-the-grid dream.

“Punaruku Stream is our boundary between us and the camping ground, and it was just a little trickler.”

That night, however, her neighbours told her that the stream was climbing up the bridge – and that this time, the rain and the water levels were different.

“The first thing I noticed was the smell changed, the earth, the debris.

“I flicked on my lights and all I could see was this wall of water – logs, debris, in the neighbour’s section come flying towards me … and I just planted it.”

On the phone to Steve, she yelled at him to “get the hell out of there”.

“He just heard the logs hitting our tiny home. He couldn’t go out the front door because of the water level and the debris.”

While he escaped with the dog out the back, Wright and her grandson found a “pocket” at the base of the hill – but with slips in front of them and the bridge impassable behind them, they were trapped.

“There were slips going all around us, so we were having to shuffle backwards and forwards because we could hear the crackling and stuff coming down.”

It was a sleepless night.

Wright’s neighbours had escaped with their five children onto the roof of their house and on the phone to Te Araroa Civil Defence, all she could do was flash her headlights at them.

“They were asking us if we could see them, and thankfully … one of them had a high-vis on … so I could tell them, “Yes, they’re still on the roof”.”

Huia Ngatai and her family, the youngest only three-years-old, survived their ordeal and were evacuated by helicopter the next morning.

Wright said their property was “total devastation”.

A Givealittle page dedicated to the Ngatai family’s recovery has received numerous donations and messages of support.

To Wright’s surprise, a page had also been set up for her and Steve – by their daughter – detailing what they had lost and the tough clean-up ahead.

“She didn’t tell me she was doing it, I didn’t request it at all. I’m totally humbled by it and just so grateful for people’s love and support.

“[There] are so many people that need help, we’re just one of many [families]. It’s not just us.”

Wright said she had evacuated to the Hinerupe Marae the morning after the storm, where she had been well looked after.

“They’re very beautiful people, they’ve been amazing. I’m so glad I’ve moved to a community where people are just amazing, and make you feel so loved.

“In these times just a hug’s all you need.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand