A bird's-eye view of the storm-ravaged West Coast
Friday, 2 February 2018
From one end of the West Coast to the other, devastation abounds.
The sheer scale of the damage becomes clear when looking from the sky: Flooded and sodden houses, tourists trapped between slips, a church knocked off its foundation, roads blocked by landslides and fallen trees – or washed away – dwellings in ruin and crews frantically working to reopen highways.
Stuff was the first media to fly into the cut-off town of Haast, in south Westland, on Friday where hundreds of people – mostly tourists – were stuck without phone coverage, internet or a way to withdraw money.
The clear-up across the Westland, Buller and Grey districts will take at least weeks. More likely, months. It is all due to former tropical cyclone Fehi lashing the region on Thursday, just as king tides arrived. The awful combination spelled sea surges, high winds, flash flooding, power outages and evacuations across the West Coast and Tasman.
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* Flooding, heavy rain and severe gales as cyclone remnants move over NZ
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Haast was cut off on both sides by a 100-metre by 9m slip at Douglas Bluff and fallen trees on the highway. Some, including a wedding party, were flown out in planes and helicopters. Many others faced a second night with no way out of the town.
The storm destroyed the Jacobs River Church, which was knocked off its foundations, and a house.
'It's a testing time for everybody,' the local police officer, Senior Constable Paul Gurney, said.
There are 400 to 500 people still stuck in Haast.
Tourists Ben McCluskey and Cameron Anderson would spend the night sleeping on mattresses in Haast's community hall.
'We've been slightly losing our minds,' McCluskey said.
'As long as we have each other,' Anderson joked.
Residents were trying to keep everyone smiling when their travel plans were ruined, Gurney said. In the meantime, the council was bringing in extra supplies of food, he said. Phone services were restored to the area by 3.30pm on Friday.
Staying overnight on a mattress on the floor of Haast's Hard Antler Bar and Restaurant, Grayem Forrest from Sydney said they had 'never seen anything like the conditions, seeing the waves crashing right over the road'.
'We're safe, we're warm, we're could be in a much worse situation. We consider ourselves lucky. Some people are blocked in cars.'
Tristan Audrazat from France said he and his girlfriend abandoned their tent because of rain and wind and slept in their car. They had no access to money, but the locals were being 'very fine' and giving them food and coffee.
Janet Gibb felt 'panic' when she and her family became stuck in Haast after leaving Lake Hawea on Thursday morning.
Along with her husband and teenage children, the Aucklander was travelling with her 85-year-old mother and parents-in-law in their 70s, who were visiting from the United Kingdom.
She was worried they would have nowhere to sleep, but found the solution at the Haast River Motels and Holiday Park. There, about a dozen people would sleep in its lounge and others in their cars outside.
The park's owners were 'absolutely fantastic', Gibb said. 'They found a room for the two elderly ladies first and then … they'd managed to find a room that slept seven so we had accommodation last night.'
The family would stay put for another night on Friday before taking whichever road opened on Saturday, so they could make it to Christchurch to catch a flight back to Auckland.
Further north, 117 motorists stranded overnight between Fox Glacier and Franz Josef were driven out by convey to Fox Glacier on Friday.
State Highway 6 from Whataroa (north of Franz Josef) to Makarora (south of Haast) would be closed overnight, with the next update at 3pm on Saturday, NZ Transport Agency said.
A Westland District Council spokesman said a 30-tonne digger would start clearing a 60m slip between at Omoeroa.
'Mother nature beat us really,' said William Wilson of Hunts Beach, south of Fox Glacier.
He and others used diggers to try to build sea walls out of rock, but it lasted 'about 10 minutes' before the water was waist deep. 'She's gone through everything,' he said.
The motel his family owned was destroyed. 'I guess we'll have to clean up and start again. The sea beat us in the end.
'The water was right across the flat. I've never seen anything like it.'
Power remained down on Friday and helicopters were flying power generators to water treatment plants in Franz, Fox and Whataroa.
Extra electricity workers were brought in from Ashburton to help get power on across the region, but Westland Mayor Bruce Smith said restoring electricity would be slow as 'there's lots of power lines down and lots of trees down right across the region'.
'There's been a few people out there working some very long hours the last two days.'
Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn said all roads in and out of his district had reopened by Friday evening.
In Buller district, residents in beach settlements are pondering their future after the ocean brought trees and logs and crashing onto their properties.
At Hector and Granity, north of Westport, the huge sea swell had smashed homes before, but this storm was the worst by far.