Cyclone Gabrielle: 200 evacuated from flood-stricken Puketapu

Thursday, 16 February 2023

Extraordinary video shows the Tutaekuri River breaching its banks.

With rising floodwaters swirling a metre deep inside their house, one Puketapu mother stood with her three children on the kitchen table and looked up.

There was only one way out. 'Our only thought was - we have to smash this roof,' said Lavinia Wyatt, who was airlifted out of the flood-stricken region with more than 200 others in a major operation this morning.

'My partner grabbed a block of wood, and we had a mini hacksaw to get through the wiring. Once there was a little hole I just stood up and booted it in with my Docs, and we were through.'

Wyatt, her children Kade Campbell, 12, twins Edith and Eleanor, 8, and partner Morgan Lincoln were trapped on the roof of their Moteo Pa road rental property for six terrifying hours, watching the family car sailing around the backyard with other debris.

The Tutaekuri River burst its banks at about 7am, sending tonnes of water streaming straight over the plains to their house.

The waters rose so quickly inside the house that there was no way to open the doors to get out. Once Wyatt was on the roof, Lincoln pushed the children through one by one. Once it receded, it had reached halfway up the walls and destroyed their possessions apart from the bag of clothes they had managed to grab.

'I was just trying to stay calm for the kids,' Lincoln said, as the children drank cans of lemonade and cookies at the Hastings Aerodrome on Thursday morning. His hands were shaking as he swiped through cellphone images of everything they had lost.

'It was kinda fun,' Kade said. 'There were apples and onions floating everywhere.'

Lavinia Wyatt, her partner Morgan Lincoln, and Lavinia's children Kade, twins Edith and Eleanor Campbell.

Bedraggled passengers carrying dogs, cats and children spilled out of multiple helicopters in and out of the airfield on Thursday morning, which had become an important Civil Defence extraction hub for the Defence Force and commercial pilots contracted to help with rescuing and ferrying supplies to flood stricken regions.

Many of the flood refugees were asking authorities if loved ones had been through the evacuation centre before them, or if there was an official list for those who had been saved.

People clutched pets, cat food and valuables grabbed on the run. Sheena McCann held daughter Charli, 17 months, in a backpack as the baby tried to sleep. 'This is not how we usually nap,' said an exhausted McCann.

Puketapu from the air from the electricians as they flew to Wairoa.

She'd had locals staying at her house with her four children Charli and Isabella, 12, Lola, 10, and Harper, 7, since floodwaters rose on Tuesday morning and enveloped nearby houses. Once the floodwaters receded, the Wyatt family climbed up the roof and also made their way up Swamp Rd to McCann's, which was on a rise.

'I'm just grateful we got choppered out,' McCann said.

ECL electricians Clayton Hawkes and Brent Hackett flew over the site on their way to Wairoa to get the fuel pumps running for Civil Defence. 'I just couldn't believe the devastation,' Hawkes said.

Local resident Jan was one of many doing supermarket runs and heating up food at the local Aero Club. 'We're local, and we're okay, so we're just doing what we can,' she said.

'There was only one supermarket open, and they didn't have the nice pizzas, but it was still something.' She had also been comforting shaken evacuees, she said. 'It's just apocalyptic.'

Maritime NZ’s Rescue Coordination Centre is leading a multi-agency coordination of air resources to respond to requests for assistance due to the impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawke’s Bay and on the East Coast.

The operation is led on the ground by Fire and Emergency.

The operations is being supported in the air by local operators, EMS providers, NH90s from NZDF, and helicopters supporting it from as far away as Otago.