Auckland sisters battle to protect their late dad's home from storm

Saturday, 6 January 2018

Residents of the Auckland suburb of Maraetai are picking up the pieces, trying to come to terms with the destruction caused by Friday's storm.

Home-owners on Saturday took stock of structural damage, sausage dog-walkers exclaimed over the deeply undermined shore-side footpath, and people took selfies with a large chunk of wharf that had washed onto the road.

Sisters Tracey and Deb Laxon squelched across their late father's sodden carpet, lamenting sewage and seawater that the storm had pushed into the family home. They said it would have broken their father's heart to see it.

Coastal Maraetai, the Laxon's family retreat for decades, was one of the suburbs worst hit by a deadly storm that swept across the North Island on Friday.

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Every local spoken to on Saturday agreed it was the worst weather they'd ever experienced in Maraetai.

At mid-morning the Laxons were taking a break from sweeping debris from their father's driveway.

The sisters had tried to get there — Tracey from Remuera, Deb from Pakuranga — on Thursday night, before the storm took hold, but a major accident and powerlines falling across the road had cut access to Maraetai.

So they arrived early on Friday morning, just in time to heft most furniture out of the downstairs living room and bedroom before high tide entered the house. The kitchen appliances were damaged by water, but the Laxons' considered themselves lucky not to have lost anything of sentimental value.

Waves 'smashed open the the front gates' despite strategically positioned wood and bricks, said Tracey. They swept over the road and across their yard, crashing against the ranch sliders.

'It was the roughest I've ever seen …. The wharf's been smashed, I've never seen that in the 53 years I've been coming out here,' she said, adding that part of the wharf had floated past the house.

Tracey had headed out into the 'brown mess' to man-handle massive logs threatening to bust through the doors' glass.

Her bold actions caused her sister to have something of a melt down, she admitted.

'I just had these visions of having to get her airlifted out of the house to hospital,' said Deb.

All but one log got carried out with the receding tide, which had left the property by 12pm. The pair said they might keep the almost two metre long straggler, too heavy to heave off the driveway, as a garden ornament.

Wearing her father's pyjama top, Tracey said seeing the storm damage would have 'broken his heart'.

Her dad had retired there in 1985, building a house where the family bach had stood before. The 90-year-old died just three months ago.

Tracey tiptoed across the blue carpet, which had a film of brown water covering it and would have to be thrown out: 'It's full of sewage and seawater and a bit of rain,' she explained.

They would likely have to make the house higher in order to be less exposed to future storm damage, Tracey said.

As the sisters resumed their sweeping, a Franklin local board member stopped by to let them know drinking water was up for grabs from the community centre along the road, should they need it. Most houses were still without power or water.

Minutes later, Chief Fire Officer Shane Rutherford offered them help with 'carpet-lifting or anything'.

Rutherford has been at the Beachlands volunteer fire brigade for 12 years and said Friday's storm was the 'most ferocious' he'd ever seen.

'Most of it's flooding and superficial damage, [but] the wharf took a real hit — half of it's down the road down there,' he said.

'We didn't realise the ferocity of what the storm was going to be … So we prepared as best we could, but you can never push back the sea.'

Rutherford's brigade were out in force on Friday, diverting traffic and keeping people out of the electricity and sewage-infused water, he said.

The next step: 'We'll be lifting carpets, furniture; insurance companies will have to come in and do their thing — council's got a lot of work to do.'

A few doors along from the Laxons' house, staff at the Maraetai Wharf Store were mopping mud off its wooden floors.

Staff member William Robertson, a local, said the storm had been the worst he'd ever seen and that its force 'had just blown me away'.

It also washed away one of the poles holding up the store's front awning.

Robertson, 17, had helped barricade the front of the store with sandbags before the floods struck, but water rose high enough to wash in through the back.

'We didn't even think about the back,' he said. 'It was amazing to see the power of the water'.

He said he'd be 'working hard all day' to make the place fit for coffee seeking customers on Sunday.