Tsunami warning: Residents who evacuated coastal Bay of Plenty towns and Northland can return home
Friday, 5 March 2021
People who were evacuated in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, East Cape and Northland after three large earthquakes triggered a tsunami warning have been allowed to return home.
The three quakes near the Kermadec Islands on Friday morning included a magnitude 8.1, 7.1, and a 7.4 shake.
A warning was issued at 8.50am on Friday, following the magnitude 8.1 earthquake, the third earthquake on Friday.
Residents fled to higher ground, which was where they stayed until the alert was lifted about 1:30pm, when the advice was changed to advise people to just stay off beach and shore areas. That was cancelled by 3.45pm with threats lifted.
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Bay of Plenty District Health Board emergency operation's controller Brent Gilbert-De Rios said they did not have to evacuate patients from Whakatāne Hospital as they were outside the flood zone.
However, the hospital’s Tsunami Plan was implemented and patients and staff in the hospital were relocated to the first floor of the Dawson Block on the hospital campus.
In Northland, resident Rosie Stone, who has lived in the Helena Bay area for 30 years, said she had never had a warning “quite as dramatic as this”.
She got the civil defence warning on her phone and just grabbed her dog and phone and drove to higher ground.
South of Whangarei in Ruakākā, Rhys Owen said just before 10am he was safe at a friend's house up Prescott Rd.
He described hundreds of cars parked up both sides of the road.
It had taken 35 minutes to get to the main road roundabout, which was normally a five-minute drive.
In Whakatāne, traffic started to back up in the early hours of the morning as people started heading for the hills.
At the Whakatāne Coastguard offices, which are located at the mouth of the Whakatāne River, a man called Craig answered the phone about 9.15am – but he was not inclined to talk for long.
“I’m leaving right now. The whole town is evacuating. We are sensible down here.”
Craig did not even have time to give his surname.
“That does not matter mate. I’m out the door.”
In photos on social media on Friday police could be seen at the Commerce St roundabout in Whakatāne directing people inland towards Taneatua, while hundreds of others in the community were seen walking up the Ōhope hill.
Further along the coast, Ōpōtiki residents quickly sprung into action, heading inland.
Mayor Lyn Riesterer told Stuff everyone started evacuating out of the town quickly.
'We didn't have any major traffic delays this morning,' she said.
Ōhope resident Emma Tucker said she evacuated with her dog to Ōhope Hill.
“After getting the warning it took about 12 mins to get to safety.”
The mood at the hill was respectful and caring, she said.
“Everyone [was] either just sitting in their cars or talking to each other outside their cars.”
Edgecumbe resident Ashlee Sturme was among those forced to flee the town during the devastating 2017 stopbank failure, and now history had repeated itself.
“It’s quite surreal. It was a bloody nice day here that day, and now it is again.
“I’m just glad I remembered to pack my bra this time. I forgot to bring one the last time we evacuated. But I did the same thing I did when the stopbank went – I dropped my laptop on the ground in the rush. My insurance company is just going to love me.”
Sturme is on the board of Edgecumbe College and said the school had been planning to hold their annual beach day, at Thornton Beach, on Friday.
Farmers also did what they could to get their stock to higher ground.
One local dairy farmer, who didn't want to be named, rushed to his lifestyle block in Ōtākiri, 12km from Matatā, early on Friday after the alert came through to shift stock.