Cyclone Gabrielle: 'I’m heartbroken for Hawke’s Bay… but we will be OK'

Thursday, 16 February 2023

Areas near the Ngauroro River in Hastings were devastated by floodwaters. The township of Omahu is facing a huge clean-up after over a metre of water swept through populated areas.

Robyn McLean is a former Stuff journalist and is now CEO/Founder of Hello Period.

OPINION: What happens when disaster strikes and the internet goes down, power is out and roads are flooded? On Tuesday morning we woke up in the Hastings suburb of Havelock North thinking we’d survived a bad storm. The power was out. No big deal. It was probably just our street. My husband went out in search of coffee, but instead came home with phone footage of surrounding streets that had turned into torrents, including the street my mother lives on. The panic set in. She lives alone, so we jumped in the car to check on her. Trees everywhere uprooted. It was like a scene from a movie.

A friend posted on Facebook that her house was surrounded by rising water and they were about to evacuate. I went to reply with an offer of help, but before I could, cell coverage dropped out. That was the start of the scary void of knowledge for thousands of people affected by Cyclone Gabrielle.

Residents film flooding at Waiohiki, near Hastings, after the Tutaekuri River burst its banks on Tuesday morning.

Being in a National State of Emergency without any access to communications is scary. We’re programmed to go online to our local Civil Defence website or Facebook page when disaster strikes. When you have no internet access, no power and no landline, you feel very vulnerable very quickly.

* Communities across Aotearoa capture Cyclone Gabrielle's damage on social media

* Dramatic video of Hawke's Bay family's flight from rising floodwaters

Brookfield’s Bridge in Hawke’s Bay following the wrath of Cyclone Gabrielle.

My mum is of a sensible generation. She keeps a spare carton of milk in her freezer and battery powered radio. We put the radio on the table and gathered around. We got a sense that the outside world didn’t yet know what was happening in Hawke’s Bay. We couldn’t get news from the outside, but they also couldn’t get news of the reality that was happening around us.

Robyn McLean: “While the road ahead is long, let’s hope that road gets some proper investment as it is rebuilt.”

Naively we assumed supermarkets would have generators. They didn’t. Everything was closed. Petrol stations rely on power to get the pumps going. The fear, like the floodwaters, started to rise.

As we drove to check on friends, the horrors began to hit home. We passed the warehouse where my business stores and sends our products from. It was completely flooded. Footpaths were lifting under the strong current of water cascading down them.

We passed the Four Square on Heretaunga St, the main road connecting Havelock North to central Hastings. They were opening their doors to people despite having no power and the shop being dark inside. There was already a queue. The till didn’t work, so we took photos of the price of each item as we picked it up. When we reached the counter we showed the prices to the shop assistant who added them on a calculator. The electronic scales didn’t work to weigh the bananas so the owner just said ‘make it two dollars’. We had gathered more food than we had cash for, but as I went to return the excess items, the man behind us insisted on paying for them. We needed to have that raspberry slice, he said. Thank you, sir. It turns out we really did.

My daughter is in Christchurch and I felt panicked that she couldn’t reach us. We knew we were safe, but she didn’t and as the news of the devastation started to spread, so would the anxiety of the people on the ‘outside’ not knowing who was OK and who wasn’t.

As we drove in search of a patch of reception to call my daughter, we heard an official on the car radio say that they thought everyone was safe, that no-one had died. It blew my mind. The extent of the devastation and impact was nowhere near known with rural parts of our community still not reached.

We eventually found a pocket of WiFi in the back of Hastings, near the Hawke’s Bay Hospital. We could see and hear the rescue helicopters landing and taking off constantly from the hospital’s rooftop.

Reading the news, it was clear the reality of what was happening in Hawke’s Bay was finally unfolding to those beyond. Nevertheless, authorities still kept advising people to head to Facebook for updates. My husband received two emergency alerts on his phone from Civil Defence. I received none. Elon Musk might not be the saviour of Twitter, but his Starlink satellite broadband is something everyone needs to be able to access in times like these. Communication is key and satellites are the way of the future in times like these.

While the road ahead is long, let’s hope that road gets some proper investment as it is rebuilt. It’s times like these that the value of our roading, stormwater and communication systems come to the fore.

I’m heartbroken for Hawke’s Bay and its amazing people and communities but we will be OK.

Tuesday was the first candlelit Valentine’s night I’ve had for a few years, and I’m hoping it will be the last (sorry, darling). Kia kaha, Hawke’s Bay.