Neighbour Paul Griffin said he heard what he thought was rolling thunder when the slip happened. Video / Carmen Hall / Cameron Avery
The Bay of Plenty Times is looking back at the stories of 2023. Here’s what made headlines in January
January 2:
A bouncy castle company operator said a “freak gust of wind” was to blame for a New Year’s Eve incident in Tauranga that left five people injured and children“traumatised”.
Witnesses described the “terrifying” moment a bouncy castle blew away and rolled through the crowd and “squashed” people at the community celebration at Fergusson Park in Matua about 7.30pm.
The Tauranga City Council reported two of the five people injured were taken to hospital, and Hato Hone St John said one was in a serious condition when transported.
About 6000 ticket holders for A Summer’s Day Live, featuring UB40, Jefferson Starship and Dragon, were advised that the concert, to be staged at Trustpower Baypark, was cancelled due to safety concerns associated with the weather forecast. It had been set to begin at 4.30pm.
UB40 fan Ross Wickham and his family were halfway between Hamilton and Tauranga when they received the news.
Instead of going to the concert, he and his partner and his partner’s sister and dad had driven the van back to Hamilton to crank some UB40 at home and “drown our sorrows”.
The mother of Braidon Townsley, a 17-year-old killed in a car crash, spoke out about the impact of her son’s death on her family as a warning to other young drivers not to take risks.
Braidon was a teenager who made Tauranga woman Cattalina Townsley proud.
But on March 7, 2022, he lost control of his car and hit a power pole on Maunganui Rd.
He was one of 15 people killed on Western Bay of Plenty roads that year. His death was among 60 deaths in the Bay of Plenty in 2022.
Braidon Townsley died in a car crash in March 2022.
January 12:
A Tauranga homeless shelter was forced to turn some people away and a charity has seen an 80 per cent increase in people needing food as support services grappled with a “huge” spike in demand in the city.
A sexual harm support service had also reported an increase in demand for “urgent medical and crisis support”.
St Vincent de Paul was understood to have been the only organisation providing food support over the Christmas and New Year period, with Western Bay of Plenty area manager Lorna Edlin saying they were “absolutely flat out”.
Amanda Wallace’s budgeting skills were being pushed to the limit as her Bay of Plenty family battled higher interest rates and a home build that cost $50,000 more than expected due to material price increases and supply chain woes.
The mother-of-two said the cost of living and paying the mortgage was “expensive and very stressful”.
Monthly payments for the first-home buyers, on one income, had climbed from $1500 a month to about $2000.
Loans on their $500,000 mortgage were split, including a floating rate of about 8 per cent, which was a far cry from the 2.49 per cent they managed to lock in when they bought their land.
“Shocked” and “stunned” Bay of Plenty politicians and residents paid tribute to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s leadership after she announced she would step down from the role.
Ardern choked back tears as she announced she would stand down on February 7.
Local Labour List MP Jan Tinetti posted on Facebook: “No words can convey how I feel about this remarkable woman, Jacinda Ardern”.
Meanwhile, the council’s image and reputation were at 23 per cent, up from 19 per cent for the previous year.
The scores were part of the council’s Annual Residents’ Survey 2021/2022.
The overall satisfaction rating of 32 per cent was the same as the previous year, but had steadily declined since 2019 when it was 66 per cent. In 2020 overall satisfaction was 51 per cent.
A landslide crashed into homes on Egret Ave in the suburb of Maungatapu about midnight after torrential rain hit the North Island, causing devastating floods and landslides across the Auckland region, and slips in Waikato and the Bay of Plenty.
Twenty-four homes were evacuated because of the large Tauranga slip.
Hanan was asleep alongside his partner, Teresa Hodgson, and the kids still awake “spread out around the house” when they heard a rumble that sounded like an earthquake.
