Amid the indiscriminate carnage of the past week’s Tauranga storms, a small misfortune was bestowed on the Anderson family that prevented a far greater tragedy.
If the downpour that flooded their lounge room on Wednesday night had not occurred, young mother Dani Stewart would have been sitting there with her daughter as a massive slip tore through one side of their house, hours later.
“I didn’t think I’d be thankful for a flood. We woke up in the morning, annoyed about the room being flooded.
“It turned out to be probably the best thing that could have happened. We would have been in that room. That was where we spent most of our time.”
Her partner Bailey Anderson was in the sodden living room at the time of the slip ripping up carpet to dry it.
“Around 1.30[pm], I heard a tree snap. I ran out of the house and I saw the slip coming. I was out of the way before it made contact with the room. It completely destroyed the house.
“The slip probably would have been big enough to bury me. There was a garage and it actually pushed the car that was in the garage through the wall of our living room.”
In another section of the house, Dani and her 2-year-old daughter, Harlow, could only hear the destruction.
“We thought it must be machinery, living on a farm. And that rumble just got stronger and stronger, and realising that it wasn’t machinery, we just had to stay put because if we ran out who knows what would have happened.”
Another lifeline was offered to the 22-year- old parents and Harlow in the chaos after the slip hit their home that afternoon.
Isolated on the Pāpāmoa hills, cut off by flooded roads and multiple slips, Stewart called family friend Sam Roome. Sam and Chris Roome’s son Darian is close friends with Dani and Bailey.
“She’s my friend’s mum and she’s pretty much my mum at this point. I rang her that morning because of the flood and said, ‘hey, look I can’t have Harlow here, that’s not possible, and she kindly opened her arms and said, come here.
“There’s no words for that. I could cry, honestly, they are just the most amazing people ever. I could never pay them back.”
The couple are now living in a caravan in the backyard of the Roomes’ Pāpāmoa Beach home. It offers some privacy while allowing Harlow, and their cat, some space to roam and play following the trauma of that day.
“Harlow, she’s on the spectrum. Obviously the whole property we were on, there were effects from all of the water damage, so she couldn’t go walking around. I’d have to keep her in one spot. It was really hard and she had no idea what was going on.”
Bailey strikes a more philosophical view of the loss of nearly every possession they own, aside from the clothes on their back.
“My personality is just, it is what it is, everyone’s safe. It’s only property, it’s only material items, it doesn’t really matter.”
The family had no insurance, so are now basically starting from scratch.
“We couldn’t afford insurance, that’s just not something that would be in the cards for us,” Dani said
“We have to start fresh, but at least we’re safe. Bailey managed to grab a handful of Harlow’s clothes, and we’ve managed to get a few essential pieces to tie us over, but yeah, living with the bare essentials.”
Sam Roome says she didn’t think twice about offering a place to stay when she got the call.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. I mean they’re like my own kids pretty much. They attend all our family functions so as soon as they said they’d lost their home, our son, who is their best friend came straight home from work and basically hopped in the car with my husband and went up there and grabbed them.”
The trip to rescue the young Anderson family was an ordeal of its own.
“It was pretty hairy. The water was up to the cab going along the bridge. But we’re grateful they are safe, because that could have turned nasty, pretty bad pretty quick.”
Bailey described chaos on the roads leading to their property.
“There’s multiple slips before you even get to our driveway. There [were] cars submerged on the road. [The Roomes] They have a really high-rise ute, but with a normal car there would have been no way to get through.”
Sam Roome said they would have accommodated the family any which way once they got them safely under their roof.
“We would have thrown mattresses on the floor if we didn’t have the caravan, and I run a daycare from home. I’m a home based educator so we’ve got the set up for Harlow and all the toys, beds and cots. It just made perfect sense I guess.”
Just a few days after being left homeless, the Andersons have no clear picture of what the future holds.
“No idea. We’ll figure something out,” Bailey said.
“There are other options we are looking at, but again, it’s not 100%. It’s just whatever we can get.”
Yesterday afternoon, police released the names of the six people unaccounted for in Thursday’s massive landslide in Mount Maunganui.
Those missing are Rotorua grandmother Sue Knowles, Morrinsville school tutor Lisa Maclennan, 15-year-old Pakuranga College students Max Furse-Kee and Sharon Maccanico, 71-year-old Jacqualine Wheeler from Rotorua and 20-year-old Swedish tourist Mans Bernhardsson.
On Friday, it was revealed a grandmother and her grandson were the two people killed in Pāpāmoa landslide.
Tom Dillane is an Auckland-based journalist covering local government and crime as well as sports investigations. He joined theHeraldin 2018 and is a duty editor and senior reporter.
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