‘We were luckier than most’

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A Gisborne man who found out he wasn’t insured after losing thousands of dollars of personal items during Cyclone Gabrielle is still counting himself as one of the lucky ones.
The morning after the cyclone hit Tairāwhiti, Waipaoa resident Peter Clough said he woke up to what felt like a normal day in his neighbourhood.
After checking his backyard just after 7am, he decided the storm had been a “non-event”, and returned to bed with a cup of tea and toast to watch TV.
Shortly after, there was a knock at the door from a fellow resident, who told him he needed to evacuate. 
Mr Clough said he thought the person was being “stupid”, but decided to take a look over the road.
To his horror, he saw the water had banked up and was about to flood his section.
“I got the cars up (the driveway), and in that time from just grabbing the keys and getting those three cars up, it went from ankle deep to over my belly button,” he said. 
Shortly after, Mr Clough’s whole backyard was flooded, including his shed which contained around $30,000 worth of tools.
The floodwater stopped just short of entering his raised house, leaving him feeling fortunate.
“At the end of it we thought, ‘hey, we’ve still got a roof over our heads’ . . . and we were luckier than most.”
In the two weeks following the cyclone, Mr Clough was busy helping people in devastated Te Karaka community get back up on their feet.
It wasn’t until last week that he took the time to check on his own possessions and made the upsetting discovery the contents insurance he thought he had was not actually set up.
Mr Clough said the mistake was made while hurriedly setting up policies amid a change of circumstances, and his situation was currently being looked into in case something could be done to help him. 
His advice to others was simple — check everything.
“I never picked it up, how many people do? You sign all this stuff at the bank. How many times do you go back and look at that stuff?”
Tairāwhiti remains in a state of emergency following Cyclone Gabrielle, with water restrictions still in place for Gisborne.