A car juts out of the silt at a Shaw Road house in Esk Valley in February 2023 after Cyclone Gabrielle wreaked havoc. Photo / Warren Buckland
Towards the end of Cyclone Gabrielle’s night of deadly chaos, a lone driver stopped his ute at a fuel stop at Bay View, north of Napier.
It was early on February 14, 2023. The timestamp on the petrol station security camera recorded the time as precisely 5.46am.
Sunrise was still nearly an hour away, but the massive scale of flooding and slips across the Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne Tairāwhiti regions was by then becoming obvious to authorities, after a night which had been a life-and-death struggle for some.
The danger may not have been evident to the driver, Joseph Ahuriri, 40, who was trying to make his way home to Gisborne.
Ahuriri drove away from the fuel stop, and was never seen again.
His was the last name added to the list of people lost in the extreme weather events of early 2023.
Coroner Erin Woolley held hearings in Hastings and Auckland last year, as she looked into examining how prepared authorities were, how warnings were issued, and the emergency response.
Shortly, she will resume those hearings in Hastings, Auckland and Gisborne, hearing more from local authorities, police, and then turning her attention to the circumstances of individuals who lost their lives.
There are 19 names on the list altogether: four who died during the Auckland Anniversary Weekend floods a fortnight before the cyclone; nine people who died as Cyclone Gabrielle battered the east coast; two firefighters killed at Muriwai; JAhuriri, and three later deaths suspected to have been suicides.
The coroner’s hearings so far heard from authorities and first responders who provided sometimes emotional accounts of the drama and perils of the cyclone’s devastating impact.
They provided a detailed timeline of the night’s events.
The rivers across east coast regions began breaking their banks and flood defences before 11pm on February 13. By 1.30am, a surge of emergency calls were telling of the risk to people’s lives.
By 2.15am, people were smashing ceilings in their homes to try to get above the waters. At 2.45am, callers were frantic as they were stuck on roofs or stranded in cars.
At 3.05am, authorities realised most 111 calls were no longer coming in from the northern part of Hawke’s Bay or from Tairāwhiti as communications went down.
The hearings last year were told that at the height of the cyclone, some 111 callers were given the “honest” truth – rescuers would not be coming to save them.
In one case, a 111 call-taker had to tell a group to do their best to keep their heads out of the rising floodwaters and hold on to each other to conserve body heat.
Callers trying to reach emergency services for nearly an hour were told, when they could get through, that “they would need to do the best they could” for themselves.
Witnesses from local councils, the MetService and the emergency services gave evidence. More than a dozen lawyers representing those organisations and assisting the inquiry were in attendance.
When the wide-ranging coronial inquiry began, Ahuriri’s name was not on the coroner’s list. It was added when the inquiry began sitting in Hastings in October.
Ahuriri’s family fear his Toyota Hilux – registration DZH116 – was washed away by the raging floodwaters or swept off a road by one of the many slips that occurred on State Highway 2 or on the back routes between Napier and Gisborne.
Police have been looking for Ahuriri and his ute ever since, at times employing metal-detecting drones, navy divers and contractors to search mounds of rubble alongside roads, and conducting shoreline searches.
The youngest of those who died in the Hawke’s Bay region was toddler Ivy Collins. Her family home in Eskdale was flooded in the cyclone. The oldest was Helen Street, 86, who died in Napier and was dependent on supplied oxygen.
The other people who died on the east coast were: Susane Caccioppoli, 55, John Coates, 64, Marie Greene, 59, George Luke, 64, Ian McLauchlan, 76, Brendan Miller, 43, and Shona Wilson, 58.
Two Muriwai volunteer firefighters, Craig Stevens, 39, and Dave van Zwanenberg, 41, also died in a landslide caused by Cyclone Gabrielle.
Daniel Miller, 34, Dave Young, 58, Daniel Newth, 25, and David Lennard, 78, died during the Auckland Anniversary Weekend floods a fortnight before the cyclone.
The Hastings’ sittings of the inquiry still have more than 40 witnesses to hear from.
Time has been set aside for another week of hearings in Hastings in May, but it may not be needed.
A separate four days have been set aside in April for Coroner Woolley to sit in Gisborne – to hear evidence particularly in regard to the disappearance of Ahuriri.
A Coroner’s Court spokesperson said she could not provide a timeframe for when the inquiry’s findings may be completed.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay.