Cyclone Gabrielle: Fed-up Pakowhai residents contemplated blocking Pakowhai Rd on anniversary

Geoff Downer and Robert Wong put up protest signs on Pakowhai Rd. Photo / Paul Taylor

You might have seen the protest signs erected along Pakowhai Rd.

What you might not know is the original intent, to mark the first anniversary of Cyclone Gabrielle, was to block the road entirely.

Residents Geoff Downer and Robert Wong are the men behind the signs.

Floodwater engulfed Downer’s Pakowhai Rd property about 9.30am on February 14, 2023.

Until then he, like many residents, had no idea their settlement was in danger.

Pakowhai Rd was eventually blocked at both ends by emergency services staff that day and, for Downer and Wong, blocking it again was the best way to emphasise that the struggle to recover from Cyclone Gabrielle remains very real.

“In the end we decided that was a bit aggressive,” Downer said.

Even if that wasn’t Wong’s preference.

He’d left for work in Hastings as normal, about 7.45am on the day the cyclone hit.

Within an hour, it became apparent there was widespread flooding across the region and he raced home to rescue his elderly mother, who was alone at home back in Pakowhai.

However, the road was blocked at both the Hawke’s Bay Expressway entrance and from Chesterhope Bridge.

Forty minutes of pleading eventually worked and Wong was able to cross the bridge and drive his mother to safety before Pakowhai Rd became impassable.

“I was pretty adamant I wanted to block the road. The reason I wanted to do that is because that’s what happened to me on the day,” Wong said.

Part of the motivation, Wong says, was to see how long it would take for emergency services to arrive on the scene this time.

Wong says he’s among a group of Pakowhai residents still unable to move on from not being evacuated before disaster struck on February 14, 2023.

Allied to that is the struggle some residents continue to have around land categorisation, the voluntary buyout process and insurance payouts.

For those reasons, the pair chose to mark the cyclone anniversary in a way they felt appropriate to their circumstances.

Cyclone Gabrielle flood-affected resident Geoff Downer argues the point with supporters in front of Hastings Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst and HDC CEO Nigel Bickle outside Hastings District Council. Photo / Warren Buckland

“Something needed to be done and we felt all the positive spin being put out on the 14th was great. We love that and we love the fact that people who passed away were remembered, but the survivors are still suffering,” said Downer.

Downer says “most people” in Pakowhai “are sympathetic” to the problems he and Wong are trying to highlight “but they won’t join in”.

But he’s adamant the protest signs have been well received by “99.9 per cent of people” and he’s been enormously heartened by the messages of support on social media and toots from passing motorists.

The signs were taken to the Hastings District Council offices on Tuesday, where councillors voted to pay for any demolition costs incurred by Pakowhai residents.

Wong worries it’s a “pyrrhic victory” and those costs will eventually be passed on to the people of Pakowhai in a different way.

In the meantime, Downer says he and others are “back on the bandwagon now” and determined to fight for a full cyclone recovery for Pakowhai.

Hamish Bidwell joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2022 and works out of the Hastings newsroom.