Watch as waves crash onto Tamaki drive as cyclone Gabrielle arrives in Auckland. Video / Hayden Woodward
A Whangaparāoa man is urging people to take Cyclone Gabrielle seriously after he awoke to find his neighbourhood transformed by gale-force winds overnight.
John Longson told the Herald he spent last night listening to the howling wind and crashing seas “petrified” for himself and his family. They live one street back from the sea in Arkles Bay, and Longson said the cyclonic winds battered the house all of yesterday in a constant gale.
“In the evening it just intensified and got worse – the wind didn’t stop at any point.”
The threat of the high tide at 1am was “quite concerning”.
When he awoke in the morning, he was shocked to see the wind had carried boulders up from the ocean and strewn them over the beach and street and the whole beach had changed.
“The elevation of the sand and the topography is all changed – it’s quite high, with sand at the back with drops and channels all carved out... Dead trees have turned up, one looks like a kauri tree which is one and half metres wide in circumference.”
Part of a large kauri which washed up on the beach overnight. Photo / John Longson
As well as the dramatic changes to the beach, Longson says boulders have washed up and are now littering the streets – as well as a large tree which has split and fallen on two houses.
A tree has split and fallen on two properties in Arkles Bay. Photo / John Longson.
“It’s fallen on the corner of two houses – I couldn’t see any damage to them though, but I didn’t hang around.”
Longson is urging people in Auckland to take the storm seriously, telling the Herald he understands some people are cracking jokes about how it’s been “overhyped”.
“I had friends in Auckland making fun of it but we’re actually living in it - I was petrified last night for me and my family.”
Cyclone Gabrielle caused havoc across the top of the North Island overnight, with thousands of homes losing power, schools closing and trains, ferries and flights cancelled in the Auckland region.
Gabrielle is just off the northeast coast, creating waves over 11m high in the Bay of Islands. Widespread power outages are affecting households and businesses in Northland, Auckland and Coromandel. Over 29,000 households are still without power in Northland this morning.
