Dave Collett checks the damage to a rented house on his Hikurangi farm which had its roof blown off in the big storm. Photo / Tania Newman
Dave Collett checks the damage to a rented house on his Hikurangi farm which had its roof blown off in the big storm. Photo / Tania Newman
A couple with a baby who fled in the night from a Hikurangi house lashed by high winds returned later to find the roof of their home had been ripped off in the gale and dropped 100m away.
Forestry worker Kenny Povey, 38, said he woke at 3am on Wednesdayto a lot of noise with the roof manhole flapping and water coming through the ceiling of their rented house high on an east-facing ridge at the end of Gomez Rd.
The battering the building was taking in the storm so alarmed him and his partner they left with their 23-month-old son and spent the night with friends. When he returned at 9am the roof was gone. The wind had peeled it off, lifted it over a line of trees close by the house and dropped it into vegetation down a bank about 100m away.
Pelting rain had saturated all the family's possessions. He and friends put the sodden remains of their furniture, clothes, bedding and baby items in the garage, but he wasn't expecting the television and other electrical goods to work well after the soaking.
"Our stuff isn't insured so it's a major setback," Mr Povey said despondently. He's been off work for six weeks with an elbow injury so the family isn't flush financially.
The house is on a 40ha farm which Auckland real estate agent Dave Collett has owned since 2005 and runs as a Suffolk sheep stud, staying in another home on the property when he's up from his business at Glenfield.
He got two friends to put plastic over the roof's beams on Wednesday, but by yesterday afternoon the still-fierce wind had some of the covering flapping and rain pouring in had dislodged ceiling tiles and insulation. The particle board floor felt spongy under the carpet awash with water. Mr Collett, who was waiting for an insurance assessor to arrive, said: "If this [weather] keeps up I wouldn't be surprised if the house is declared a write-off."
