Cyclone Gabrielle: Elderly couple wait two days on third floor of Esk Valley home before rescue

By RNZ

A 97-year-old man and his wife waited on the third floor of their flood-devastated Esk Valley house for two days before being rescued.

Frank Desborough says he was woken at 2am on February 14 by a thunderous noise.

“There was a huge mass of water for as far as the eye could see covering the whole of the Esk Valley, over the top.

“I had an orchard of 400 avocado trees, some of them were 4 metres high and there was not one in site, they were all covered,” he said.

The water slowly rose into the house coming all the way up to his knees on the third floor.

Eventually it started to recede, leaving masses of silt in its wake.

With no power or phone all he and his wife Kerry could do was wait in the sodden house, living off stocks of tinned food.

“When the water went down enough for us to go down, there was 2 metres of silt in the bottom floor and silt everywhere else.

“We just had to wait and we continued waiting for two days before we were rescued.”

Flood damage in the Esk Valley in Hawke’s Bay. Photo / RNZ / Tess Brunton

The emergency services arrived after relatives reported the couple missing.

They had to crawl up the hill behind their house on their hands and knees to get out, because it was too steep for them to be carried.

Desborough has been back to the house twice since, and said the destruction is hard to comprehend.

“There’s so much mud in the bottom there is no access to it, there is 300m of drive that is just goo, mud. We had a perfect kitchen, we had a perfect house.

“I’ve lost three tractors, I don’t know where they are. I’ve lost three cherry pickers and 400 avocado trees have gone out to sea.

Kerry has been his rock throughout it all, he said.

“My wife has been absolutely amazing, I think if I’d have been by myself, I think I would have given in.”

Frank managed to salvage a few important things from their home, and the couple were heading to Palmerston North to stay with relatives.