The devastating scene after a group of families camping together had their tents washed out in flash flooding at Whangaruru Beachfront Camp, Ōakura, at the weekend. Photo / supplied
Three Kerikeri families camping together at Ōakura over the weekend say they had a lucky escape from flash flooding that tore through their tents, washed their belongings away and made them fear for their children’s lives.
They were only into the second day of a planned week-long camping trip at Whangaruru Beachfront Camp when the weather hit early on Sunday.
With eight children aged between 3 and 13 among them, the group was split between a dome tent with poles and two inflatable tents, including a newly purchased multi-roomed one.
Although they expected some bad weather overnight, the first signs that it might become serious appeared about 1am, when camper Hilds George said her husband felt the ground shifting under their small dome tent.
“All of a sudden we felt like our bed was a waterbed,” she said.
When he looked outside “there was like an inch of water”.
It was unsettling but not enough to trigger panic. Her husband lay with his feet off the end of the bed so he could feel if the water became any more threatening.
It wasn’t until just after 5am that the situation escalated.
In the big new tent, Bekki Mills said she and her husband had also lain awake all night, alert to the weather and making sure their children didn’t panic.
At 5.01am, she checked her phone.
“I put my phone back down, and the ground was perfectly normal”.
But at 5.12am water was coming into the tent.
“I stepped out, and the water was almost up to my knees,” Mills said.
In George’s tent, the rush was immediate.
“All of a sudden … the water just came into our tent, like ankle deep and everything in our tent was moving,” she said.
“Luckily, the kids were in bunks, so they were all out of the water, but our air mattresses were just bobbing.”
The end of the tent where the water was entering was “bulging and buckling, and then the poles at that end just cracked”.
Mills said the tent was held up against their bunks.
“We had to open up the side of our tent to get the kids out and into the car.”
As the water rose, debris surged through the campsite.
“Within minutes, it was just like we were in a river and the water was just rushing through, and anything that was on the ground was just washing away.”
Mills’ husband ripped a hole in the back of the tent to get their children out as he could no longer reach the zips, which were hidden underwater with the bulging canvas.
Mills was trying to stop a massive 100-litre chilly bin from smashing into her 13-year-old stepdaughter.
She was also trying to hold a double air mattress, which was floating with the couple’s three-year-old still asleep onboard it.
The toddler was nearly enclosed as the tent collapsed around them.
“The tent had been folded down … There was only like two feet of space that I had to then scoop him out of.”
The women said the water came down the hill behind their campsite and overran a small creek beside it.
With their tents nearest the creek, the women said they had the most water out of the whole campsite.
They worried about their debris hurtling into others, so they hauled their tables, chairs, barbecues and bikes out of the flow and chucked them on their trailers.
Other equipment was swept away or buried in mud. The distance many items travelled was “insane”. Bekki’s handbag was swept out to sea and later found on the beach.
The flooding also left their belongings contaminated with sewage, as the water had also poured through the campground toilets.
While most of the families’ belongings were ruined, it was the loss of some of the children’s Christmas presents that hit hardest.
A cherished origami book from a grandma in England was found “sodden and stinking”.
A couple in a campervan onsite came to check on them, but the women claimed campground staff were nowhere to be seen, which they said was disappointing.
Two days after the event, the families say their emails and phone calls to the campground are yet to be answered.
The Northern Advocate approached the campground for comment but has not yet heard back.
Saturated with no dry clothes, they were all keen to get home but discovered they were marooned in the area because of a landslip. With no help nearby, Mills approached a house, the occupants of which took all of them in until the road reopened about 2.30pm.
That local couple’s kindness was “amazing,” the women said.
Sarah Curtis is a news reporter for the Northern Advocate, covering a wide range of issues. She has nearly 20 years’ experience in journalism, mostly as a court reporter in Gisborne and on the East Coast.