Anxiety is high and people are asking “what’s next”, a Tauranga councillor says, after a tornado damaged homes, a marae and parks on Sunday.
It was the latest severe weather event for the city this year after the Cyclone Vaianu scare the prior weekend, and the January 22 landslides that took eight lives.
One or more tornadoes struck from about 1.30am as a thunderstorm moved over the city, MetService meteorologist John Crouch earlier said.
Damage was reported in Ōtūmoetai, the CBD, Maungatapu and Welcome Bay.
Fifteen properties were affected and four families were still displaced on Sunday night, the Tauranga City Council said.
A Welcome Bay Rd homeowner, who did not want to be named, considered herself “lucky”.
Her property was “significantly impacted”, but “we still have a house and our roof”, she said.
Avocado trees from her neighbour’s orchard were “ripped out” and landed on her driveway, blocking it until Monday morning.
She said her sheds were “flattened” - contents left “everywhere”. The chicken coop she spent “hours” building and her TV area were “wiped out”.
It was a “shambles”, she said.
Her power was restored on Sunday night, although the food in the fridge and freezer was already ruined.
The road was an “absolute no-go” on Sunday and local parks were “decimated”, she said.
It was “devastating”.
Welcome Bay ward councillor Hautapu Baker said two families displaced in Welcome Bay were put up in a hotel overnight on Sunday.
“We are committed to keeping them in that accommodation as long as they need,” Baker said.
Another Welcome Bay family was in accommodation provided by her employer after the tornado destroyed their home.
Building inspectors were assessing properties on Monday to determine whether it was safe for residents to return.
Baker said “anxiety is high” in the community.
Coming after other severe weather events this year, “there is just a lot of fear”, he said.
People were asking: “What’s next and how bad is it going to be?”.
Some residents felt so unsafe they went to stay with friends and family.
The Maungatapu Marae and the Rangataua Sports and Cultural Club were badly hit.
“It was a kind of a war zone-type situation down at the marae [on Sunday] morning with broken glass, roofs being lifted off the ablution block, broken windows and doors, big fallen trees and things like that,” Baker said.
Locals drove the bulk of clean-up efforts.
“Everyone just mucked in and got the job done,” he said.
Baker asked the community to “be kind” to council staff working on the ground after the “unexpected” tornado.
He said crews received “a bit of abuse” from residents frustrated by road and reserve closures on Sunday.
Maungatapu mum Hotu Frew was feeling uncertain about what would happen next after she and her two children had to leave their tornado-damaged home of about six months on Sunday.
She said the windows were smashed and the roof was “propped up” to stabilise it after one side “kind of peeled back”. Carpets were soaked after rain came in through electrical fixtures and broken windows.
Frew was grateful, however, that it did not happen 24 hours earlier, when her 14-year-old daughter and five friends were sleeping in the lounge area - “where it blew out” - after a birthday celebration.
“I just think, ‘Oh my god, this could have been way worse’,” she said.
“The thought of what could have happened or what could have been is scary.”
Frew said council staff visited on Sunday and told her the home would be deemed an “unsafe or dangerous building”.
The family had earlier managed to get most of their furniture and belongings out and into a friend’s container.
Frew was worried about looters after seeing “rubberneckers” and people “just watching” the home on Sunday.
“While I have insurance, it is just bare minimum … it’s not a lot if everything gets wiped out and you have to replace it all from brand new.”
Frew said Sunday was overwhelming and the “shock of it” hit when she left to stay at her friend’s house.
“I think every day we’re going to encounter something that’s different and … just try to get through it as best we can.”
In Welcome Bay, Graham Moss lost the roof of his Corinna St home, while the cabin where his son, Cory Moss, was sleeping was lifted off its foundations and thrown on to a car.
The cabin had been put back in place, Graham Moss said.
They stayed in the house on Sunday night after firefighters secured a tarpaulin.
Moss said the council was assessing the property on Monday and would advise on the next steps.
He said about six homes in the area had their roofs “ripped” off.
The community was just trying to rebuild again, he said.
Annabel Reid is a multimedia journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, based in Rotorua. Originally from Hawke’s Bay, she has a Bachelor of Communications from the University of Canterbury.
Megan Wilson is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and the Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.