Cyclone Vaianu: Ōhope couple flee home as winds batter Bay of Plenty

Kylie Kast and her husband Steve Kast aren’t strangers to cyclones. They both experienced them while living in Australia.

But those felt like a “non-event” compared to Vaianu. Kylie Kast said she had never felt as terrified as she felt in this one.

“I felt like I was in a plane with bad turbulence,” she told the Herald.

“The rain was pouring down, the wind was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. There were branches coming off trees and flying everywhere.”

The Herald caught up with the Kasts inside their motorhome parked up at the Whakatāne War Memorial Hall evacuation centre.

Kylie Kast sits in her motorhome drinking a gin to calm her nerves with Coco the dog. Photo / Mike Scott

As Cyclone Vaianu bore down on New Zealand, Whakatāne District Council issued warnings that coastal areas were likely to face evacuations.

Yesterday, after hearing these, the Kasts took precautions including parking their motorhome at a friend’s place partway between Ōhope and Whakatāne, “just in case we had to get out during the night“.

At about 9.30am this morning, they decided it was time to get out of Ōhope.

“The wind just suddenly picked up and we were like, we need to get out before the trees come down and we’re stuck.”

The evacuation centre seems like the safest place they can be in at the moment, they said.

But even there, “it still feels like everything’s shaking when the wind picks up and you think it [the motorhome] is going to roll over”.

Cyclone Vaianu slammed into Western Bay of Plenty with high winds causing trees to fall and other storm damage, including here on the main street of Whakatāne. Photo / Mike Scott

Kylie Kast received an alert from Spark saying their internet was out, “so that tells me that our power’s out”.

But other than that, they don’t know anything about the state of their house.

“Our house is on the beach side of the road, hopefully with the tide and the cyclone hitting at the same time, hopefully there’s no water in our house.”

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