Once Pōrangahau River breached its banks the ragging water from Cyclone Gabrielle flooded the majority of the Pōrangahau village settlement. Photo / Supplied
Once Pōrangahau River breached its banks the ragging water from Cyclone Gabrielle flooded the majority of the Pōrangahau village settlement. Photo / Supplied
Heavy inland rainfall from Cyclone Gabrielle sent rushing water down the Pōrangahau river until eventually the raging river was too much for the banks to hold and floodwaters swept through the isolated Central Hawke’s Bay town.
Much like other rural communities in Hawke’s Bay, after Cyclone Gabrielle brought flash flooding, silt, slips, power outages and isolation to Pōrangahau on February 14, the coastal town rallied around, helping each other during the cyclone and now with clean up.
Floods might have ruined years of hard work on Piri Galbraith’s Pōrangahau dairy, as well as her mum and dad’s Kurawaka Retreat Centre, however, she is happy they are all alive and can rebuild.
Piri thought she was prepared for the cyclone. The night before she reached out to parents and family to make sure they had torches and other survival necessities ready just in case.
More than 30 homes flooded in Pōrangahau village once the river broke through the bank and into the township. Photo / Supplied
On the morning of the flood, Piri and her husband Richard Galbraith, who live on a hill above the village, headed down to check on family in the village and as they drove they could see just how big the river had got overnight.
“It was 7.30am when we saw the river and how big it had gotten and I was just like holy s***,” Piri said.
Piri checked on her parents and sister who were in a definite flood zone and decided to make their way to Piri’s home on the hill. The group were returning to the village every hour to check on water levels and help people.
The high tide was due at 1pm and everyone was anticipating a 1pm emergency, but it actually hit a lot earlier.
“Around 9.30am we could no longer drive down the main street as the river had started to go over the bank, we thought ... people better get out of their homes,” Piri said.
“Richard and his father, who had been the Pōrangahau fire chef for 40 years, went around going “righty-oh time to leave, people”.
While the guys were going around door-knocking, Piri put a call out for everyone to come to cabins she owns which are in the higher part of the village, for safety.
“Ten minutes later, bang, it broke, the river banks busted, right around 11.20,” Piri said.
The core of the village, particularly people from the main three streets started moving out of their houses and heading towards Piri’s cabins and she suddenly thought about needing to feed everyone.
She headed to her dairy for some supplies, but the police wouldn’t let her through, which in hindsight Piri says “was a good thing, thank God”.
As flood waters started to rise quickly, people started using tractors to get through and navigate the flooded roads. Photo / Supplied
Luckily Kurawaka had held a wānanga the previous weekend and there was a lot of kai left over, so Piri and her father headed there.
Piri dropped her dad off at the gate and followed the driveway to the building, however, it didn’t take long for flood waters to reach the retreat centre.
“Within two minutes and I looked up out the window and it was just coming. It was there. I walked out of the cottage and it was up to my thighs I was just like f****!”
Adrenalin pumping, Piri ran in for the second box of kai and got back into her ute which she had left running for a quick getaway.
She reversed out of the driveway, beeping to her father who was wading through the river flow trying to grab things.
Back on safe ground Piri said she really saw the kotahitanga (unity) as the community came together and made sure everyone was fed and homed, clothed, and safe.
By the time the flooding slowed, there were only two streets unaffected and more than 30 homes flooded.
“It was devastating, we saw trauma, people just in shock of what was happening, a lot of elderly and kaumātua live in the village and were impacted.”
As a community Pōrangahau kicked into action, and everyone had a bed that night, people with holiday homes opened them up for anyone in need to use.
“We’re all alive, thank God it was in the middle of the day for us and not the middle of the night.”
The next day as the water started to recede Piri and her husband Richard took their tractor down to their shop and saw for the first time how bad the flooding had been.
“Our shop was absolutely flooded through.”
Maioha Galbraith, 13, helping his mum and dad load and unload supplies from their dairy to take to the Civil Defence centre. Photo / Supplied
The couple loaded their tractor bucket with whatever food and supplies they could salvage and took it to the Pōrangahau Rugby Club rooms, where Civil Defence had set up.
Piri explained that people who could made meals at home and emptied their pantries to make sure there was enough food at the clubrooms.
The next day the community switched into clean-up mode. Being a farming community, people brought in tractors, diggers, trucks and trailers, and everyone including kids jumped in and helped where they could.
“Collectively, once we sort of got our heads around what happened, we got into ‘let’s get on and clean this up’. It was helping people empty their homes out, dig the silt out,” Piri said.
Sadly anything the water touched was now contaminated. Looking at the devastation of the homeowners who had lost everything was pulling on the heart strings, Piri said.
Kurawaka Retreat Centre in Pōrangahau was hit hard by flood waters which left layers and layers of silt and sludge across the two-acre property. Photo / Supplied
“Then having to encourage them that their household items were contaminated, full of bacteria, and needed to be thrown out.
“People had lost their valuable taonga and pictures, they didn’t have time to put things up high.”
Some wanted to go back where they were not allowed so it was hard trying to convey those safety messages to those who had lost everything, as well as talk through the rebuild or fixing up process, Piri explained.
Although Pōrangahau is a small somewhat isolated community, Piri said, the support that came through was huge from Civil Defence and the council.
Even with the main road to Pōrangahau blocked people were taking an hour-long detour to get into the town and help clean up and drop off donations.
The community hall was filled with much need supplies and household items.
Piri says she felt people from all over the country cared as people “just came, and came with everything. They just came with truckloads of stuff, just because they wanted to make sure the small rural places weren’t forgotten. We were blessed,” she said.
This is a Public Interest Journalism funded role through NZ On Air
