Survival of all a very fortunate outcome

Anna Wallis Photo/File

Ten years ago on this date, I was at a 50th birthday party on a Saturday night, reasonably impervious to the rain pelting down until it came to get a taxi home.

It rained all the next day as well. By Monday, the persistent downpour had turned to flooding and reports of damage around the Rangitikei, Manawatu and Wanganui regions were coming in.

Between February 14 and 17 the deluge - up to 300mm in two days in some places - fell on land already saturated from previous downpours.

I worked at the time at the Manawatu Standard. Palmerston North was unscathed in comparison, and it was not until I got a helicopter ride over the district that I saw the scale of the devastation.

The Rangitikei was almost one big lake. The helicopter was being used to rescue cattle that had been stranded. One by one they were airlifted from small islands to the safety of paddocks miles away.

Feilding also copped it - one of the starkest images is of a house falling into the raging Kiwitea Stream. Usually an inconsequential creek, it had become so swollen it had undermined the house's foundations.

Reading news reports about what happened here and talking to reporters it seems a similar story - some near-misses but a very lucky escape that no one died in the storm.

Some families, though, lost almost everything else: possessions, houses, peace of mind. Whangaehu resident Mike McDonnell's story and Page 1 today pretty much sums it up - they got away - just. Like most people he has a warning about turning your back on Mother Nature but his humour is still firmly intact.