1 EAGLETON NOTES: Cyclone Gabrielle: New Zealand

.

.

Thursday 23 February 2023

Cyclone Gabrielle: New Zealand

A week or so ago I intended to write about the catastrophe that was caused by Cyclone Gabrielle as it tore through much of North Island between February 6th and 16th. 

My first reaction was, obviously, the wellbeing and safety of my friends and The Family as the cyclone made it's way through Northland and right down the country until it largely blew itself out over Wellington. 

Fortunately although one family was evacuated for the day none of my friends or The Family were hurt or suffered serious damage although some were without electricity for many days. 

However the damage done to property and communications is enormous and will take years to repair. 

I was initially surprised at how little coverage there was in the UK and then I realised that however much devastation and heartbreak and loss of property and livelihoods there was there were, thankfully, few lives actually lost. Compare those figures with Turkey and Syria and the war in Ukraine and they are hardly 'newsworthy'. We have become almost inured to the horrors of war and catastrophes and, well, a cyclone is just strong wind and the UK has had a few of those in recent history.

However in New Zealand a State of Emergency was declared for only the third time in the Country's history. The first was after the 2011 Christchurch Earthquake and the second was at the start of the Covid 19 pandemic.

As I write this I think 11 people have died and 'many' are unaccounted for partly because communications in some parts of the country have been destroyed. The damage is mind-blowing given that communications including roads, electricity and radio communications and thousands of acres of wineries and agricultural land and many businesses are very badly damaged. 

The Family hold a dental clinic in the little town of Wairoa in Hawkes Bay about 50 miles from where The Family lives. It was cut off completely but can now be reached with great difficulty and only by a 9 hour road journey from The Family's home. It could be a very long time before all the road communications are reinstated simply because of the number of landslips and lost bridges. That is one tiny example.

I could show a thousand photos but many will have seen some in the media and on social media and most will mean nothing to people who don't know the areas. They will be 'just' more disaster images. In Hawkes Bay there are at least 100 emergency distribution centres with local volunteer staff and a huge mobilisation of people just helping get mud out of properties.

I'm not going to publish lots of photos but if you want to see the scale of the devastation and misery there is information with images on stuff.co.nz and INews.

However this is the Expressway between Napier and Hastings which, as you can see, has been devastated. There is at the moment only one road between the two adjacent areas and one of the staff at the dental practice in Hasting took two hours to get the few miles home yesterday. 


As Fi who lived in and through the Christchurch Earthquakes said on my last post "The loss, homelessness, insurance battles, and ongoing fear of it happening again.... sigh."

My thoughts go out to everyone in the areas affected -  Kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui.

46 comments:

  1. To be honest, Graham, I didn't know anything about it until you mentioned it in your last post. So many catastrophes lately, I don't think that got much coverage here. I am glad your Family is safe and hope those in need get help soon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ellen, I'm not sure that it got much coverage anywhere.

      Delete
  2. I have also been thinking of the residents there and what they must be enduring at the moment. I have only visited NZ once - an all too brief trip to celebrate my 50th birthday - and the latest news triggered memories of the beautiful places we saw on our travels from Auckland down to Wellington. Only last night I flicked through my photo album of those places and can only imagine what they must be like now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JayCee, I'm having difficulty with some of the scenes I've seen and heard about. It will take a long time for the landscape and infrasturcture to recover.

      Delete
  3. Prayers
    Your photo is eye opening.

    The devastation is unreal.
    I did hear about it, but not with the coverage it deserves. That is in part, perhaps, because I have greatly limited the amount of news I watch and read.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maywyn, I think a lot of people are limiting their news watching these days.

      Delete
    2. I know I am (limiting news intake)... I am glad to hear your family is okay, though. Good news is always welcome!

      Delete
    3. PS: I do actually frequent the "Stornoway Gazette" online, because a lovely friend of mine lives in that area... 8-)

      Delete
  4. I didn't know anything about it apart from seeing the name Gabrielle on one or two antipodean blogs and gathering there had been a storm that had been named. Now that all storms are named, including in the UK, it means very little, naming has been belittled storms in value. I don't watch news on tv or listen to it on radio so it never came my way. Now that I know I am glad for you that the people you know are alright. The rest of it New Zealand can take care of.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rachel, I've not seen a lot about it on the TV news anyway. Although I notice some have.

      Delete
  5. Whenever you hear news such as this from New Zealand, you must hold your breath until you hear from your family. We can now know very quickly what with our instant communication. That is one of the best things these days, we can know news almost as it happens. (Of course, even that can be a bad thing.) I also agree with Rachel above, why do we have to name storms?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kay, the reason tropical cyclones are given names to make it easier to communicate between meteorologists and the public. Names were first used widely in World War II and were subsequently adopted by all regions. That's the official take on it.

      Delete
  6. I do nearly always watch the main TV news here at 8:00 pm, but the cyclone was not mentioned - maybe it was on a day I was not home at that time. There were other blogs where I saw it mentioned, and I did think of your family and friends in NZ as well as of Fiona, whose blog I have on my reading list, too.
    To know that none of your loved ones died or was hurt or suffered serious damage to their property is a relief.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Meike. It was an anxious few days I have to admit.

      Delete
  7. Kind of you to raise awareness on the other side of the world.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tigger, I shared my life between New Zealand and Scotland for a decade so it's a very important part of my life.

      Delete
  8. It may have been 'just' another 'strong wind' but for those affected the ramifications will be long-lasting.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jabblog, I used the term 'strong wind' not in a perforative sense but comparing it in news terms against 50,000 dead in Turkey or the 50,000 Ukrainians (and 200,000 Russian soldiers) who have died in other ongoing recent news stories.

      Delete
  9. Ditto to the posts above. I don't think I even heard of it here, but I don't watch the news anymore. I am very glad that your family and friends were spared the brunt of the storm.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Jill. As I said whilst it's devastating to New Zealand it's not of major interest to the rest of the world if one doesn't have New Zealand connections.

      Delete
  10. In our little corner of the country we missed the worst of the storm, but have family and friends who have been impacted by it (thankfully no deaths and everyone accounted for). It is going to take a long time before things get back to "normal." In many places repairs will have to start almost from scratch - it is almost akin to 150 or so years ago when they first started to make roads into some of these isolated places.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, Margaret, some people seem to have got off comparativel lightly including the sporting events at Mt Maunganui. Auckland sounded bad and Hawkes Bay has really suffered.

      Delete
  11. Last I heard there were eight deaths so it's even worse now. My cousin in Havelock North said it was extremely frightening. People are really suffering. It's dreadful

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Kylie. The Family live in Havelock too. I think those in the badly affected areas really have had a scare and many are still homeless of course.

      Delete
  12. There was quite a lot of coverage on TV, I imagine because so many families have relations living there. I, myself, received extra details and photos from my sister who has lived there since the 60's. Dreadful scenes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's interesting, Cro, because I saw very little on the television but that may be a reflection of the amount I watch. As you say there are not many older families who don't have someone in the Antipodes (or Canada or both).

      Delete
  13. That looks grim.
    We had a couple of days torrential rain before Christmas which flooded the glen road and stopped children getting to school.
    We popped a machine in and dug the burn out, old the minibus driver and the kids could get to school.
    Only last week did the highways turn up to survey the problem.
    Let us pray the Kiwis don't have our standard of public sector support.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adrian, the scale of the task in New Zealand is massive and there's a huge area and small communities as you know.

      Delete
  14. We did get quite a lot of coverage here in OZ across the ditch. The TV pics were horrendous. I feel so sorry for the people affected by the cyclone. It will take years to recover. I am surprised that a cyclone went that far south.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Graham, even with a rolling 24 hour news cycle I feel that UK media do not cover anything which is outside their own agendas (and if that sounds cynical, well, yes, it is meant to be). I did see a mention of the storm but media rapidly moves on to the next 'interesting' sound bite and never sticks around to document the aftermath.

    You are spot on with your quote from Fi: "ongoing fear of it happening again...." In 15 years in Cumbria I have experienced three "once in a 100 year" storms and that changes you - for a start you never look at the weather forecast quite the same way again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jayne, it's true. I've lived through several hurricanes on Lewis and sustained severe damage in one of them. Despite the seemingly constant storms we have here I am certainly more apprehensive when a 'biggie' is forecast.

      Delete
  16. The last two pictures leave me speechless. It is not something that was covered at all in the American news, at least to my knowledge.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Debby, New Zealand often flies under the radar in the news bulletins. The photos I've shown are noweher near as bad as many others it just happens that this is a main inter-town highway.

      Delete
  17. I'm so glad your friends and family are OK, Graham. Our damage in the north does not compare with what happened down the east coast, but goodness knows when we will be able to travel to Auckland without checking which, if any, roads are open. As Diane said, it's surprising a cyclone travelled this far south. I figure this one was so fierce because when it was about to head off out to sea, this storm found and pulled into itself some wind which was sitting above sub-antarctic Indian Ocean, which caused it to strengthen and surprise the folk around the East Cape and further south. We had warning and were prepared, those poor folk weren't. It's so sad.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pauline, Hawkes Bay and the area are gettiung even more very heavy rains (as you will know but others may not) and even more damage is being done.

      Delete
    2. Graham, What those people down there are going through is just horrible. If there were a scale for measuring disasters this would be at the very top. Perhaps I should say the impact of the disaster. It seems to me the impact has been greater than the scale of the disaster.

      Delete
    3. Yes, Pauline, it would seem like that. The Family reckon that it will be many many moons before they can get to the Wairoa practice without a 9 hour detour each wayie 2 days travel! And that's just a minor part of the disruption before one even starts thinking of the loss of homes and livelihoods.

      Delete
  18. My parents and family still live in Northland and they got hit pretty bad but luckily they were sheltered where they live but roads were wiped out and flooded. We didn't get anything here in the south island, just constant sun and heat.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Amy, I'm glad that you escaped. I'm now hearing of even more problems in the Hawkes Bay area as more heavy rains was away already compromised main roads.

      Delete
  19. First, thanks for sharing that your family and friends came through the devastation safely. I did read a few online articles about the dames, but honestly did not know about the loss of lives and widespread destruction. There is so much unsettling news these days that I too limit my reading, which is to say that sometimes I may be ignorant of stories that affect others in such terrible ways.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Beatrice, I seem to to have deleted or not rent my response. Silly me. I understand youi cutting back on the news. It is so negative and depressing. Give all the other things going on in the works and the relativly small looss of life little coverage was given to the New Zealand catastrophe. The effect on New Zealand infrastructure and the thousands made homeless has been significant though.

      Delete
  20. I just read there was a major earthquake somewhere in New Zeland! I don't have any details, do you?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jill, I've checked the Geonet app on my phone and all the 'quakes in the last three or four days have been 'weak' or 'light' I'm pleased to report. When I saw your message this morning I immediately looked at New Zealand One News and was relieved to see nothing there!

      Delete
  21. Good news! I'm glad it wasn't another catastrophe.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Graham, I'm glad to hear that your Family and friends did not suffer any serious damage!

    ReplyDelete

Comment moderation is activated 14 days after the post to minimise unwanted comments and, hopefully, make sure that I see and reply to wanted comments.