When the water levels started rising around Claire O'Connor Bryant's house near Eskdale during Cyclone Gabrielle, she knew W she had to act quickly. She rounded up her son and flatmates and together they sought refuge in the rafters of the barn, the highest point of the property.
She describes several large trees - up to 15m long-being carried past her outbuildings below. "Everything on my property - the cars, the caravans and everything else - was all caught up in the trees, making a whirlpool. We were sitting in my turn-of-the-century barn. The glass windows are very old and there was one tree with a huge trunk that was bashing on them. We were just sitting there waiting for another surge to take the building down."
The experience sounds like something from a nightmare - but for O'Connor Bryant, the nightmare isn't over.
Eskdale is a low-lying coastal community just north of Napier. The Esk River, which burst its banks during the cyclone, runs through it. Under land categorisations devised by the Crown, O'Connor Bryant's property was placed in category 3 by Hastings District Council, meaning it is in an area deemed too dangerous to live in due to flood risk. Although it makes her eligible for the council's voluntary buy-out scheme, there's little to be relieved about: rent for her temporary home and mortgage payments for the damaged property add up to more than she earns in a week as a property manager.
Nor is O'Connor Bryant confident she will be able to buy a new house: hers is one of 287 properties designated category 3 in post-cyclone Hawke's Bay. "There just aren't that many houses out there to buy," she says. "There's a huge amount of pressure on the market after the cyclone and prices are going up."
Esta historia es de la edición November 11 - 17, 2023 de New Zealand Listener.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición November 11 - 17, 2023 de New Zealand Listener.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
A big noise
Scott Kara pays tribute to alternative rock figurehead Steve Albini.
Fiddling on the roof
After the doco recut by Peter Jackson, the original Let It Be returns as odd as ever.
Get with the pilgrim
Australian film-maker Bill Bennett thought turning his Camino de Santiago experience into a movie would be a good walk ruined. But he did it anyway.
The real queen of Bridgerton
Regency women would have a ball if they were transported from 'the Ton' to the present day, author Julia Quinn says.
Setting boundaries
A giant in the philosophy of gender seems unwilling to engage with alternative points of view or the reality of biological sex.
Affair of the heart
Miranda July's second novel, a wild ride through an unconventional relationship, is not for the faint-hearted.
A continent of no laws
A Kiwi investigative journalist has spent 21 years trying to get to the bottom of what many believe is the suspicious death of an Australian scientist in Antarctica.
I'm Jo Peck again
Four weeks after her 60th birthday, Jo Peck's husband of 25 years told her he was seeing someone else. In a new book, she details how shock and disbelief made way for happiness and contentment.
A mayor for everyone
The Far North's first Māori mayor is one of an emerging political generation bringing equity to the forefront. But a government reversal on Māori wards looms as a stumbling block.
We need to talk about dying
Whether by choice or weight of numbers, more of us will die at home in future. And with pressure to ease assisted dying restrictions, the gaps in community-based care need fixing - before time runs out.