People in the path of yesterday morning's Cambridge tornado tell Natalie Akoorie of the sights and sounds while cleaning up the mess.
By NATALIE AKOORIE - Waikato Times | Saturday, 18 October 2008
On Cambridge's southern outskirts, jagged shards were all that was left of three windows at Eugenie Maurice and Gwenegan Lawrent's flat after yesterday's tornado.
And outside, a detached double garage had been flung about 300m across the paddock, narrowly missing a neighbour's house and flattening a roadside fence.
But miraculously two cars parked inside the garage remained perfectly in place.
The French farmhands at The Oaks Stud in Redoubt Rd were woken by the sound of heavy rain just after 3am. "It was very noisy," Ms Maurice said. "Then the windows smashed."
Glass was sent spraying across the young couple's bed. "We got off the bed because we got cut," Mr Lawrent said.
Flatmate Mel Slocombe was the first to discover the missing corrugated iron garage, as well as a missing woodshed roof and damage to an outhouse. A tree was also uprooted and thrown partly across the driveway.
The French couple who have been in New Zealand two months said they had never seen anything like it in Europe.
Across the road at Graeme Mathews' lifestyle block, he and neighbour Wayne Welch yesterday were cutting up a large willow tree which had been "pulled up like the head of a carrot". "I bought this property because of the beautiful willow tree in the front entrance," Mr Mathews said.
Corrugated iron from the garage was wedged in the tree and scattered across his paddocks.
Mr Mathews described the tornado as sounding like a "space ship landing". "A real low pulsating hum."
In Leamington Maurice Greany and Cheryl Markie were coming to grips with what was left of their home.
The pair were lucky an 80-year-old oak tree in front of their Carlyle St home fell across the road and not toward their house.
However half of their roof had been peeled off by the tornado, exposing wires, insulation, carpet, furniture, appliances and a woodburner to the torrential rain.
"It's not too bad considering"' Ms Markie said. "The neighbours and friends have just been amazing."
Staff from their business, Maurice's Pools & Spas, were helping to pack up as much of the house as possible yesterday afternoon, after the Cambridge Volunteer Fire Brigade had sealed the roof with a tarpaulin.
The couple will be in a motel for at least the next three days, and Ms Markie was thankful they had insurance. She said she expected the shock to set in later.
The large oak tree was removed by Waipa District Council before 10am.
In the middle of town the Cambridge Tavern on Burns St and Oakdale Rest Home were also damaged as well as the BP Service Station on Shakespeare St, which remained closed.
Waipa Mayor Alan Livingston said though more than 100 homes were damaged and the repair bill was likely to be in the hundreds of thousands, it was "incredibly fortunate" no one was injured, and emergency services were quickly into action.
Cambridge chief fire officer Don Gerrand said the station received 34 emergency calls which kept five crews from Hamilton, Te Awamutu and Cambridge busy from 3am to 11am.
He said community support had been amazing with both the Salvation Army and Countdown Supermarket offering the firemen food, and several builders and labourers offering help to the victims.
Insurance company assessors were in Cambridge yesterday morning examining the damage, and Insurance Council of New Zealand chief executive Chris Ryan said recent tornadoes which hit New Plymouth earlier this year resulted in claims totalling $7 million.
AMI Waikato area manager Paul Davy said the company had received around 30 claims by mid-afternoon, , and also had assessors in the town. Waipa Networks chief executive Ray Milner said 3500 of the company's customers lost power for a few hours as a result of the tornado. More than 120 customers in the Alpha St-Grey St area were the worst affected, and had their power restored about 9.30am.
Colleen Hansen, Oakdale Rest Home clinical assistant, said the residents had coped well with a tumultuous evening, and while they had been evacuated from their rooms during the wild night they were expected to be back in their rooms last night.
TWISTERS:
Typically form beneath cumulonimbus clouds which cause thunderstorms and other extreme weather events.
The Cambridge tornado resulted from a frontal system passing over the Waikato.
Frontal systems which can cause tornadoes often come in from the Tasman Sea.
The strength of the winds in the Cambridge tornado are unknown as the MetService does not have a monitoring station in the town.
MetService can forecast the situation a tornado could occur in, but can not predict when one will hit.
The deadliest tornado on record killed 1300 people in Bangladesh in 1989.
Cambridge tornado damage
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