Download PDF: Issue 32 - New Zealand Fire Service

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Nature’s b Taranaki became Kansas, Northland and Hawke’s Bay suffer a deluge and the South Island was, well it was the South Island. Welcome to winter in New Zealand 2007 version – 4 different centres, 3 different weather extremes, 2 weeks of hell, 1 wordy article. C’mon baby, let’s do the twist… On July 4 a tornado ripped through New Plymouth removing the roof of the local Placemakers store and with little regard for safety flicked it across the road. With an estimated $1.5 million damage done, it was believed that it was over. Sadly for the residents of Taranaki it wasn’t. That lone tornado was just the opener in a night of howling winds, fierce storm clouds and “huge black triangles.” July 4 and 5 saw several tornadoes tear through Taranaki with widespread damage but thankfully, no fatalities. The first tornado struck early afternoon on Wednesday; Placemakers on Molesworth Street was the worst hit. The sprinkler alarm system sounded at 1pm, alerting the local fire station. New Plymouth SSO Trevor Moore was one of the first on the scene. “When we arrived, clearly there had been significant building damage and the sprinkler system had been carried away by the roof,” he told NZPA. New Plymouth CFO Pat Fitzell said it was a miracle no one had been badly hurt. “Had it gone metres either side [of its path] there would have been total destruction.” But this was minor compared to what was in store for the following 24 hours. Starting around 6pm that night, at least six tornadoes struck the wider Taranaki region leaving a 140km trail of destruction. The worst was saved for the coastal township of Oakura, where multiple houses have been rendered uninhabitable. Fitzell was driving out towards Oakura as “it was pouring with rain, then suddenly it became really light, then total darkness, it was quite eerie.” But damage was not confined to just coastal Taranaki; a number of Stratford towns were damaged when a tornado charged through town in the middle of a thunderstorm. A state of emergency was declared in Taranaki on July 5 after 7,000 homes across the region lost power, and large numbers became homeless. Taranaki emergency 4 Issue No. 32 Cover Story e a s t management controller David Lean told the Taranaki Daily News that he’d been involved with Civil Defence for over 20 years “and I’ve never seen anything like this.” July 6 saw the emergency level lifted as power was returned to all but a few hundred people. This was largely due to the “incredible” community spirit. Fitzell had people turning up with “hammers, a chainsaw, a few nails. One woman turned up and told me she had a hammer in her boot and that she could use it”. Bob McDavitt, a MetService Weather Ambassador commented to Fire & Rescue that he’d “been forecasting for 35 years now and I cannot remember so many [tornadoes] coming from one front”. He said basically, a
School’s out for winter Mother Nature was still not finished. On July 17, two Hawke’s Bay schools were forced to shut their doors and the army called in to evacuate students as heavy rain over night, and all through the morning, caused surprise flooding. Unimogs were called to rescue students stranded by the floodwaters at Puketapu and Maraekakaho schools. The Hastings Civil Defence team provided portable toilets as septic tank issues added to the woes already experienced. The area’s Civil Defence controller told NZPA that he had received “tremendous” assistance from the New Zealand Fire Service, the Army, the Police, Red Cross and the Salvation Army. Ironically, Waterworld swimming complex in Flaxmere was shut due to the conditions, as was the library and community centre. Two bridges on State Highway 50 linking Napier to Takapau were submerged as some places lay under more than a metre of water. The Kaitake Kindergarten in Oakura suffered massive damage from the twisters. tornado is when “there’s a huge clash of air masses and they are fighting to even out their differences.” From the damage reports given, McDavitt believes the tornadoes were F0 and F1 on the Fujita Scale, a rating system used to describe the damage done by a particular tornado. The scale goes from F0 – F5, where F5 means houses are lifted off foundations and carried some distance. “However, New Zealand thunderstorms are usually mediocre, around F0 or F1, though there was an F3 that took two lives in Waitara in 2004”. Pat Fitzell attended the callout to that Waitara disaster, and now with two sets of tornado emergencies under his belt, commented that tornadoes are unlike any other call outs “During tornadoes, things are picked up and scattered over a big distance. On Thursday night, they just came out of nowhere and there were tops of houses being ripped out and strewn across the village and into other structures. Some people only got seconds, one guy looked up, saw it coming and dived into a wardrobe, then the whole top of his house got torn off”. A milk tanker is towed through the flood waters covering the road at the intersection to Maraekakaho, near Napier, New Zealand, Tuesday, July 17, 2007. Cover Story Fire and rescue teams set up shop at a woolshed in the Hawke’s Bay. The New Zealand Fire Service Magazine August 2007 5
Page 1 and 2: Wild winter L August 2007 The New Z
Page 3: Marae fire safety initiative A Mara
Page 7 and 8: South Island stays par for the cour
Page 9 and 10: It’s been in the making for a whi
Page 11 and 12: Photo courtesy of Northern News In
Page 13 and 14: Incidents TRUCk’N’ROLL This was
Page 15 and 16: Truck stop Incidents The driver of
Page 17 and 18: Seconds out Firefighters and police
Page 19 and 20: A large turnout was expected and th
Page 21 and 22: These guys are firewise In a small
Page 23 and 24: IFE Conference 2007 Keeping pace: T

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