Kerri Nuku and her whānau were away from home helping others escape the flooding during Cyclone Gabrielle when they had to rush back to their own rapidly flooding property in Omahu.

Nuku, New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa kaiwhakahaere [manager], said they had heard of whānau who needed help with the flooding, and her son had been using his jetski to help them out.

“After we had finished there, around about 9am, we went to head home because we had heard that the Puketapu bridge had gone,” Nuku said.

“That day was just a drizzly, dull, murky day. There was nothing extraordinary, but the stream was absolutely at its peak and the water was quite strong.”

She said they first checked a nearby stopbank, where the water rose from ground level up to their knees in only a few minutes.

She said they quickly took refuge on a raised hill running along the side of their property, but the water nearly reached that point and there was nowhere for a helicopter to land due to cedar trees.

“We never had any warning to evacuate,” she said.

They went to take a look at the road junction between Omahu, Swamp Rd and Taradale to scope if they could cross it, where they were advised by police nearby on the other side to “give it a go”.

Her husband took to the wheel of a vehicle with a crane on it and used it to slow the rapid flow of the water so the children, daughter Dayna and Dayna’s partner could get across in an Isuzu Hiab driven by Nuku’s son.

Their tense escape was caught on film by Dayna.

 “As my son went slower, it [the digger arm] sort of cradled him to keep the truck upright, and once they got used to the current and the flow, then it went a little bit faster.”

Nuku said she and the rest of the adult children stayed behind while the most vulnerable whānau got out, as they were capable of reaching higher ground if necessary.

Eventually, the waters began to recede and the whānau wasted no time getting into action.

“The way to cope for us was that we just got on from the minute we started to see the water receding; we just got into clean-up mode.”

Kerri Nuku, Kaiwhakahaere of NZNO at EIT Marae, 2021. She returned to work not long after her whānau home was ravaged by floods. Photo / Ian Cooper

Nuku quickly got back to work and attended a conference she had already been booked for via video not long after the cyclone.

She said nurses from all around the country were responding to the disaster, many of whom had been affected themselves.

“I thought, ‘If I am going to help, I have got to keep myself available, as well as being a mother and cleaning up’.”

She said her home had been yellow-stickered, while some of their buildings were red-stickered in the flooding.

“We might have lost possessions, but they can be bought. A life cannot be, so we are lucky.”

Nuku said she has been “absolutely astounded” by the community support with food, water and shelter after the cyclone.