![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Cyclone Gabrielle
Feb. 14th, 2023 03:17 pmIt's been a pretty intense couple of days. And we're not out of the woods yet.
As you can see, most of the North Island is currently engulfed by Cyclone Gabrielle. I live in the thinnest bit of the island, where we're still getting some of the worst of it.
The really heavy rain came on yesterday around 3 pm and absolutely chucked it down until around 1 in the morning. I don't normally have any problems with flooding, but because the rain was coming down so fast, on one side of my house it was basically bypassing the gutter altogether. I was concerned that the resulting accumulation on my driveway might either flood my garage or creep over to the edge of the property where the biggest trees are and make them more likely to come down. So for three or four hours I was out there continuously hand bailing the driveway lake and the containers I'd put under the overspilling gutters, with my housemate then tipping the water into the drains.
Over that time we estimate I bailed at least 2,000 litres (more than 500 US gallons) of water, and yet all I could do was (barely) keep up with the rate of flow. When I finally had to stop due to exhaustion, the water levels on the ground looked exactly the same as when I'd started. I can only imagine what it would have looked like if I hadn't bothered. (Note: you will never regret what you spend on good rainwear. I have an insanely expensive rainjacket from Arc'teryx: the price stung, but I was the only person who didn't get drenched in torrential rain in Antarctica, and it turns out they're also cyclone-proof. Worth every cent.)
After the rainfall speed dropped, the wind, which previously had been at normal storm levels, started up in earnest. And it was *scary*. The noise was unbelievable: I'm a light sleeper and always sleep in earplugs, and I can't imagine how anyone without them got any sleep at all.
This morning I was relieved to see my trees were still where they should be. The wind is still blowing crazy hard, though, and I'm not going to stop worrying about the trees for another eighteen hours or so.
Overall, thus far I've been incredibly lucky. I've even missed the power cut that started in my suburb at 6 this morning and is still going on, one street away.
Others, however, have been far less fortunate. This cyclone has really dealt it to the North Island. A national state of emergency has been declared for only the third time in our history. Further to the north, they've had eleven metre (36 foot) waves, massive flooding and slips, and power is likely to be out for the next week. Other areas have also had huge flooding, house collapses, and slips, with many trees down. Some coastal communities are cut off altogether. 225,000 are without power (that's 1 in 25 NZers), and may be for weeks. Lots of people have had to be evacuated and some have been rescued off roofs. Some photos (sorry, no cut as my cyclone-addled brain has forgotten how):
As you can see, most of the North Island is currently engulfed by Cyclone Gabrielle. I live in the thinnest bit of the island, where we're still getting some of the worst of it.
The really heavy rain came on yesterday around 3 pm and absolutely chucked it down until around 1 in the morning. I don't normally have any problems with flooding, but because the rain was coming down so fast, on one side of my house it was basically bypassing the gutter altogether. I was concerned that the resulting accumulation on my driveway might either flood my garage or creep over to the edge of the property where the biggest trees are and make them more likely to come down. So for three or four hours I was out there continuously hand bailing the driveway lake and the containers I'd put under the overspilling gutters, with my housemate then tipping the water into the drains.
Over that time we estimate I bailed at least 2,000 litres (more than 500 US gallons) of water, and yet all I could do was (barely) keep up with the rate of flow. When I finally had to stop due to exhaustion, the water levels on the ground looked exactly the same as when I'd started. I can only imagine what it would have looked like if I hadn't bothered. (Note: you will never regret what you spend on good rainwear. I have an insanely expensive rainjacket from Arc'teryx: the price stung, but I was the only person who didn't get drenched in torrential rain in Antarctica, and it turns out they're also cyclone-proof. Worth every cent.)
After the rainfall speed dropped, the wind, which previously had been at normal storm levels, started up in earnest. And it was *scary*. The noise was unbelievable: I'm a light sleeper and always sleep in earplugs, and I can't imagine how anyone without them got any sleep at all.
This morning I was relieved to see my trees were still where they should be. The wind is still blowing crazy hard, though, and I'm not going to stop worrying about the trees for another eighteen hours or so.
Overall, thus far I've been incredibly lucky. I've even missed the power cut that started in my suburb at 6 this morning and is still going on, one street away.
Others, however, have been far less fortunate. This cyclone has really dealt it to the North Island. A national state of emergency has been declared for only the third time in our history. Further to the north, they've had eleven metre (36 foot) waves, massive flooding and slips, and power is likely to be out for the next week. Other areas have also had huge flooding, house collapses, and slips, with many trees down. Some coastal communities are cut off altogether. 225,000 are without power (that's 1 in 25 NZers), and may be for weeks. Lots of people have had to be evacuated and some have been rescued off roofs. Some photos (sorry, no cut as my cyclone-addled brain has forgotten how):
