Clean-up continues today after Tauranga hit by tornado

The council said it would keep working with affected residents to assess the safety of their homes.

Welcome Bay Rd and Devonport Rd reopened yesterday evening after earlier being closed due to storm damage.

The clean-up on Devonport Rd – which had trees and hoardings down and street lights damages – was expected to continue today.

Hamilton St, west of Cameron Rd, had one lane reopened yesterday.

Tye Park in Welcome Bay, Wharepai Domain in central Tauranga and Rotary Park in Maungatapu would stay closed until they had been fully safety-checked and debris were removed.

“These closures are due to overhanging limbs, unknown tree stability and safety risks that may not be immediately obvious,” the council said.

MetService meteorologist John Crouch earlier said he believed “one or more tornadoes” touched down in the city from about 1.30am.

He believed the tornado or tornadoes probably developed over the harbour (or Matakana Island) west of Tauranga and moved east-southeast.

He said they were associated with a thunderstorm moving through the area.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand said it responded to several call-outs in Tauranga overnight as the storm hit, including roofs lifting and trees falling.

Maungatapu resident Hotu Frew said she was facing the prospect of losing her home after it was severely damaged.

“The house shook a little bit and I heard the first lot of smashing of windows about 1.30 this morning [Sunday],” Frew said.

“I jumped up, grabbed the kids, got the kids up and then as we went into the kitchen, noticed that all the sunroom was completely gone and, just windows smashed everywhere.”

She and her children sought refuge in another part of the house until the storm passed.

“I packed the kids in the car and then took them over to their dad’s and then came back and at that point, I didn’t see the tornado, I just saw the aftermath of it,” Frew said.

She said she spoke to a neighbour, who believed they had seen a tornado.

Frew called the fire brigade at about 5am.

“They came in and have said that they’ll let the council stabilise the roof and they’ve let the council know and it’ll either be yellow-stickered or red-stickered.

The family were packing their belongings into a container, fearing they may not be able to return to collect things if the home was stickered.

Welcome Bay Ward councillor Hautapu Baker said the Maungatapu Marae and the Rangataua Sports and Cultural Club were badly hit at about 2am.

Between 60 and 100 people were staying at the marae for a wānanga (seminar) when they were abruptly awoken by severe winds and shortly evacuated.

“It was a kind of a war zone-type situation down at the marae [yesterday] morning with broken glass, roofs being lifted off the ablution block, broken windows and doors, big fallen trees and things like that.”

Some downed trees were estimated to have been more than 100 years old.

Residents came “at the crack of dawn” to begin cleaning up and making repairs.

Baker said until the marae has been declared safe, the local Kōhanga Reo will remain closed.

In Welcome Bay, the cabin where Cory Moss was sleeping was lifted off its foundations and on to a car.

“Woke up and just got thrown around,” Moss said. “We looked out the door and see the car was at the door. Grabbed my dog and climbed out the door and upstairs,” he said.

The cabin was on a property on a Corinna St property owned by his father, Graham Moss. The main house was also damaged.

“The whole roof is gone,” Graham Moss said.

Parts of it were scattered across neighbouring properties.

Neighbour Rhys Douglas gave a shout out to Aaron Kerr from Redman Hiab, who pulled up to help.

A Hiab is a small hydraulic crane attached to a truck, used for lifting, loading and transporting heavy goods.

“Aaron said ‘do you still need a Hiab?’ I said ‘yeah but how much is that gonna cost us?’ He said ‘we’ll sort it out later. I’ll go get my Hiab’.”

He returned via a long detour as Welcome Bay Rd was closed.

“What a mighty good man. I gave him a couple of boxes of Speights,” Douglas said.

Kerr said: “We’re just a local company supporting local people.”

Welcome Bay Rd resident Adam Ron says he and his wife were woken shortly before 2am.

“Heard a big sound, there was lots of lightning flashes, the rain was very, very heavy. Looked out the window at the trampoline as we usually do and the trampoline’s gone,” he said.

Ron estimated the weather event lasted 10-15 minutes.

“It was raining pretty hard for that duration and then just after that it was complete silence.”

He said his neighbours’ shelter belt had been left strewn across the road, blocking their passage towards Tauranga.

“Probably 20 trees or so fell down, and then on the other side of the road there’s more, property damage. People with sections of roofs off and a few broken windows and that kind of thing.”

Power was out to 75 homes in Welcome Bay yesterday morning due to tornado damage, lines company Powerco said. It had been restored by the afternoon.

MetService data showed overnight wind gusts 74km/h at Tauranga Airport – which also recorded 27mm of rain between 11pm and 6am.

There were also a significant number of lightning strikes.