Parts of Hawke’s Bay are entirely cut off after swollen rivers tore through multiple bridges.
It made for terrifying evacuations in Hastings and Napier, with many forced to flee with no cell coverage. Families are still searching for clarity that their loved ones are okay.
22 residents from Bryant House Rest Home & Dementia Care in Taradale had to move to a nearby school last night as rivers rose. Some have since returned back.
Speaking with Tova O'Brien on Wednesday morning, Bryant House owner Greg Pritchard described the resident's and staff's sleepless night.
"There's a few tired staff members who have basically been up and at it since about 7:00 PM yesterday," Pritchard said.
"We do have dementia [residents] and some of those residents really did struggle, so we had to make the call yesterday afternoon as to how we were going to manage things.
"We had an evacuation plan but that just got put under the front seat of the van and we just had to make do with what we had.
"It was surreal. It's just not something you expect to happen, but when it does happen you run on adrenaline for a while and just make it work.
"It probably wasn't [seamless], but at the time it seemed to flow."
Pritchard said communication was null, with staff only able to get in contact with a radio station successfully.
"The Civil Defence Emergency Response team here in Hawke's Bay were actually based in Hastings and we effectively lost communication between Hastings and Napier because of the rivers," he said.
"We had one of our admin and support services manager lock herself away in a room trying to contact family members and let them know what was happening but we just couldn't get through.
"Napier Central School not being an evacuation site, we needed to let the Civil Defence know where we were. We knew where the head office was so we went down and let them know what was going on.
"At the same time while we were there, we sent a text through to another radio station just to say, could you put a message out to say we've evacuated, this is where we are, everyone's safe and accounted for.
"They did that and we had a few family members get in contact that way, so that really helped and that was really the only way we could get a hold of people, was via radio."
Listen to the full interview between Greg Pritchard and Tova above.
You can also download the full interview on the Tova podcast, and listen on the go.
