Cyclone Gabrielle - Prepping - what worked and what didn't.

 My last article, published here on February 9th 2023 was titled "Timely Reminders and General Thoughts"

And, timely it certainly turned out to be. Only 3 days later Cyclone Gabrielle paid New Zealand a visit that we on the east coast will never forget. I also said, in that last post, that I would make my next article about what I was doing to prepare.

So, here it is. 

Let me first say that compared to how Gabrielle impacted people's lives in places north of Hastings and Napier - such as Esk Valley and Wairoa, also Pakowhai - which lies between Hastings and Napier - we got off very lightly. The damage that some have endured, losing homes, livelihood's, livestock and human life has been terrible. 

We personally were very lucky that our only losses, during the gale-force winds and driving rain of Gabrielle, were our veggie gardens and fruit trees. This happened because our property from front fence to back fence was under about a foot of floodwater, compromising our septic tank and therefore contaminating our back garden and all produce that we were growing. It was an inconvenience, because we rely on our garden to sustain us in fruit and veg, due to our limited income and lifestyle choices. The idea was to grow enough to feed us, and any excess would be shared with friends, family and neighbours as well as bottling and preserving things like peaches and tomatoes for eating throughout the rest of the year. 

Alas, the wind blew the fruit off the trees, the heavy rain bruised and caused rot on the fruit and the tomatoes and all other veg was considered inedible due to contamination with sewer water. BUT, on the bright side water was still an inch off entering our garage, 2 inches off entering the caravan and 4 or 5 inches shy of coming into our home. Other family members had zero to little damage to their properties and no one in the family was injured or killed - so yes, we are very grateful for that, and our prayers go out to those who have suffered terrible losses.

As I write this at 9.30pm on February 24th the rain is again pounding down and in view of the ground already being completely saturated, one has to wonder if we will escape being flooded this time.

From a prepping point of view, I thought that we did OK. Not brilliant, because not everything that we had in place worked like it should have done and Gabrielle showed us some holes in our preps that we need to fix, if this sort of weather is going to be a regular thing rather than a 1 in 50 year event. Let me just say that we have lived in this particular house for about 30 years and during that time we have had some surface water after storms twice before, but never to the scale that we experienced when Gabrielle hit. 

So what have we been doing to prepare? 

Water - we have about 150 litres of drinking water in containers. We also have over 4000 litres of rainwater collected off our roof into totes and barrels. This was initially meant to be for watering our gardens during the usual Hawke's Bay summer drought (which never materialized), but could also be treated, purified, filtered to be made safe to drink. We have several filter systems, bleach and the ability to boil the rainwater to make it safe.

Food - as I mentioned above, part of our food plan was growing as much of our own produce as possible. Much of this was destroyed, so we have to think about ways to grow produce out of the reach of flood water. High, raised bed gardens are one option. Another is that we have a raised concrete area that was above the level of the flood water - on here we currently have 6 large planter boxes growing strawberries. The plan will be to add another 11 or 12 planters of similar size for more strawberries and also herbs. (See earlier post about medicinal herbs/growing your own medicine). We have jars and bottles of preserves from last year and previous years still in storage and still edible, so not all was lost. We have also built, very gradually, a mid to long term Prepper pantry of canned and dried foods to last us several months. This was done, as I say, gradually by buying an extra couple of tins of soup, or beans, or tuna etc each week along with a bag of rice, a couple of packets of pasta, or a bag of oats. We didn't panic buy a lot of stuff at once. The benefit of this is that when it comes to use by dates, not everything needs to be eaten at once. We operate our prepper pantry on a first in first out basis, always using the oldest stock first. When we take, for example a packet of pasta from our preps, we write it up on a blackboard in the kitchen, and the next time we go shopping we buy 2 packets of pasta to replace and add to our stores of food.

Heat/Cooking - Although heating wasn't a problem because it was still summer and so reasonably warm temperatures, cooking and boiling water could have been. We were without power during the cyclone for 7 days and our stove in the kitchen is electric so wasn't working. Fortunately we have several options including an LPG BBQ, several butane camping stoves, a brick built wood fired rocket stove and a wood fired BBQ. Because the weather was windy and rainy, we opted for using the camp stoves inside in the kitchen. These worked well for boiling water for drinks, general cooking and for warming water for washing - dishes and ourselves. We had been stocking up on butane cartridges for the stoves for several months so had an abundant supply available. What we used, we have already restocked and added more.

Alternate power / lighting- We thought that we had this covered because we had a small solar panel and emergency lighting system - purchased from Jaycar on Heretaunga Street for around $100 - this got us a 7watt solar panel which, when left in full sun would charge the power pack which also had built in LED work lights (very bright) plus 3 plug in LED light bulbs each on 5 metres of cord meaning you could light up 3 separate rooms or 3 parts of one large room. In addition to this small power pack we also had a 1000 watt solar power station which was suitable to both keep the freezer running for around 12 hours and also be used to power up things like phones, laptops, tablets and rechargeable batteries. We have a 200watt folding solar panel to charge the solar power station. The problem was that during the first 2 or 3 days of the cyclone, the sky was very cloudy and grey so not enough light got through to recharge the solar power station. A back up petrol or diesel generator was needed to cover such issues as cloudy/rainy days. We also had 4 outdoor solar LED security lights which we brought indoors and placed strategically in corners of hallways and rooms so that in the dark, they would come on and illuminate our way as soon as the sensor panel was activated by our presence. And of course we have torches and head lamps, candles, oil lamps, wind up lamps etc - most of which we never even had to use.

Communication - was a huge problem in the first few days of the cyclone. Cellphones and the internet were down for a couple of days so the only method we had to gain information as to what was happening in the outside world was via a small wind up AM/FM radio. We have now purchased a small portable battery powered radio that has AM,FM and short wave and added a couple of 5 watt walkie talkies and a CB base station in the hope of contacting people in our prepper group who live locally.

Sanitation - Something that we hadn't really allowed for was sanitation. Due to floodwater inundating our section, our septic tank system was compromised with excess water flooding over into the drains and overflowing our septic tank. This rendered our toilet unusable....we couldn't use the bath/shower, washing machine or kitchen sink either, since all waste water from the house ends up in the septic tank and we couldn't risk having sewage backflowing into the house. The remedy was a large bucket to use as a toilet and another bucket containing a mixture of woodchips and sawdust to add to the human waste to make the bucket into a makeshift composting toilet. It worked remarkably well except it was very uncomfortable to sit on, having no suitable seat. We have since bought a 'Boom-Bucket' emergency toilet system from Supercheap Auto for under $40 which includes a plastic seat and lid, so we're all set for next time. We also have a chemical camping toilet as a standby. Being a prepping household, toilet paper was never going to be a problem as we had built up a good supply over several months. For washing ourselves and the dishes we used a plastic bowl and tipped the water down the drain on the street. The street sits well above the level of our section. We also have a solar shower in our preps.

Shelter - Our home thankfully remained above the floodwater and provided us with adequate shelter. Extra large tarps, ropes and heavy duty pegs were at the ready in case we lost any roofing iron. We also have an old but functional caravan and numerous tents and other camping gear for if we needed emergency shelters after evacuating our home.

Medical and First Aid - Neither me nor my wife are on prescription medication of any kind, so we don't have to worry about running out of life dependent medication. We do however have an extensive medical kit, which now includes some prescription issued heavy duty pain killers, lots of bandages and gauze and the usual creams, balms and wipes. Additional first aid kits are in each vehicle, and another is in the kitchen for easy access. If you don't have at the very minimum a basic first aid kit and a St Johns medical guide, I very much recommend getting one. I am pleased to report that the medical and first aid kits were not called upon during the cyclone. We have also started growing medicinal herbs to build up a herbal dispensary of natural medicines.

I have had several attempts to write this article and am finally finishing it months after I started. Today's date is August 18th and as ridiculous as it may seem, many of the homes that were submerged by the floods back in February are still unlivable. Lots of them have now been deemed to be in areas where homes will no longer be allowed to be built. My heart goes out to those who have lost everything and are still doing battle with local authorities and insurance companies before they can make a fresh start.

Floods like this are something that your preps are not going to save you from. The flood waters came up suddenly and without warning and went from ankle deep to waist deep in brief moments, leaving many people scrambling onto the roof of their homes in order to survive the torrent. It was only when they were up on the roof that the Civil defence texts, advising people to evacuate, beeped through onto their phones. Without adequate warning it's virtually impossible to rescue anything but yourselves.

Do what you can to prepare for the worst of situations. Examine your location closely, identify potential hazards and if you're in a flood zone, move as soon as possible.

I hope to be writing articles more regularly from here on in. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best!