Damian Townsend, manager of Lighting Direct in Lower Hutt, outside the boarded up store front which was damaged yesterday. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
A manager of one of the Lower Hutt stores damaged in Tuesday's severe weather event has described how the wind "sucked the guts" out of his store.
A big clean-up is under way in the area after a thunderstorm roared through yesterday afternoon.
Lighting Direct manager Damian Townsend said he was standing at the back of the premises when there was a lot of noise and the wall started to collapse between him and the premises, Wholly Bagels, next door.
"There was this massive rumble and a whole lot of noise and all of a sudden it sounded like the roof was coming off," he said.
The wall was the first thing to go and injured a customer at the bagel shop, who received a head injury, he said.
Lighting Direct damage. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Townsend described the event as 15 minutes of chaos and said his brain was trying to process what was going on.
He said he could not make out what was happening so he went to the middle of the store and watched as all the glass blew out of the front of the store.
"That was the front doors, glass smashing, glass coming inside and outside so it was this real, like, vortex of swirling motion and kind of sucking, like it was just sucking the guts out of the store."
Townsend watched as the front of the building got taken away and said he could see the debris flying around, up into the air.
The biggest thing that would stay with him was the roar and sound of the weather, there was thunder and lightning but the intense wind sound was hard to describe, he said.
The Lighting Direct shop had had around the clock security and the premises was boarded up, but "amazingly" all the lighting was all intact, Townsend said.
Damage done to Wholly Bagel in Lower Hutt. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
A couple of streets away, Commonsense Organics never shut yesterday.
That was despite the window being blown out, glass smashed and a fence being blown over.
The window was boarded up last night and the shop was busy this morning with tradies fixing problems.
Commonsense Organics manager Tori Buttle said the customers had been "really sweet" about the situation.
"They've been really concerned and we've had people come over just to see if we're okay and we had a lot of that yesterday too so that was really nice," she said.
Buttle said it was hectic yesterday and that she and her staff were "all pretty freaked out" by it, but the team at her shop were feeling much better today.
Griffin Almond looks at the collapsed lean to which injured his 82-year-old grandmother. She was protected by four rubbish bins that the lean to fell on, which created a crawl space. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Over on Cornwall Street, Griffin Almond was helping clean up his 82-year-old grandmother's place.
She was lucky to receive only minor head injuries when a lean-to and garage collapsed around her.
"At the time she was trying to get her washing in and so that kind of fell onto her," he said.
"There were about four wheelie bins outside her house that morning because it was rubbish day, that blew into where she was and it kind of held up the lean-to so she had a little gap in there that she was able to crawl out of."
The house had been given a preliminary yellow-sticker, meaning it could not be inhabited.
Further down the street, the local Family Store had its windows on two sides shattered.
Hutt City Salvation Army assistant pastor Cameron Miller said there were about two dozen people inside at the time. Most of the store's furniture and half the clothing were now unusable.
"The glass was everywhere downstairs in the Family Store, it's in everything. So anything soft, anything permeable, there's little glass fragments and flakes in it so we've had to get a team in here this morning and start disposing of some of that unfortunately."
Upstairs the charity runs a foodbank, but that has had to close until the damaged ceiling can be repaired.
"Usually we'd have 30 families coming through here receiving their food parcels and also some gifts and some extra things for Christmas. Unfortunately, that hasn't been able to happen today, and probably just for that safety we'll have to put that off tomorrow, and then hopefully up here we'll be able to open Friday."
Outside, Moana Moeahu pulled into the Salvation Army carpark and was shocked by the damage.
"This is where I get my food, this is where I get my clothes, this is where I get everything."
She hoped the store would reopen soon, and said a lot of families relied on it - especially at this time of year and in the tough financial climate.
"Devastated. I mean, gee, I was hoping to get another Christmas present ... so where am I supposed to go? Do I have to go to Upper Hutt, or Wellington, Johnsonville? Do we have petrol to go all up there and back? Nah. Very sad, I feel for our community."
