Cyclone Gabrielle: Families fear another deadly disaster in drawn-out wait for new warning system

Cyclone Gabrielle killed 11 people nationwide and destroyed thousands of homes in February 2023. Two years on, its grieving victims are warning authorities have failed to make the changes needed to prevent future deaths.

Each night before they go to sleep, and as soon as they wake up, two-year-old Ivy Collins' parents relive the moment she was taken from them.

Their gorgeous, bright, cheeky girl - who should have been looking forward to starting school this year - but was instead stolen by a tragic disaster they believe they should have been safe from.

"We lost our daughter," says Ella Collins, Ivy's mum. "And within that, we lost our future. Everything we had imagined, not just for ourselves but for our children."

It's been two years since Ivy drowned as her family fought to escape the rapidly rising floodwaters of Cyclone Gabrielle as it unleashed across Hawke's Bay.

The Collins lived in Eskdale, a charming rural valley near Napier, where Ivy and her sister Imogen loved to play on the beach, feed the chooks and splash about in their paddling pool.

It was an idyllic life, and one the family had worked hard to create. Then in the early hours of 14 February 2023, the Esk River burst its banks, and flooded the entire valley.

The Collins were among hundreds of Hawke's Bay residents who awoke in the middle of a nightmare they couldn't escape, water surging through their home.

There was no alert and no warning - authorities had failed to evacuate the area. Instead, the family was forced to swim through the torrent to a neighbour's roof with their two children and Ivy, their younger daughter, was torn away from them.

Since then, there have been multiple inquiries into the actions of authorities before and during the cyclone. All of the investigations found failures in New Zealand's emergency management system.

The various reports made well over 100 recommendations, including the creation of an early warning system for the public.

The recommendation the Collins family wants to see implemented is a system that is linked to river levels, so an evacuation alert is automatically triggered when rivers reach a certain height.

However, those changes are yet to happen. Hawke's Bay Civil Defence told RNZ it was working with the National Emergency Management Agency to establish and define those trigger levels, but that would take more than a year.

The Collins family are furious at what they say is a lack of action.

"My question to civil defence, to local government, to anyone - would be how many children, how many of New Zealand's children need to die traumatically for there to be some tangible change?" Ella says.

"Instead of sitting there watching the monitoring station getting washed away, maybe we could have had some initiative to send out a pilot vehicle, perhaps lights and sirens. Saying 'Hey, you need to clear out', what's the worst that's going to come of an evacuation?"

They fear, even after all this time and all the findings and recommendations, the risk to life remains the same.

"It's just disappointing that it's two years on and none of it's actually been put into practice. None of it's been actioned. They're shaping up to make the same mistakes as last time," Ella says.

'I'm doing this for the memory of my friend'

Cyclone survivor Gareth Jones shares the same concerns as the Collins family, his friend Susane Caccioppoli drowned in the cyclone.

"It makes me angry. It makes my blood boil. We're not after heads on chopping blocks for what happened at Cyclone Gabrielle. But you know, an apology would be really nice, for someone to say 'yes, we got it wrong and we're going to make sure this doesn't happen again'," he says.

The two of them were house sitting in Esk Valley on 14 February when the rising floodwaters forced them to seek safety in the roof cavity. But when a shipping container hit the house, it tore it in two and they were flung into the air before plunging into the fast-flowing waters, clutching onto each other.

"We knew when we hit the water that this was it, we were going to die. Those waters were torrential, and going about 80 kilometres an hour," he says.

But he was pulled under and had to let go of Susane. He survived, but she didn't, and two years on he still can't believe the lack of action from Civil Defence.

"What would Civil Defence do differently to raise that alarm today, to get people to safer areas? Nothing's changed. It's infuriating," he says.

An infuriating 24 months of waiting, hoping and worrying - whilst also dealing with his own demons.

"It's hell on earth... as you know, I went through a period when I was in hospital going through self loathing and survivor guilt, but I'm grateful to be here and that I've lived to tell the story," he says.

Gareth takes a deep breath and his eyes fill with tears as he pushes through a wave of feelings to explain why he's telling that terrible story once again.

"I'm doing this for the memory of my friend - so nobody like her loses their life for something so preventable.

"That's the only thing that gets me emotional now is the thought that there could be somebody else in exactly the same position that goes through exactly the same thing, and I'd hate for anybody to go through what not just myself, but other victims went through in that flood... it's mind-blowing," Gareth says.

'The ball is in their court'

The Collins want to see more action and a sense of urgency from Civil Defence and the Hawke's Bay Regional Council.

"Talk is cheap. The talk of mitigation and yes okay you can put mitigation in place to protect an area, but again it goes back to those early warning systems and people actually checking it properly and not being afraid to hit the big red button," Ella says.

They say two years has given authorities plenty of time to put better plans in place.

"The time for talking is over and we need to start implementing some drastic changes now. Yeah, tangible changes, some action," Jack says.

"I would much rather have been totally inconvenienced by an unnecessary evacuation," Ella says.

The family spoke to RNZ in the hope that their tragic loss will result in much needed changes to Hawke's Bay's emergency management systems.

"If there is any part of what's happened to us that can push the right people in the right direction so that there can be some action. Something that happens, something real, not just reviews. Not just recommendations, but something very real that can make it safer for the next people," Ella says.

"The least we can do at the moment is speak up. It's up to the powers that be if they listen or not. The ball is in their court," Jack says.

'It needs to be better than what we've got,' Civil Defence says

But Hawke's Bay Civil Defence told RNZ they have been working hard to overhaul their emergency management systems in the wake of the cyclone.

Since the damning reports into local authorities actions during the cyclone, Hawke's Bay Civil Defence has appointed Matt Boggs as a 'transformation manager' to oversee an overhaul of the region's emergency management.

He says with over 100 recommendations from the various reports, his role is to ensure those changes are made.

"That's my scope, it's anything and everything to do with Civil Defence ... whether it be people or systems or assets ... or training.

"It's not one single thing that is going to uplift the Civil Defence system here - I'm focusing on people first and foremost," he says.

The region's five councils have recently voted to adopt a 'transformation strategy', which includes training about a thousand staff and volunteers, and carrying out disaster exercises to prepare for events.

"We're building from the ground up - community hubs, volunteerism, volunteer groups... that's in the thousands. Each council, each community, each village, each marae, each hapū are going to have a crew of people who care about emergency management," Boggs says.

Because while there is a regional alert system in place, it's reliant on people making the right decisions.

"That's the kicker - it's not that we don't have it, it's that it needs to be better than what we've currently got," Boggs says.

"That alert system has lots of layers to it and in each layer there is a person and so that's the key component of this system we can implement at a regional level," he said.

Because while there are national, regional and local components to the system, all of those depend on people being correctly and regularly trained for their roles.

"In every piece of it is a person making a decision, making a choice, making an assessment and agonising over whether it is the right time to do something or the right decision to make," Boggs says.

He believes Hawke's Bay Civil Defence is much better prepared today than two years ago.

"I'm confident the community is going to be safe. I think the work we are focussed on is going to make a real difference," Boggs says.

Group Controller Shane Briggs says while an automatic early warning system, triggered by high river levels, does not exist - it is an option he'd like to explore.

"There is no automatic trigger levels and automatic warning, so it relies on a trigger level being reached, information being provided to staff to make an assessment and then to push out a warning," he says.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) says the issuing of flood warnings is managed by local authorities, and warning systems are already in place to alert the public to floods and other hazards.

The various investigations into Cyclone Gabrielle recommended better early warning systems linked to trigger levels in the river, but NEMA could not confirm if that work was underway or not.

"The government's response to the Inquiry accepted the recommendation in regards to the development of a comprehensive warning system. As noted previously, NEMA is currently preparing a roadmap for the work programme for Cabinet to consider. At this stage it's too early to confirm what actions will be identified in the roadmap."

NEMA owns the Emergency Mobile Alert System, and Shane Briggs tells RNZ that linking trigger levels to an alert system is a complex task.

"It's obviously complicated, we're talking about a national system across all the councils... Ideally we will have a system regionally where people will be able to receive trigger river level notifications and make their own decisions," Briggs says.

But the work on identifying 'trigger levels' for New Zealand's rivers is underway.

"There is a national piece of work going on between Emergency Management and councils to actually predefine trigger levels ahead of time. So when it gets to that we know how much time we need for evacuation and they can alert us earlier... that's going to be worked over the next 12 to 18 months," Briggs says.

By then, it will have been four years since Cyclone Gabrielle.

"We would all like to be faster in this. The key thing we're doing in the meantime is we've had a lot of conversations with the regional council, with our partner agencies. I recently issued a set of protocols to all our partner agencies setting my expectations about the information I want to know, when I want to know it, and how I want to know it.

"So while we wait for systems to be put in place, we can still rely on people to give us that information and make decisions earlier," Briggs says.

Meanwhile, the Collins family is still grappling with what life looks like without their precious little girl.

"It's like it was yesterday," Ella says. "The emotions come in waves and yes, there is frustration. And yes, there's anger. But what needs to top all of that is hope.

"And action. Hope's hopeless without someone in the right office doing the right things to make sure that next time… it's safer for people."

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