Surfers Come Together. Cyclone Gabrielle Hits Muriwai. Ep. 10 Precipice Podcast.

Greg Skinner is a long time Muriwai resident, a local surfer, the president of Maori Bay Boardriders and the owner of local events production business Roller Coaster.

Greg talks about his contribution to the recovery and restoration period in Muriwai: helping to coordinate the funerals for volunteer firefighters Dave van Zwanenberg and Craig Stevens, a paddle out for the boys, using his business equipment when needed and generally supporting locals and groups when they needed help in all the ways he could.

We discuss awareness of weather events and actions being taken, what he’s learnt about himself and his business, the challenges on the night of the cyclone and the local volunteer  firefighters’ awesome contributions.

Precipice launched on July 20th 2026. 3 seasons will be released across 4 weeks and then the full series of 26 episodes will be available for you to listen to at your leisure.

Season 1: Cyclone Gabrielle Hits Muriwai 

Season 2: Disaster Recovery and Community Restoration                     

Season 3: Community Initiatives after a Cyclone

Listen on You Tube  https://www.youtube.com/@precipicepodcast

Follow on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/precipicepodcast

Hosted and produced by Mandy Jakich. Commissioned and funded by Muriwai Community Association, supported by the Auckland Council Recovery Office.

Transcript

Mandy 0:10

Greg is going to join me on the podcast today. Greg is a longtime Muduay resident, a local surfer, the president of Māori Bay Board Riders, and the owner of local events production business Roller Coaster. Greg talks about his contribution to the recovery and restoration period in Muriwai. Greg coordinated a pedal out for the boys.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Joined our committee that year actually, bought a lot of energy, his expert fashion of the next rider, and um yeah, so it hit us pretty hard and we really wanted to test something to um recognite. And then Dave, who was a kite surfer as well, so we had the pedal out in our cast yeah.

Mandy 0:53

We discussed awareness of weather events and actions being taken, what he's learned about himself and his organisation, the challenges on the night of the cyclone, and the local volunteer firefighters' awesome contributions.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Hello everybody, Greg Skinner here, uh middleway resident. Over 20 years now, I live back in the valley, Typer Road. Originally when I came out here I rented a house up on Motara, up by the uh Topshop, uh 166. We were there for about seven years renting, uh then we bought some property in uh Typer Road, put a removal house on, and we've been there ever since. So I think 2005 came out to Middleway. Mainly mainly because I'm a surfer and so I wanted to be close to summer. I could obviously go to the beach and surf. So um that was the initial reason I came here, basically. Um good decision. Um two girls we had out here. Lexi was actually born here, she was born in Bodota Road in the rental house, um, which sadly now is no longer there. Uh which yeah, it was was quite a shock um for that to all happen, even though we didn't live there anymore. Um yeah, so Ruby and Lexi, uh who are now 21 and 18. Yeah.

Mandy 2:39

Before the cyclone, Gabrielle, what were you expecting and what had you heard?

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Um like most surfers, um, always following the weather patterns and especially cyclones and hoping for some good waves that could pop up on the east coast or um create some good easterlies for surfing here. Um so yeah, I was aware of it. Um not really thinking too much about it hitting us, but always being prepared. And uh I think on the day before the cyclone, quite an overcast day, uh, quite nice little waves at Maori Bay or Malkatia. I remember surfing there and um just had a funny feeling about the day. It was really grey, heaps of kids out in the water, um, and just a good day for kids to surf, and we're having a good time, but you could just feel the storm brewing that day. And that was so that would have been, I guess that was the 12th of February. Yeah, so yeah, we're tracking it, watching it, but not too concerned, not thinking, oh, you know, it's gonna really hit us or anything like that. And there had not really been any warning that I know of. I went home for my surf. Um, Ann and I are at home. Ruby's not at home, she's in Dunedin, so Lexi actually went to middleway to stay with a friend up on I Road, so she wasn't home. It started getting obviously quite windy. Um, I went to bed and basically at where we live is no reception. So unless I'm on the Wi-Fi, I'm not really connected. So, and often when I go to bed, I just put my phone to aeroplane mode. So I kind of just went to bed. I woke up about I want to say two or three in the morning, and it sounded like there's a helicopter above my house. Like it was so intense, and we've got a good solid house, we're out in the open, there's no trees, there's no real sort of hills or anything like that. But I just couldn't believe the sound of it, and so I went back to sleep, and then an hour later I woke up and I switched my phone on just to um see what was going on, and yeah, straight away was hit with I don't know, 20 or 30 messages. A friend of mine, um Craig, is in the life uh he's in the uh he's a lifeguard out at uh Middleware, and he'd been trying to get hold of us in the valley just to see if we were okay, and obviously lots of messages dropping in, things happening, and then the first concern was oh Lexi's out the beach. So yeah, it was we woke up and got up. Um it's just getting light, and so contacted the parents, got hold of them, they were all okay. Um but yeah, the husband was a firefighter, so he was still out and about. Um, and they did have some news that that you know something had happened out there, so that was pretty pretty crazy. So I jumped in my Ute. Um, as I went to my Ute, I thought the wind was still howling, and I thought, oh, I'm gonna grab my chainsaw because I've been up my road before, type of road, and you know, trees can be down or branches and stuff. So I grabbed my chainsaw, my skill saw, chucked it in my Ute, went up the road, and sure enough, there was trees and everything on the road. There was some power lines sparking on the road at the top by Constable, but I managed to drive all around it and get out to our road and and then get to their place. Yeah. Got in there and um saw Tina, it was the Dons, and uh saw them, and yeah, it was pretty obviously pretty upsetting because I didn't really know the scale of it until she told me. Yeah. So yeah, hit pretty hard and yeah.

Mandy 6:00

Your skills come in handy often in the community. Can you tell us what job you do?

SPEAKER_00 6:06

It's quite a long story, but I'll try and keep it short. Yeah, events production is what we do at my coast in my company, Roller Coaster, and it's designed and built for events and TV shows. Um spent most of my adult life working in the events industry, designing and building things, working on music festival sites. Um worked on the big day out for 10 years as a site manager, so quite practical jobs, um, managing people, vehicles, site requirements, staging, um, yeah, building things, um, using access equipment. Yeah, so that's kind of what I've done. Um, set building for TV shows like Outrageous Fortune I've worked on. Um Taskmaster is one we're currently doing. So, yeah, quite a good range of things we do, and I've been really lucky, I think, in my life to be able to do something I love. You know, I'm quite a creative person, I think. I'm not quite calling myself an artist in the true sense of the word, but yeah. Yeah, it's I am a creative person and like to make and build things, so yeah, it's been really good.

Mandy 7:09

And you're one of those guys who's an amazing problem solver. And you have been an integral part of the middleware community for a long time. You put your hand up for anything that's going and you're always mucking in and helping out whenever there's any sort of event or anything. Yes. So can you tell us what your role was and the things that you picked up in some of the activations that you're involved in after the cyclone?

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Basically, uh I helped out a little bit with um Down the Surf Club, also been some flooding and things like that, myself and people like Luke Nabarro.

Mandy 7:46

Luke Nabarro is the owner of Alpha Electrical and lives in Middleway also.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

We um tried to figure out how to get some generators out there, get some power driving, uh, did some general excavation around the back of the surf club, did some drainage, uh Gary Gloom was on his digger, and so I got involved in a few things like that. I ended up at the fire station one day. I think I was delivering a fridge there. We had a spare fridge from a job, so I was putting that in there, and then I happened to sort of walk into a meeting there, and they obviously talk to me about uh the farewells, as we call them, for the firemen, Dave and Craig. And um, so I yeah, I was there and um they had a chat to me. I said, look, I'm willing to help, and I can use my events experience to help with that. So yeah, I helped coordinate both farewells and put it on Power, and that was yeah, I was starting to be able to help. Got some LED screens and TVs and marquees and sold them all that out with my team, my roller coaster team, but a lot of local guys as well. Um, so yeah, it was cool to be able to like contribute and be a part of that and help plan that and help run that and I guess take the pressure of some of the families and people uh here and I felt like it was awesome too well. Yeah, so a few other things we thought we needed to do. I'm also part of the Motori Bay Board Riders, and currently I'm the president, and my family will tell you maybe for too long. And so we did some paddle outs. Uh we did a paddle out, I should say, for the boys. Uh, Craig um Stevens, one of the firemen who sadly passed away, just joined our committee that year, actually. Bought a lot of energy. He was an ex-professional BMX rider, and um yeah, so it hit us pretty hard, and we really wanted to do something to um recognise him and Dave, who was a kite surfer as well. So we had the paddle out in Malkatia, beautiful day. We had jet skis, we had lots of people. The West Coast did its usual thing and bumped up the swell for us, but a bit challenging to get out, which was cool. Um, yeah, so that was really nice, um, a really good send-off. So we did that. Uh, and then on top of that, um the Middleware Surf Club set up their little store um and then helped people in the community. Obviously, Middleway got closed and you could only get in if you're a resident. There was quite a bit of a kerfuffle about that actually.

Mandy 10:08

Did that include you where you were living?

SPEAKER_00 10:11

They actually um it did if you were it was kind of a bit of a grey area, really, but I just yeah, I helped print the um the things that went on the dash. So yeah. And then I just said to everybody, look, I think, you know, there's a lot of local people within a radius to Wamiaku who, you know, regularly take their dogs to the beach and also would like to contribute and go down to the surf club and help run the store and you know, and who always are helping the community. So we need those people too, you know.

Mandy 10:39

And those people feel like they're part of the Murawa community.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

And they are 100%. And my wife Anne went down and she um helped in the in this in the shop down there, and that was really cool. Um, and just such a good scene down there, and people just really pitching in. Um, so yeah.

Mandy 10:57

Did you use r roller coaster resources in some way to set stuff up down there?

SPEAKER_00 11:02

We did actually. Um used to have our vehicles to get generators down, and just we used the van quite a bit to um get donated goods into the shop, and then anything we didn't really need down there, we would take it up to Helensville to another another charity. Um so yeah, we did quite a bit of stuff like that, and just moving things in and out that the surf club needed. So, yeah. The rest of Middle Way went quite quiet, obviously. You know, there was that running, the cafe could only kind of half run, so not not too much going on. And how did it impact your your work? Um, not really at all. Um Yeah, we generally just we have quite a big team and so we're always able to help, you know, help a little bit. It was actually not too far post-COVID and things still just picking up, so we weren't like super busy, you know. Sort of sometimes gave us some stuff to do. Yeah, which is good.

Mandy 12:01

And um, what were some of the challenges over that time for you?

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Um, I personally didn't have a lot of challenges. I really just felt for the people who had massive challenges, really, like their houses have been red stickered or they're in limbo. Um, really good friends of ours, obviously out here were having trouble with their houses. My friends, Matthew and Samiko, like just use them as an example. You know, your house is in limbo, we had to go in and get stuff out of the house, and then they had to go find another house, and so many people, stories like that. So I think for us, because we're at back in the valley, we didn't have any of that, but we could help support, you know? Yeah, um, yeah, and then oh, I was just blown away by people in the community that just were so good, people like Mike Hibbert, Kenton Osman, Erin, to name a few, who just really and Jeremy Jones just got stuck in, um, created these groups to help people who had been red stickered or had insurance issues and dealt with the council and really came together. There's some smart people in our community, especially those guys, and yeah. So I just tried to support them as well, um, in in their quest to, you know, get people through it. Because, you know, as we found out in Christchurch, which took years to sort out, you know, within a couple of years, those guys really helped out, and I think without them it wouldn't have got across the line as well as it has.

Mandy 13:23

What advice have you got for other communities um when it comes to the kind of role that you took on?

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Uh I think really, I mean, everyone's obviously aware of it now, but you just gotta be ready. Uh, you've got to check that in your local community, whether it's a surf club or a rugby club or a football club, you've got a hub, you you can't rely on councils or anyone else to make sure you've got a generator that works or you've got supplies or blankets or a plan. And I think um that stuff we got caught out a little bit on, you know, and and we're quite a fairly good-sized community, really, and we're quite close to Auckland. So we've got we're pretty well resourced, but the further away you are, then the more isolated you can get quite quickly. So I think as a community, um, you know, if if you're in a community and you've got I don't know an excavation company and you've got generators or diggers or something, just just go down and make sure that you've got everything you need if it happens to help in the community, because you're the sort of sort of person that's gonna be like basically become a first responder.

Mandy 14:25

And we're so lucky to have an amazing volunteer fire brigade out here at Muriwai, and as you said, it was so tragic to lose two of our men.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Uh I think, you know, as volunteer firemen, obviously, you know, there can be different it could be a car accident out here or a car rolled down the beach or a bushfire. I think this was something super intense and something different that they hadn't experienced really, and for them to have to deal with it on the night suddenly, the cycling hadn't really had the the warning to hit mid away. Um, just incredible what they did on the night. Um, people like Andy Failed to make decisions on the night that no one had ever had to make before, and it affected a whole community what that decision was, and their decision to evacuate at that time, I think, saved a lot of lives. And so those guys are just legends. And um, you know, the storm was so intense, and when you talk to the people who were in it, those guys, and people like Eddie, the wind was how you couldn't hear anything, you could hardly see anything, you know. It was just like communication would have been almost impossible. And so for them to do what they did is just yeah, it's just so good. Um because it saved lives. And I'm not sure how all the inquests went and what you know the finalities of that are, and hopefully we've learned a lot from it, um, and hopefully we can save lives in the future of you know of people. It's like when you say if your house is if a house is burning, don't go in there. I think it's become a thing now, you know, if around landslides and that sort of thing, we can now say, well, you know, you've got to get out early, don't go in there if you don't have to.

Mandy 16:15

I feel like the flooding thing, like now we know that if if a bank is flood is like gushing water, we know to get get out. Yeah. And not not sort of redirect the waters, which is what we would have always done in the past.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

100%, you know, and I I lived, like I said earlier, Magotaro Road in that house, and when I first moved out there, uh I wasn't aware there'd been landslides out here back in the day and that there'd been a fatality, and I would have liked to have known that information, I'm sure Anne would. And we've moved up there and everybody really aware of the um the danger behind us that whole time. And now people are more aware, which is a good thing.

Mandy 16:58

Do you think you see weather slightly differently now? And do you think you'd be more aware and sort of make different decisions potentially in the future after what's happened?

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Yes, yeah. I I think so, for sure. And you know, I definitely assessing those situations now, and I think everyone needs to in all communities. And I I would say I was a little bit surprised and a bit disappointed what happened at Mount Monganui recently because I felt like we learnt a lot at Middleware, and I feel like and not blaming anyone in particular, but you know, when you've got a public campground that they could have made a better assessment of that situation because there had been there had been historic slips in that area behind the surf club and stuff like that. So I think as communities like we spoke about before, you've got to learn from these things and really look at things and and you know identify the dangers earlier. And and hey, sometimes you're still gonna miss things, right? You know? There's a lot, there's a lot of hills, there's a lot of hazardous areas, you know.

Mandy 18:01

But I think there there was a bit of a storm forecast or even was called a cyclone uh a couple of weeks ago here uh in New Zealand. And I thought that the communications around that before it happened in Mirawai was amazing. Can you talk about that a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Yeah, I thought it was really I know a lot of people said that, you know, it was a bit of overkill and like a bit of a beat up the cyclone, and but really, I mean, you everyone needs to know. I think what can happen with them is that they are not that predictable and they can change within hours. And middleware, I believe that cyclone changed really quickly uh and did what it did. So I I think just creating the awareness is is a good thing, and you know, if it gives people the option to like close their cafe or not go somewhere on holiday or stay at home or be prepared. So if it doesn't hit you, fine. But if it does, you're ready, you know. So I think the awareness was everyone in in New Zealand knew that was coming and in the North Island especially, and so people were prepared.

Mandy 19:09

Yeah. And in Mirawai we had the Midwai Community Association Facebook group, I think it is. And they were, you know, making recommendations and saying do this and and don't do that, and and if this happens you can go and do that, and and talking about the surf club and all the amenities there that have been improved since Cyclone Gabriel. And I felt like there was a really good sort of information hub for our particular community.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Like everyone definitely knows the drill now. You know, where they can go, what they can do.

Mandy 19:44

Do you feel like the community of Middaway had enough support from, you know, council and other organisations?

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Well, I I felt like we had a lot of support, and I know a lot of people who just wanted to go to the beach were a bit annoyed they couldn't get to the beach, but for our community it was important that everything was closed down and that things were assessed properly and people had the chance to deal with their possessions and houses and how they're going to get in and out. So I think for us as a community, I felt like yeah, we were fairly well supported and you know, all the traffic people were cool and you know, and all security people who often would cop, you know, a bit of heat from other people coming into our who just want to go to the beach, but yeah, so I think for our community, yeah, I think we had a lot of support.

Mandy 20:30

What have you learned about yourself going through this event or your organization?

SPEAKER_00 20:35

I think that I learned that we do have a lot to offer and and that we uh did have a lot of resources that could help. Um and that my my staff and my team were like 100% willing to help and were like really committed to it. So yeah, it was really cool. It was pretty much the biggest team building thing you could go through, really. And we do I mean I know a lot of companies try and do team building uh and with what we do we work on events and shows under high pressure a lot, so kind of any week can be a team building week. So but yeah, but this was even at another level and another uh a more important level. So yeah, it was cool to see that we could um contribute.

Mandy 21:17

Is there something hopeful or meaningful you'd like to leave us with?

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Uh yeah, just that every community can come together like we did and and connect and and support each other and uh yeah, and just it really just shows the love everyone has for each other in these in these smaller communities, not saying it's not in the big cities, but yeah, I think we can take away from it is that uh yeah, like know what your neighbors are up to, know them really well, and yeah, just support each other. So then when these situations happen, you know, you're you're really wrong.

Mandy 22:05

Precipited was commissioned and funded by Mudawai Community Association, supported by the Auckland Council Recovery Office. Artwork by Tyler Williams, soundtrack by local Mudawai band Ten People, written in response to Cyton Gabrielle. Nam Mahee, thank you to the Mudowai community for their input and bravery and for sharing their stories. And thank you for listening.