Red Stickered Residents Unite: Disaster Recovery and Community Restoration. Ep 15 Precipice Podcast.

In this episode I speak to Muriwai local Jeremy Jones. Jeremy’s home in Motutara Road was initially 'white stickered' then  ‘red stickered’ despite him not feeling their home was under threat. He was very involved in the creation of the stickered residents group of more than 150 residents’ on What’s App. He talks about the intentions for this group and how it operated.

Jeremy shares his feelings about being ordered out of his undamaged home, considering not complying with the demands from Auckland council, being given 40 minutes to pack up his family home not knowing if they would ever return, and his anger about some of the decisions made and actions taken by the council.

He finishes with advice to other communities and a heartfelt message he wrote to the firefighters and Muriwai community 7 weeks after the cyclone.

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

In this episode, I speak to a middlewai local Jeremy Jones. Jeremy's home was initially white stickered, then red stickered, despite him not feeling their home was under threat. And he was very involved in the creation of the stickered residence group of more than 150 residents on WhatsApp. He talks about the intentions for this group and how it operated. Jeremy shares his strong feelings about being ordered out of his undamaged home.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Had I not been with Ellie and the kids, I wouldn't have left. Oh, that's devastating. Well that's great, you've done a deserial assessment on the on the red sticker notice. Um show me that assessment. Show me what evidence do you have that our house is under any threat at all. And um, you know, I will I would have quite happily been arrested.

Mandy 1:09

Considering not complying with the demands from Auckland Council, being given 40 minutes to pack up his family home, not knowing if they would ever return.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

First of all, I wasn't sure whether our contents insurance would cover that. Um and so I just wanted to pack up everything. You know, everything from, you know, lawnmowers to computers to furniture.

Mandy 1:33

And his anger about some of the decisions made and actions taken by the council.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

They didn't even acknowledge the questions and didn't answer any of them. In fact, they didn't have any answers at all, and the community got really crossed.

Mandy 1:51

Jeremy finishes with advice to other communities and a heartfelt written message he wrote to the firefighters and the Mirawai community seven weeks after the cycle.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

I'm Jeremy Jones. I have been at Mirawai for oh since about 2002 with my wife Ali and my two kids, Leo and Poppy. Um they both went to Waimaku school and and um Kuiper College, so we're we're very much entrenched in the Mirawai life. Um I splash around the water sometimes with a surfboard, but um I wouldn't call myself a surfer, but my boy Leo's um you know right into it and um you know that but we're we're very entrenched in the in the community here. So I our house is on Mototara Road and it's about 400 metres down from the top shop. It's on the forest side. We lived down a right-of-way, so we're quite far from the road, and I think I did a bit of a measurement where the closest slip to our house is was 196 metres. We never really felt that um under threat. On the night we didn't really realise how what was happening, you know, because there's a lot of wind, very noisy. We saw the warnings that came across on the phones, um and the warnings said that everyone on the f on the non-beach side, or on the await road side, I think it said, um were uh was advised to evacuate. Um because we weren't on that side and we were quite we're down right away, so quite far from what I perceived as any kind of real threat, uh we didn't evacuate.

Mandy 3:55

And was that after some of the landslides had come down you got that message?

SPEAKER_02 4:01

I don't think so. If if if they had, I don't know when the messages came, whether they came before the landslides or after. Um, but we weren't aware of any landslides when we made the decision not to go. Um but even if we were, which we of course we were the next day, we decided to stay anyway. And you know, I don't think it was the wrong decision. I we we never felt under any threat where we were in our house.

Mandy 4:29

Because there was such a strange thing that, you know, people were being told, like us as well, we were being told to evacuate and we didn't feel under threat as well, but we also just thought, oh well, if they're telling us to do it, we should do it because we were nervous.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Yeah, yeah. Well, I I I I don't know if you remember the week before there was a cyclone called Cyclone Hail, um, and that saturated the ground a lot. I uh you know, I I've always been a little bit aware of of of the possibility that that there would be some slips. Um and I was aware of the slips that were on on D um Domain Crescent in the 1968, was it sometime around then? Um so I I was aware that the the land could possibly slip, but nowhere near as as much as you know as as it did. Um so I wasn't really we weren't worried on our side, we're really worried for um for for Mike and Cara and their family across the road because they didn't they they've got a um a girl who would have been very hard to move, um and they decided to stay there and we we sort of we texted them and called them and asked them to come over to our place, but they didn't want to do that.

Mandy 5:53

That was the choice, so did you do anything different to prepare? I mean we we are used to storms here and losing power and that kind of thing. Were you expecting it to be as serious as it was and did you do anything to prepare?

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Well well hail was reasonably serious and I think they were predicting they were predicting a lot of rain, so yes, we um I looked at the the forecast and looked at the maps and saw that there was a big cyclone coming and it looked big as big as hail and or bigger, so we um I think we I f we filled out water canisters um and I c after hail we cleared all the gutters and I made everything as um safe as we could. So yeah, we were expecting a a a storm and it came. Yeah, I I I mean it's it's pretty hard to predict the intensity and it's you know I guess it would have been impossible to predict the the landslides. I I think I think you know that often the Met Service uh will kind of overestimate a storm and I tend to look at the maps and just have to make my own guess.

Mandy 7:14

And sometimes that can be dangerous because everyone ends up kind of ignoring the warning.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

The boy who cry wolf syndrome, and that's that's the problem that they face is that you know they cry wolf enough and people just ignore it, and then when they but if they die if they don't and something bad happens, then they you know everyone points a finger. So you know, I mean nature's such that it is unpredictable, and you know, you I think if you're sensible and that's the best thing to do. It's easy to easy to blame people in hindsight, um, but you know, that's nature, isn't it? Yeah. Well that night was it was still pretty scary. Um so we we sort of hunkered in, we all went to bed, put I charged up all our phones and stuff, and I charged up a couple of power banks as well because I thought the power would go out as it often does. But that night it was, you know, it was a big storm, and so we we kind of stayed awake and we were texting Mike and Cara and got the alerts, of course. So, you know, we were we're awake and went went um sort of stayed through the night, didn't sleep much. Did sleep a little bit. Um not sure what time it was when the when the slip up near the top shop occurred, but we went out there, it must have been after that, and we saw we saw the fire truck coming down, and I was out there with a torch and an umbrella and the wind was howling and the rain was just smashing down. The uh the guy in the in the firetruck, um, I don't know who it was, but it was um some someone I haven't seen before. Um he he uh they stopped and and I said um if we evacuated now, will we be able to get out? Um because we'd oh that's right, we'd heard um the stories about the surf club and I thought well it's probably better if we just stay where we are because we're sort of umming and a ring should maybe we should go. And he looked scared. He was he was like he he lo he said I I don't know, I don't I don't know if we'll be able to get the truck out. And that made me think, well, if if they're worried about getting the truck out, I'm not gonna try and risk with the family trying to get get out. You know, he said, Well you can't go up that way, and I didn't want to go down in case we got stuck, so it made me yeah, it cemented our decision to stay, stay where we were, but seeing him and how scared he was and you know how it it made me realise how serious it was. So um, you know, that's when I I don't think we slept after that, and that's when we sort of you know really insistent that Mike and Kara come over to our place, but they still didn't. So I think lots of other people evacuated, and and in fact I know they did. So lots of people, even though they weren't they weren't told to, but lots of people m evacuated anyway, and I think lots of people on Motatai Road left Murawai for the storm anyway. So that was that night, and then the next day um got up quite early, about 5 a.m. as soon as it got light, and I saw Mike walking around and I realised you know how serious it was and how and the slips, like I didn't realize because although we could hear this big noise, you know, we weren't sure if it was wind and we could hear cracking and things like that, we were thinking, is that trees? We didn't realise it was houses. Um and once once, you know, I walked up to the top shop about as far as I could go. I think there was a police car stopping people from going right up to uh the face of the slip, but not that we not that I wanted to anyway, but um there was a police car stopping people from getting any further up towards the top shop, probably about 200 metres from the top shop. And then there was um and then there was uh I walked down the street and saw the massive slips and there was a lot of um like uh clay and dirt uh debris on the road. Um saw houses that had been, you know, smashed into by the by the by the dirt and um we took lots of photos. Yeah, just kind of wandered around like um like you know you see people wandering around in in apocalyptic movies in the aftermath. Um there was surprisingly few people. I would have sort of only s seen five people. So that was the immediate aftermath. A few people from up the road who'd stayed. Um Ellie was still inside sleeping and the kids, so I kind of wandered around a bit up and down the road and just looked at the aftermath. And then that day, um, obviously the kids didn't go to school, and we kind of just I don't know, had cups of tea and the internet was out, powers out. I believe the satellite tower wasn't working for Vodafone, um, but we were on Spark, so it was working. And then over the next few days, because I was sort of one of the few people who had internet and was still within the cordons, because they cordoned it off, I think that day or that morning, um, so people couldn't get back to their houses. So I was sort of stuck inside, and so um in the next couple of days I sort of thought, well, may as well make myself useful because I'm in a unique position to have both communications and be inside. So I um got on Facebook and asked people if they wanted me to feed their cats or secure their homes, and I kind of wandered around doing stuff like that.

Mandy 12:56

Such a good idea, and you didn't have anyone coming to you to say you had to get out.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

So there were some people that c some people in yellow vests that came along, or orange vests from the council. I don't know who they were, they just they didn't look like they were highly well, what does someone who's highly qualified look like? I don't know. They didn't they they looked about they looked like they knew about as much about things as I did. So, you know, they came and stuck some stuck some uh white stickers on our house and then they stuck a red sticker on Mike's house and all all on that side of the street um were red stickered. All of our side just about was white stickered except for a few. Um and I'm not sure whether that was the same day, I think it was the day after, or a couple of days after. But anyway, you know, I mean they kind of looked around and went, oh yeah, looks alright. Oh, they actually asked me if I, you know, if they if I'd seen any movement in the land and that sort of thing. So I said no, which I hadn't. No one really came and told us we couldn't be there. Um I think people advised that we should move, and I couldn't see any reason why we should because it wasn't there wasn't any movement in a uh land.

Mandy 14:09

How are you feeling at that point in your family? Did you feel vulnerable?

SPEAKER_02 14:15

No. Um I I didn't uh Ellie did a little bit, I think. She's sort of saying, well she maybe we should evacuate and uh and I said, Well, I can't see any reason to. Um and in fact it's good that we're here because it can do some good while we're on the inside of the cords. You know, what what what would evacuating achieve? But we did pack up because we thought that at any time they could come up and red sticker us. But there was a lot of problem up in Domain um and I couldn't go up there. Um so lots of people wanted me to feed their animals and stuff up there and find some people, but unfortunately I couldn't help them because I wasn't allowed to go up there. Um but I could help anyone who was between the top shop and the fire station. So so you know, fed some dogs and cats and yeah, that's great. Most people left with their dogs, but there were still cats.

Mandy 15:15

A lot of cats, yeah, and a lot of families lost their cats and some dogs. Yeah. Sadly. So you uh you took that communication role sort of a bit further by starting the red stickered group.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Yeah, so um there was a community meeting on the Thursday night, wasn't there, at the golf club? Mm-hmm. So everyone sort of just came out of their holes at that time and everyone was looking a little bit stunned. The golf club put on uh, you know, food and drink. I I think they were a bit surprised on the drink side, but I think everybody needed a drink and that and they certainly did. Um and then I realized that you know there's no one in the community who a has communications, b is still in the you know, I still have my office and my my um home um my home. And so I thought, well, I can help by uh trying to coordinate together the community because there was I think it still is, I don't think there's like a Facebook page, and even if there was, um no one could get to it because they didn't have internet and they didn't have power. So um there was definitely a need for outside help to talk to the community in brackets, um, but how do you reach that community? Well, no way of doing that, you know, it's just a bunch of individuals. Um and so I first of all asked Andy that's Andy Corbett if I could um use his chat group in WhatsApp, which is called Miro Madness, to um kind of uh get a chat going just um because Facebook I mean not everyone's on Facebook and the Miro Madness was people on Motor Road and you know, lots quite a lot. I think it was quite a big Facebook group of you know, 50 or 60 people, I don't know, might have been more. Um so I asked if we could well we we sort of got involved in that and then used that to kind of talk to people. Um and then later on connected up with the domain crescent chat and then I said to Andy, oh can we just take it over and call it uh muralistic residence and invited everyone from the domain chat to to join up with that, and so we had a group of I don't know, about 150 uh residents, which is a it was a good sh a good chunk. Yeah, and then as more people heard about it, um I think we encouraged people to join it, you know, so that so that we could have a have a have a discussion. At the same time, there's a lot of um people wanting to help, you know, lots of you know, like everything from media to counsel to um people wanting to contact people, um people not really having any information. You know, what what I did learn from this is that you know, in a disaster the communication is the most important thing.

Mandy 18:35

It might be good to just talk about the fact that you got red stickered after being white stickered, so suddenly you weren't allowed to be in your house.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

Yeah, so even though they came along and put a white sticker on, I thought, well I bet they're gonna come and red sticker us, which they did. Um that was on a Friday.

Mandy 18:53

And they just decided that you were at risk if there was another bad thing.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

I was very, very unhappy about that. I uh you know, I I because you know, we'd all seen the stories from Christchurch, people having to leave, not being allowed back in their houses, and people whose houses, according to them, were unaffected in Christchurch. You know, being being mistrustful of authority must have come from my youth or something. I thought, well, I hope that doesn't happen to us, but I was preparing for it, and it did happen to us, and I'm still quite bitter about that because I think what they did was they went, Oh, it's going to be easier for us just to red sticker with a broad brush the whole of Mototara Road, um, so we'll get everybody out of there. I you know, I've seen the their little diagram with their red line and their yellow line, and our house sits outside of that, both of those lines. Um, so I don't think they had any authority to red s to to red sticker our home. And I mean it's not just it's not just the inconvenience of um having to move out. Well, it's more than just an inconvenience, isn't it, of having to move out of your home. It's the whole feeling that you might never go back and that you might lose everything. And even if you don't lose everything, you probably you know you might lose half the value of your life savings, you know. I I you know for us that was quite traumatic. And I I know that lots of people had much more trauma over that time. Had I not been with Ali and the kids, I wouldn't have left. I would have stepped stayed there and said, Oh, well, well, that's great. You've done it says aerial assessment on the on the red sticker notice. Um show show me that assessment. Show me what evidence you have that our house is under any threat at all. And um you know, I will I would have quite happily been arrested. Having said that, I knew that you know lots of people are in very bad situations, and you know, I th I thought it's probably a bit selfish of me to kick up a stink about that. So I complied. It w it was really disturbing for the kids though, you know, because they went to school uh relatively normal. They didn't tell the kids at school because they didn't want them to worry all day, you know. When Ellie came back with the kids, they wouldn't let her in because the whole street's been red stickered, and that's quite traumatic for her. So I think she did manage to get back in. But then we were given 40 minutes to pack up and and get all our get all our stuff out. Because I'd given Mike our trailer and our car to get all his stuff out the day before, we had one little car. But luckily I got in touch with Mike that day when I realised that we were when well, because they came in about 9 30 in the morning, said sorry mate. Um read your your red stickered and the guy that was delivering the stickers was just a guy, you know, he was he didn't know anything, and I said, Well, you know, who do I call? And he gave me the um a number of uh Ian McCormick, who is uh reasonably senior in in Auckham Council. Um and I I did actually manage to give him a call and had a had a chat with him and I s and I asked him those questions. I said, Well what authority do you have? And and what is, you know, let what's the assessment? And he didn't know. He said, Call me on Thursday, call me on you know in a couple of days and I'll I said to the guy, Well, yeah, okay, you've so put a red sticker on my letterbox. What if I don't go? What are you gonna do? And he said that the that you know you'd be forcibly you'd be forcibly removed. And I considered, well, yeah, okay, I I could probably do that, but you know, I didn't want the kids to um have that trauma, that stress, so yeah, we just complied. And there was another guy who did, he just stayed there. My feeling was that his his house was actually under in in in risk. Because we'd gone out from the cordons, for me to get back in, I didn't want to have to blag my way through with the um w through the cordon and and run the risk of them not letting me through at the cordon. So I just sort of went um commando style through the through the forest, thinking it just doesn't seem right to kind of have to sneak my way back into the into the into the into home. But um I thought it was just an easier option than trying to have a discussion with someone that didn't really know where they stood anyway and was quite prepared to go, no, sorry, you can't go in. Oh that was that was definitely a low point in life that that Friday. So we had we had 40 minutes or something to pack up all our stuff and go. Uh luckily I'd got the big car in the trailer back from Mike. Because don't forget, we you know, we didn't we weren't sure that we would ever go back. So first of all, I wasn't sure whether our contents insurance would cover that. Um and so I just wanted to pack up everything, big you know, everything from you know lawn mowers to computers to furniture. 40 minutes isn't a long time to to do that. It's uh uh I mean it's not even long enough to pack all the stuff in the car, really, um, even though we had lots of things already packed up. But my question again was, you know, the guys are going, oh we gotta go, and I and I and I said, or what? You know, and and um you know that was definitely a low point for Allie and I as well, because Ellie was like, Oh, we've got to go, Jeremy, and I was like, Well, no, we don't. This guy's telling us we have to go, but if we don't, you know, we'll take our time and we'll we'll pack up everything. We're not under any any physical risk here. The only the only reason for us to rush is so that this guy is not is not inconvenienced, and I'm not going to rush. We're gonna so I got that guy um tying on the surfboards onto the onto the top of the car. And um, I don't think this guy'd ever tied a knot in his life. Um it took him about from the time he said that we that yeah, our 40 minutes was up. Um I said, Oh, can you just help us with this? It took him, I reckon it took him another 45 minutes to tie on those surfboards, and even then he didn't do a very good job. But in that 45 minutes, we packed up probably everything else that would fit in the cars, so you know we just packed as much as we possibly could, chucked it all in. Um, but it was stressful because Ellie was, you know, panicking that we had to rush, and I was too. I was rushed and you know, we were we were tired, you know, and um we didn't know whether we were going to turn left or right as we well, we knew we were turning right because we couldn't get up the hill, but we didn't once we got down out of the cordon, we thought, well, what do we do now?

Mandy 26:13

Did you have a plan for where you were going to stay?

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Well we didn't really. Well, yes and no. I I I I I figured that we we could we're lucky enough that we've uh my mum lives in Riverhead and she's lives in a big house where um where she had a big empty garage and um but the first thing we did was after packing up we went up to Malkatia and we sat there and we just cried because it was just so traumatic, you know, just just the the idea that we might never go home. And we were you know we were the lucky we were lucky we we weren't coming off the back of um you know not of having to, you know, uh run out of our houses with you know dirt coming in our living rooms or you know, spend nights in shelters or you know, we were we were actually better off than most.

Mandy 27:24

But it's still significant for you.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Yeah, yeah, well it was it was just like for me it was the it was the emotional trauma for our family, you know, and that was you know and once we sort of once that trauma of packing up and making decisions about what to take and what not to take we ended up having a pact where we weren't going we weren't going to judge what other people were taking. So I don't know, Leo took his little pot plant with his cactus and you know, it was ever everyone was able to take whatever they want. I took the lawnmower, I don't know why.

Mandy 28:07

But it is like that, isn't it, when you're faced with a traumatic event, you sort of even for a couple, well particularly for a couple in a way, it's just so hard to you're often not on the same page. Even maybe you are on the same page in your marriage or your relationship, but dealing with something really traumatic can really divide how you handle it, and that can cause friction.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

Yeah, that was exactly what what happened on that night. So then we rang mum and asked her if we could come over, and she said, of course, you know, she was lovely. I mean, you know, we were lucky we had somewhere to go and you know, we had a place to sleep that night, and I mean it seems a bit sucky now because we actually you know we were okay.

Mandy 28:53

But um You didn't know what was coming though.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Yeah, I mean, you know, the thought of just losing everything and having to and the trauma of of and I guess the fr you know, if if we had of been if we had dirt coming through our living room, at least we would have known that that was the case, you know. Whereas for me I was I was I was quite disappointed. I won't say it came uh it was unexpected, but I was very disappointed that an aerial assessment was made which told us that we had to leave our house with the possibility of never coming back. I don't think I ever believed that we wouldn't be going back, but I was quite angry, I guess, because I couldn't see any reason for us having to leave. You know, to this day, there's never that aerial assessment, the details of that have never been released. And I I don't think, you know, I think they you know, sure they might have done an aerial assessment, but they might just said, oh let's just let's just kick everyone out of Mototara Road to make um you know, because it's unsafe. And that that's that's you know, if you're doing it to a hundred homes, well you're doing it to a hundred homes, it seems, but imagine if someone just came and told one home you have to go because it's unsafe. Um there would be a necessity to justify that. And I I think that for many homes, including my brother-in-law's home, which is you know, sitting out in a bloody sand dunes, you know, there's no way it was never gonna but because it was on Motor Road, it got red stickered, and um you know, it's just it was so arbitrary and uh unnecessary. You know, there's never any any um study released or anything like that. There's a couple of squiggly lines. We our house is outside that squiggly line, that's all we ever saw. Initially, I um I started the the communication WhatsApp group um and then tried to coordinate as many people to get on it. Um then I went to the um emergency response meetings um to do my best to represent the people who were stickered, so be the um, and communicate those back to the stickered group. The purpose of that meeting was to answer those questions, and then they came to the meeting and went, what questions? And I'd spent a week call um collating those questions, communicating to um the council that those giving them the questions on the 28th of February, um, so that they had a chance to review them to respond to those questions at that meeting, and it was uh uh ignored. And I I was unfortunately, I was really sick on that night, and I couldn't go to the meeting. They didn't even acknowledge the questions and didn't answer any of them. In fact, they didn't have any answers at all, and the community got really cross, and then some members of the community who were per perhaps a little less professional than others sort of started taking over the meeting, and it just ended up like a big shit fight. And it was it kind of burned the council a little bit as well, because they're like, oh shit, I don't want to go back there and talk to these guys again. Um but I mean we were we were angry because the co uh you know for all different reasons, you know. I mean some people thought that a lot of the damage was caused through neglect of stormwater systems. Whether or not that's true, I don't know. But some people strongly believed that, and so they're angry at the council because that that's happened. Um and there's yeah, there was just a lot of anger in the community, and people were tired and they were they'd being kicked out of their homes, and some people like like me, I was being kicked out for what I viewed was unjustified. Um other people were you know that they I mean people were frightened that they were gonna lose everything, you know. You know, to be fair, like you know, Scott Silver and probably everyone there, you know, that they were kind of some of them are like stunned mullets. Um didn't just didn't have didn't know what they were doing. And and I think, you know, I'm h I hope that Orkham Council um learned from that and learned that they actually, you know, if if if their mandate is emergency response, then they actually have to have an emergency response ready for the emergency instead of going, oh, there's an emergency, let's see what we can scrabble together to um to respond to this emergency. Um and I I hope that they have learned that. Um if indeed they are responsible for that that emergency response.

Mandy 34:33

What do you think communities need to really think about and prepare for in the event of something like this happening again?

SPEAKER_02 34:41

I I think every small town should have a generator and shortwave radio. And I know I sound like a bit of a Luddite, but shortwave radio will work. And medium wave radio. Uh you know, there there was I mean who has a medium wave radio receiver now to get information? No one, everyone's on the internet, and when the internet goes down, which it did, um, you know, or for half of the people here, you know, they were just out of comms. Yeah. And comms are so important, so important for any emergency, whether it be a a a war or a earthquake or I don't know, asteroid hitting or you know, or or landslides, or you know, as as we saw down in Hawke's Bay, you know, there were communities there that were out of comms for like a week. And because they were out of comms, no one knew whether they were in trouble or not, and you know, it was it was a real disaster. I mean, we were lucky in that we still had a road in and out, and so you know, the the comms end up being drive in, find out what's happening. So I think that's probably would be one of the learnings that I would I would say would be really important for this sort of thing. I'm quite proud of the Mirawai community for um for the way that they came together. Um really proud. I think you know, I I think the whole thing brought the Mirai community together really uh a lot. It was way way more than I would have expected. Um and um you know the response down at the Surf Club and the and um and the response of of uh the people of you know the wider community outside of Mirawai, people of Auckland, New Zealand, you know, there was a lot of help and a lot of people wanting to help.

Mandy 36:32

You know, there were various sort of groups that kind of worked together and that had people in there who were really proactive and really committed and like yourself and you know, made things happen and made people in the community feel more a little bit more secure and you know, with with something to lean on really. And I think we just have people in this community who can do that kind of work. Yeah. You know, and I think we did that really, really well. It was pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_02 37:03

Yeah, it was really encouraging to see the whole community come together and help each other and help those that that needed help.

Mandy 37:11

Yeah, and really make stuff happen and not all sort of floaty, like, oh well, you know, it was actually like, okay, this is gonna happen, we're doing that, we're creating this group, or you know, we're we're bringing the food down. It was like people somehow, you know, slotted into their different roles and Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

A lot of people did a lot of work. Yeah, it was really nice to s to see, you know, people doing you know, all sorts of uh like I was reviewing some of the things today, and there's there's just so much that you even forget that you forget.

Mandy 37:44

After staying at your mum's house, you ended up back in Muraway before you could get back to your own home.

SPEAKER_02 37:50

We went up to um Edwin Mitchelson Road and stayed up at Ruth's place. Um and it was like a refugee camp. There were um, you know, the population of Edward Mitchelson Road doubled. There were cars everywhere, and it was a really nice feeling of it's just community and like people just generous.

Mandy 38:17

Do you look at weather events in Altara differently now?

SPEAKER_02 38:21

Oh for sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I I I I think I have a better understanding of our vulnerability. Um and um you know, we're still vulnerable, you know, but Yep. I think I think having lived through a um a disaster, I guess you call it, um having lived through a disaster has given me a bit more of awareness of what's required in disaster. And like I said, communication is the key number one go-to to start with. I think it's affected me in that I've got a lot of faith and uh I'm much more feel like I'm much more connected to the community and and I I you know for me it it gave me a lot of faith in human nature. I I think I think the reason that Mirawai did as well as it did was because of our community strength and because of the quality of individuals stepping up and and putting in some some some work, you know. Uh you know, we didn't sit around going oh you know help us. We we all got stuck in and we all we all um worked together. I I'm I'm fairly proud of the fact that we managed to have an outcome that was far better than um say Christchurch or you know other communities. I I I think we spearheaded the um the response, the gu the central government and the York and Council response. And I think that if we hadn't done that, the outcome would have been far less good for the people who are affected. So my advice to to people are to to stand up and um help yourselves. Um the practical advice would be to um get communications up very quickly and organise yourselves very quickly in order to deal with the help that will arrive, hopefully. Um so if you can um communicate and organise quickly, and that's that's I'm I'm quite proud of what we did with the Mirawise Sticker group because that's what we did. We we organized quite quickly and we were able to be a touch point and be a a hub for communications and for um coordinated administrative effort um for months. And um the good th the the thing that the thing that that I that I really was surprised by was as soon as it's like having a big ball, you know, you push on the ball and all these people come and help. Yeah, it was a the you know the the and the quality of the people at Meryl I mean you do gain something from difficult times, you know.

Mandy 42:08

I think. Even though also you have other negative impacts from it, something like that. But I think also we can take some positivity. Is there something that you want to leave us with? Something, you know, meaningful or hopeful?

SPEAKER_02 42:24

So I'm gonna read this thank you that I I penned and put out in various channels. So it it has been seven weeks since Cyclone Gabriel affected large swathes of the North Island, leaving many up and down the motu to deal with its disastrous consequences. We, the people of Murawai, who've been affected by this, have been overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity that has been shown to us. This message is to say a huge thank you on behalf of those of us affected by the slips to you, our community. In Mirawai Village, we have all experienced some loss. Some of us have lost lost our homes already. For others, our homes appear to be under imminent or future threat. For others, there is still much anxiety in post-trauma. For many of us, we have lost our people, our security, our future, our homes, our cars, our routine, our neighbors. Many of us have had to leave Miraway and have felt that distance deeply at this time. We are physically and emotionally tired. Our children just want to go home. But what we have gained from this is a strengthening of our community bond and a security in the knowledge that you, our community, have our backs. To Craig and Dave, our firefighters who are tragically lost serving our community, your loss has created a cavernous hole for your family, indelibly scarred the community. Words can express the depth of our gratitude, our thanks to you and your families. We remember you and them. We thank all of the firefighters and their other emergency services who helped us on the night of Gabriel. To our community who have helped us, we've been humbled by your enormous outpouring of generosity and support. You know who you are. You are our far now, our friends, individuals, organizations, schools, businesses, you are local Marwaians, the people of Voimalku and Hulpai, Kumu, and the people of our wider Auckland area and New Zealand. You've taken us into your homes, you have fed us, clothed us, cared for our children. You've supported us emotionally and practically with your generous time and donations. This at a time when we desperately needed help, when some of us literally had nothing but the clothes on our backs. Many of you have worked tireless tirelessly. You've listened to our stories and shared our loss. You've been there for us, you've given us time and space to help us get back on our feet. We continue to feel comforted and embraced by your arahat and support. I'm proud to be part of this community who have given so freely and generously. To all of you, all of us, we owe a huge debt of gratitude. We respectfully acknowledge and thank you from the heart.

Mandy 46:09

Soundtrack by local Middleware band Tin People, written in response to Cyclone Gabrielle. Namaki, thank you to the Mudawai community for their input and bravery and for sharing their stories. And thank you for listening.