Helping hands reach out to cyclone victims

Although there have been homes evacuated and significant damage and flooding in areas such as Dairy Flat, Waiwera and Puhoi, the biggest impact from the recent weather events, especially Cyclone Gabrielle, has so far been felt in northern and eastern parts of the country.

Many local emergency services personnel are supporting relief efforts in Muriwai and other affected areas – and Coast residents have also led their own recovery efforts.

One of them is Rob Ryan, owner of RNB Transport in Dairy Flat, who says as soon as he saw the devastation in Hawke’s Bay he had to take action.

Rob and his friend Ivan King of Exaro Contracting, Silverdale, made contact with a distribution centre in Napier and asked what they needed most.

“Civil Defence are advising people to make monetary donations to relief funds, which is great, but our contact in Napier gave us a list of items that they desperately need for distribution to affected communities, so that’s what we are taking to them,” Rob says. The list, which he circulated on social media, included clothing, nappies, baby milk powder, women’s sanitary products, tools, gumboots, car seats, mattresses and solar showers.

Two containers, one 40ft and one 20ft, were donated by Mainfreight and Active

Survey. Filling the huge spaces proved to be the easy part, with donations pouring in from the Hibiscus Coast community. Silverdale Rugby Club donated space in its carpark for the containers on the weekend of February 25 and 26. Carloads of items were brought in, labelled, boxed and loaded into the containers by Rob and Ivan, helped by a team of staff, family and friends.