Cyclone Gabrielle battered our homes - but brought our community closer

First Person - Anusha Bradley woke on Tuesday morning to muddy brown water lapping at her back door. In the week since, a power and communications black-out brought her closer to the community she calls home.

It's strangely quiet when I wake. In that confusing moment between sleep and wakefulness, I feel relief the racket from Cyclone Gabrielle is finally silenced, but it only lasts a second. There's a strange trickling sound out the window.

I spring out of bed and rush to the window. Our backyard is a lake. Muddy brown water swirls in from the street through our side gate, the force of the water holding it open.

I dash to the kitchen and open the back door to find water lapping at the top step and the whole house surrounded by water, my recycling bobbing on the lawn like plastic ducks.

I run back to the bedroom and wake up my husband Damon, my voice on edge. We have to leave now, I tell him urgently. I assume the nearby Maraetotora Stream has broken its banks and is spilling into our garden and garage.

The stream has indeed burst its banks but I soon find out it is not the source of the water flooding our property. Damon jumps out of bed. We wake our sleeping children, and grab our go bags laid out on the kitchen table the night before. Damon packs the bags, the kids and the dog into the car while I search for the cat.

Normally at this time of the morning she is curled up on my daughter's bed, but I find her outside on the deck meowing loudly at the torrent of water flowing past her. She panics when she sees me coming with the carrier and runs to the edge as if to jump. I make a lunge and grab her before she can, stuff her into her box and wade through knee deep water to the car, its wheels already partially submerged. We leave our other car behind as it's already soaked through.

Once out on the street, I see the source of the water, a burst culvert a few metres away spews a massive fountain of brown water high into the air, flooding properties in the surrounding streets.

We quickly drive a couple of hundred metres down the road to a dry spot and stop. A friend of ours, Mike, drives past and seeing the wild look in our eyes, stops. He tells us to head to his place where it's dry, then zooms off. He'll be back later, he says, he's going to see if others need help evacuating.

Others also stop to see if we are okay. I can barely respond, too shell shocked to register what is going on, worried we will lose our home.

We head to Mike's and change out of our sodden clothes. We try to eat, but don't feel hungry. Morning Report calls and I do a quick interview. The power goes out, then the internet, then the cell phone coverage. No one has a radio so we listen to news updates in the car trying to find out what's happening in our area. We have no idea if our friends and family are okay and worry about Damon's elderly father who lives by the Clive River and we cannot get hold of.

We fill water bottles and try to comfort the kids in between dashing back home to check on the water level and retrieve items where we can. It soon becomes clear the water is no longer rising, which is a relief, but we feel restless and agitated so we walk aimlessly around the neighbourhood surveying the damage. Everyone else has the same idea, it seems.

We stop and chat with neighbours, friends and anyone who passes by. Every conversation starts with: Are you okay? and ends with offers of hugs, food, accommodation and help. We trade nuggets of official information and rumours. There's confusion over which roads are closed, which bridges have washed away, or are about to be, which areas have been evacuated, or need to be. Is it safe to drink tap water? Is more rain coming? No one really knows.

Around mid-afternoon the Fire Service fixes the culvert on our road and the water slowly starts to recede. The adrenaline that's been keeping me on high alert also starts to dissipate. I feel exhausted but lucky. While our garden, garage and car are sodden, the inside of our of home is untouched and we move back in that evening.

Neighbours I have never met before invite us to a pot luck dinner. I'm not feeling very social and just want to sleep but Damon reminds me we need to be around people at a time like this, and of course, he's right. We take a packet of frozen burger patties and some chicken from the cooling fridge and in return I'm handed a large gin and tonic on our arrival. Our wonderful riverside hosts cook the food on their BBQ, their treasures still piled high on tables and couches in preparation for the worst that never came. I sit by the roaring fire as other neighbours and friends arrive with delicious smelling food and tales of dramatic escapes.

As we tuck into my first hot meal of the day, I suddenly realise I'm still wearing my pyjama top, but no one cares. We laugh and agree we are eating one of the best tasting meals of our lives.

I'm desperate for news. I kick myself for not having a transistor radio at home and vow to be better prepared. On a trip to Hastings, where there is now power and cell reception, I text my brother who works at Noel Leemings to see if radios are available. None, he replies. All sold out.

A neighbour offers us a radio, another a battery, but unfortunately neither work so while Damon goes to Hastings to forage for ice and check in on his father who we have since managed to contact, I listen to the news in our sodden other car, thankful the radio still works.

The news is heart breaking. I cannot stop thinking about the man whose partner was washed away in Eskdale after they bashed a hole in the ceiling and climbed into the roof cavity to escape the rising floodwaters. I learn of the desperate situation in Napier, Wairoa and Tairāwhiti, the missing and dead. I can't believe how lucky we have been to escape the worst.

There's another pot luck tea with our neighbours, this time at the house of a local farmer high up on the hill. He has chilled wine, ice and fairy lights thanks to a generator. We cook on the BBQ and play croquet on the expansive lawn as the kids run around and splash in the pool. I finally get a spot of reception and text my parents. They're anxious to know how we're faring without power or internet. What are you doing for food? my mother asks. I look at a table laden with paua, meats, salads and breads and tell her we're doing just fine. We crowd around the table like old friends and talk about how strange it is to have no connection to the outside world.

Time passes slowly. I line up for an hour at The Warehouse in Hastings to buy supplies as it's the only place that takes Eftpos. There are long lines for cash, fuel and gas. The schools are closed and the kids are bored without screens. But then I notice my book shy teenager engrossed in a novel and my tween gets stuck into her crafts. They both hop on bikes or skateboards and roam around the neighbourhood with their friends. Gangs of other kids do the same. I see others forage the debris-strewn beachfront, taking home washed up pumpkins and apples as their prize.

The next day, I walk to the beach where I discover I can get enough bars of reception and receive dozens of texts from family and friends. They have all seen the devastation in Hawke's Bay and wonder how we are. At this point, I still don't understand the scale of the disaster, because while I can listen to the radio, I haven't been able to see the pictures or videos they are talking about because of the limited cell coverage. I try to reply to as many texts as I can before the coverage drops out again.

There's no more ice to be found. We eat everything in the fridge and freezer quickly, encouraging the kids to eat melting ice cream for lunch. Offers of generators to recharge freezers and mobile phones flow across fencetops along the street.

One night, I wonder what to do with some defrosted lamb shanks without a slowcooker or oven. With no Google to ask, I walk down the road to my chef neighbour to ask for tips. She advises me to cook them in a casserole dish on a low heat on the BBQ with lots of liquid. She's cooking some that way herself tomorrow, she tells me. It works and it's a hit.

On the way back, a neighbour offers me some vegetables she can't use. Another stops for a chat to see how we're doing, and then another invites me to view her flood-soaked rental. It's devastating to see the damage. Her home is in one of the lowest parts of the village and collected all the rain, the rising floodwaters forcing her to climb out of her bathroom window early on Tuesday morning. She's returned today to clear it all out after managing to get hold of a skip for 24 hours thanks to a builder friend. The waiting time for a skip now is three to four weeks, she tells me, as she puts family photos out to dry in the sun.

There are other tragic stories. Many homes on a street in a low lying part of nearby Haumoana are flooded out, its residents escaping through waist-deep water. One of them tells me it came as a surprise as there was no warning. They spent Tuesday helping a friend on the beach front prepare for inundation, only to return and find their property underwater.

On Friday night, we gather for another pot luck at a friend's a few streets away. A gang of boys, my son included, decide to camp out in their backyard for the night. They spend an hour putting up a tent and blowing up mattresses then play soccer in the yard, whooping and yelling, even though it's too dark to see the ball. Their parents pop in for a drink, food and a catch up. We swap flood stories, provide comfort and marvel at how good food and company can make everything seem better. We're in the midst of a communication blackout but feel more connected than ever.

Suddenly, the lights come on. The boys roar with delight and rush to the tent to retrieve their phones. They stare at their screens looking for a signal, the ghostly lights dotting the darkness of their abandoned playing field. The host rushes into the kitchen to turn on the dishwasher but the lights flicker and once again we're plunged back into darkness. The boys put away their screens and pick up the ball.

On Saturday morning, I travel into Hastings to do a load of washing, make calls and charge my laptop and phone. It's full of people with the same idea as me. Some have come from Napier where there's still no power or internet and they joke about the "end of days" with kilometre-long queues to get fuel or food. Others come from Clive where their properties have been flooded or they've lost houses, stock or both.

All their stories are devastating but there's a convivial atmosphere inside the tiny laundromat. Someone lends me washing powder, while I share a few coins to help another complete a load. We swap stories and hug and wave like old friends when they leave with their clean clothes. "It's amazing isn't it?, says a grandmother as she retrieves a load from the dryer, "It's times like these that bring out the best in people."

* Anusha Bradley is an investigative reporter for RNZ