Flooded Weekend

Well, what I intended for this week's post to be about was my lovely weekend with friends in Whanganui, but things did not go as planned. Not even close.

As I am well-trained by both of my parents, I will start this post by assuring you that I am fine, everyone I know is fine, and in fact, this natural disaster only resulted in the damage of objects, not people, so don't get too worried.

That being said, it must be noted that I drove from New Plymouth, where it was raining but otherwise fairly safe, to Whanganui, which was soon after declared a State of Emergency. In my defense, I had no way of knowing that anything unusual was going on until I was almost all the way there, when Belinda called and said, "Don't come, they're warning people not to drive because of slips (landslides) and flooding!" Well, at that point I'd driven 1.5 out of the 2 hours to get there, and had seen several landslides already, so I decided to drive the last 1/2 hour rather than turn back. Seemed like a reasonable plan at the time.

I drove slowly and carefully and made it to Whanganui right on time for my lunch date with Belinda in town. My plan for the weekend was:

~ Lunch with Belinda

~ Afternoon Tea with Kirsten

~ Tea (Dinner) at Jan's house with Jan and Brian - see their awesome pictures of their trip to Europe

~ Sleep at Jan's house

~ Go to my friend Jo's Baby Shower

~ Go home after lunch

~ Spend the afternoon with J

Well... halfway through lunch with Belinda, Jan called me and said that the road/bridge to her house was under several feet of water, and that there was no way anyone could get in or out. That put a bit of a kink in my plans, as coincidentally, both Kirsten and Belinda had other things going on, so I couldn't stay with them that night. Also, I was very eager to see Jan's pictures!

While I was on the phone with Jan, Belinda checked the news on her phone and saw that it was heavily recommended that people not drive, as the rain had continued and road conditions were deteriorating. Great, homeless and stranded. Oh well. In an uncharacteristically zen moment, I took a deep breath and accepted this fact, and moved on.

I finished my (quite lovely) lunch with Belinda, then headed over to Kirsten's. She was managing a hotel for the weekend while the owners were away, so she was staying in their house, which is why I couldn't stay with her. However, in true Kirsten fashion, she announced, "I'm sure they won't mind!" She called them up, and five minutes later I was still stranded, but no longer homeless. And not only that, I'd been granted a home with a deliciously warm fireplace. What a difference five minutes and a friend like Kirsten can make!

So... after a comforting call to Jan, who was more worried about rendering me homeless than about herself being cut off from the world, all was well.

Kirsten and I settled down by the fire to drink tea and chat, every so often checking the status of the roads and the flooding. By that evening, many people had been evacuated from their houses, the river was very high, and a lot of people like Jan who lived out in the country were stranded! 

In the midst of all of this, here is my situation. 

A cup of tea, a warm fire, a wonderful friend to talk to, a book to read when she's off doing hotel things, and a computer to keep me updated on the flood. Also, there was a gorgeous grey cat who came by often for cuddles.

Given that we couldn't go anywhere anyway (except down the road to feed the mansion cats), we spent a delightful evening in front of the fire, and then headed to bed. Little did we know, it kept raining all night.

In the morning, we woke up to this. Two things you should notice:

#1 - The back yard should not be full of water.

#2 - The river in the background should not be that close. I should have taken a "before" picture, but trust me, it wasn't that close before.

You will notice a repeated theme in the following pictures; water where it does not belong.

I got some of these pictures from various news sites, as I am not willing to endanger myself or get in the way of relief efforts in order to gawk at flooding.

This is downtown, just a few minutes from where we were.

This is a further-back shot of that area. Yes, that bridge was closed for the day.

This is on the road to Palmerston North, which, unsurprisingly, was also closed. More on roads later.

This is a panorama that Kirsten took of the view from the mansion she's been house sitting, taken a few weeks ago.

This is a panorama of the same view, right after the flood. If you look just to the right of the bridge in the middle, you'll notice that all the ground below that row of trees is now gone.

I took this picture from the mansion. It is of that area just to the right of the bridge, where there used to be land holding up those trees.

This is one of the residential areas that got flooded! This picture makes me so sad for those families!

This is where some trees got carried down in a landslide and fell across the road. It is also the place where Kirsten didn't see them in the dark on Saturday night (on the way back from feeding the mansion cats) and we almost had what would have been a very embarrassing crash. The police officer monitoring the roads was only letting residents through, and after he approved us he said, "Be careful!" We were actually in the midst of laughing at what seemed like unnecessary advise when we almost crashed into the mass of trees. Oops.

This is on the way back from the mansion when we fed the cats in the morning. There used to be an entire hill there, complete with a deck or something that those stairs lead to. Not anymore.

Along with the news of flooding and damage that we got in the morning, we also got the news that ALL of the highways out of Whanganui were closed due to flooding or slips. Whanganui was completely cut off from the rest of the country! Which also meant I was unable to get home. In addition, all three of the bridges across the Whanganui River were closed, so we couldn't even get to most of the city. Luckily for us, we were on the same side of the river as the mansion cats, or they would have been very hungry!

I should mention, with regard to my original plan for the weekend, that the baby shower was also cancelled, due to the mother-to-be actually being stranded in Palmerston North, and multiple guests being stranded in Whanganui East, which was completely cut off in all directions.

I do not want to downplay the tragedy of this damage, or the seriousness of the event, but I do have to admit that the idea of being "stranded" indefinitely by the fire with Kirsten and lots of good food was fairly tantalizing. I can't say that I would have terribly regretted calling a reliever and saying, "Sorry, could you work for me on Monday, I'm stranded in Whanganui and will be forced to sit, eat, and chat all day." Plus, Kirsten was pretty excited to have company during all these adventures, so she was secretly (openly) crossing her fingers for it not to end right away.

Well... it did last for most of the day, but in the afternoon they opened up the road to New Plymouth, so I headed back with mixed feelings of relief and disappointment. 

I drove slowly and carefully, which turned out to be a good thing, because on multiple occasions I rounded a corner and found this in my lane, and had to stop and wait until it was safe to go into the other lane. Fortunately, there weren't too many other cars on the road, so no one minded my slowness and it was easy to find safe times to cross landslide areas.

So ... while I send my sympathy and warm wishes to everyone who faces difficult clean-up after the weekend of flooding ... and while I am still impatient to see Jan's photos ... and while I'm disappointed to have missed the baby shower (which is now rescheduled for a time I can't make it) ...  I had a wonderful weekend being stranded with Kirsten! Sometimes nothing at all goes the way you planned, and it turns out that is just perfect. I am such a planner, it's hard for me to accept that my plans can be ruined, and a few years ago I probably would have spent the whole weekend fuming that I didn't get to do the things I wanted to do, even though the alternative was so pleasant. I am thankful that I can now be healthier and happier because I understand that even things that completely destroy what you thought your plan was can be wonderful.