Cyclone Gabrielle: Traumatised couple return to Eskdale home to document losses for insurers

Eskdale couple Anthony​ and Geraldine Edmonds have lost everything, their home of 14 years is filled with more than half a metre of silt, and farm equipment and flood debris litters their property.

Read this story in te reo Māori and English here. / Pānuitia tēnei i te reo Māori me te reo Pākehā ki konei.

Despite shocking images emerging from the Esk Valley after Cyclone Gabrielle, their insurance company has asked for proof of their losses with the family left to trawl through the devastation on Wednesday.

​It was the second time they’d been home after fleeing in the early hours of Tuesday last week, with Geraldine unable to venture inside due to the pain of seeing what had been lost.

“How can you say that anything’s recoverable? It’s just a lifetime of memories gone,” she said.

READ MORE:
* ‘Everyone’s pretty down’ in Esk Valley: Some residents realise they probably can’t rebuild their flood-ruined homes
* Cyclone Gabrielle: In Hawke’s Bay, a week of devastation that time forgot
* Cyclone Gabrielle: Was the catastrophe at Esk Valley avoidable?
* Toys, photos and furniture – the muddy floodwaters of Cyclone Gabrielle give up their victims
* Cyclone Gabrielle: Hawke’s Bay family sheltered in barn eaves for 8 hours after river burst

A neighbour alerted the couple to the danger as the Esk River flooded the valley.

He and Anthony got their wives in cars and told them to ‘Go! Get out!’ before racing to cut fences in the hope of giving stock at least a fighting chance and help other neighbours.

Geraldine managed to throw her handbag, the four dogs and cat into the ute before racing down the valley through floodwaters which were coming up over her bonnet towards higher ground on Hill Rd.

She had no idea what had happened to Anthony. “I didn’t know where he was. I didn’t know if he was dead or alive.”

He and the neighbour ended up rolling their truck before being swept in the raging floodwaters where they were pushed into a two-storey house further down the road.

“I should have been dead,” he said. “We’re just lucky to be alive.”

As daylight broke he swam to out to Hill Rd where he was taken to Bay View, reuniting with Geraldine mid-afternoon at their daughter’s home.

More than a week later, Anthony was left to hunt through the silt which filled their home to find items to photograph and document for their insurance company.

“It’s all gone,” he said. “The insurance company want photos of everything, even if we can’t find it. They basically don’t believe us.”

The Esk Valley is a hive of activity as contractors and roading crews continue clearing key infrastructure of flood debris and silt.

Cars with trailer loads of once treasured household items, now contaminated and destined for the dump, travel down the road from early morning, while volunteers help pick through the wreckage.

Anthony teared up as he worked through the devastation to find a chainsaw he’d just purchased a few weeks ago. Several other tools and machinery were left strewn about the lawn covered in thick layers of silt.

Having to return home was traumatic and forced them to relive memories of that night, while silt blown up from the road by passing vehicles made it harder to breathe.

A group of friends had been to the property and cleared the worst of the silt from the driveway to get them access. They found his new dirtbike up a tree, and a small boat thrown on top of a deer fence.

Geraldine’s mother’s ashes had also been recovered.

The couple said the impact of the storm on the valley was totally unexpected. In previous flooding the most they had was a foot of water across their lawn.

“We thought that’s what it might be,” Geraldine said. “We had no idea it was going to be like this.”

Neither thought people would ever rebuild in the valley again after what had happened.

The insurance company the couple is with has been approached for comment by Stuff.