Guest Speaker: Mary owner of Puketapu Pub was to share their story of recovery from the cyclone event, sadly Mary was unable to be with us, thank you to Jodie who shared Mary’s story on her behalf.How the cyclone affected the Puketapu Hote
On the 14 February 2023, our beautiful community changed forever. After the banks broke, the water came up the road & into the pub with great force. Fridges, freezers, glassware and all sorts of equipment was floating around the pub. The Puketapu Road was waist deep and all the houses there were destroyed.
Our little village was totally cut off and had no idea what was going on up the Dartmoor Road and elsewhere. We had no coms, no bridge and felt totally isolated. The helicopters then started flying in and dropping off 40 terrified RSE workers. After that other families from up Dartmoor Road were also dropped off as the houses at the top of the hill were full of people. We managed to house the RSE workers in the school hall and others stayed in the houses that were not damaged. BBQ’s were set up and people fed, a great way to use the food from our freezers.
Over the next few days people started arriving with help. The school and the restaurant were set up as a hub and food clothing, MSD, lawyers, social workers arrived to help our community. MPT Concreting were amazing. They got petrol from the army, found us generators, cleared roads and so much more.
Personally at the pub we had a couple of beautiful families and their whanau, along with staff come in and help us over the next few weeks clean up and help wherever possible. Bidfood and DB Breweries were in constant touch helping us get food etc into country areas and around Puketapu where needed.
After 10 days we had to close the restaurant down and get gib off the walls and dry the place out.
We then got the builders in and we spent the next 4 ½ months in dust, noise and lots of laughter and sadness all at once. We opened the garden bar on Wednesday nights for the blokes and Friday nights for the families to keep people’s morale going.
We supplied free food and donations for beverages. This was awesome and gave people the opportunity to socialise and discuss their problems or just have other contact. We are now going to have the first Thursday night of the month, bar and garden bar with free buffet dinner for our extended community, plus some other initiatives. On reflecting over the last few months, I am so proud to be part of this beautiful community.
I am in awe of our amazing staff who helped us through this, my son Sam who came back from Auckland to help us rebuild after seeing all the destruction and to the Simmons and Blake families for the amazing things they did for us. We look forward to seeing our community heal and will be right there to help wherever we can.