Muriwai residents describe escape from Cyclone Gabrielle landslides

Source: Radio New Zealand

Residents of Auckland’s Muriwai have described their frantic escape from landslides during Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023.

A coronial inquest is investigating the deaths of volunteer firefighters Craig Stevens and Dave van Zwanenberg after they were critically injured in a landslip.

The pair were responding to slips on Motutara Road when another landslide fell and buried them both.

Eddie Wood, whose home on Motutara Road was destroyed in the slips, described the events of that evening.

He and a friend, Jordan Mickley, were trying to divert water away from Wood’s property when a slip came down between them.

“We couldn’t see where the slip was. It was obviously pitch black,” Wood said.

“In sort of a fight or flight situation, I just ran and jumped over our fence, our retaining wall, and hit my head on the way down. Jordan was closer to the house, so he ran around the front of the house.”

Jordan Mickley told the court he ran to alert Wood’s wife, Hannah, and their children.

“[Wood] sort of jumped out of the way, and my thought was just to bang on the door, because I knew the kids were downstairs, and get Hannah to unlock the door and get the kids out,” Mickley recounted.

Mickley picked up Wood’s youngest son, Nico, and went to hand him over the wall to Wood when he noticed his head was bleeding.

“From what I remember, I was trying to yell to Eddie to grab Nico. I was going to pass him down the retaining wall, and then figured out that Eddie had smacked his head,” he explained.

“He wasn’t really responding that well. Then we just decided to walk through the garden and down through the mud to the driveway.”

The group made it to Mickley’s ute and drove to his house further down the road.

There they saw Craig Stevens and Dave van Zwanenberg, who had rushed to the scene.

Eddie Wood told the court that Stevens was a close family friend and had offered to help, but Wood urged the firefighters to visit his neighbour instead.

“Craig came over and he said, do you want some help? Do you want me to help? I said no. Do you want us to check on your house? And I said no, just go get Jen out of her house,” he said.

“My main concern was for my neighbour, Jen, because Hannah had been messaging her, and I know that she was quite scared.”

Some time later, the phone rang.

“I’m not sure how much time passed between, but Hannah’s phone rang, and it was Jen, and she said that there had been a slip and the guys were trapped,” Wood said.

While Eddie Wood recovered from his injuries, Jordan Mickley picked up some tools and rushed back to help.

Mickley said he could hear Stevens from under the rubble of the house.

“I could hear him responding, I suppose, to people calling his name,” he said.

“At some point, from what I could feel, it was getting a bit hectic and frantic, and yeah, we were asked to leave.”

Wood, Mickley, and their families evacuated to the nearby surf club where they waited for news about the missing firefighters.

Phelan Pirrie, the chief fire officer at Muriwai at the time, was with the two firefighters on Motutara Road.

He had just rescued Wood’s neighbour, Jen, when he heard Craig Stevens call for help from next door.

“It was then on my portable radio that I heard Craig asking for help,” Pirrie recounted through tears.

“I asked Craig questions over the radio to see if he could provide any information to help me determine where he was, but he wasn’t responding to questions. I could still hear him calling out for help.”

Craig Stevens was eventually freed from the landslide, but he was severely injured and he died in hospital the next day.

Dave van Zwanenberg was found dead the day after that.

The inquest continues this week with evidence from other firefighters.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand