|
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
Related Articles
|
|||||||
Greymouth residents are assessing the damage caused by a tornado which ripped through the town on Thursday.
Police say 48 commercial buildings and houses were damaged or destroyed when the twister hit.
Residents said black clouds billowing in the sky were the first signs of the tornado.
"I was very scared. I heard this really large noise and I looked up ... and huge bits of iron were flying through the air," Jessie Deck said.
The winds were so strong they hurled a truck into a lagoon, snapped power poles in half and hurled debris onto cars flattening them.
Around 50 people are staying in emergency accommodation and residents of the Kowhai Manor resthome have been evacuated.
Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn told Close Up he is amazed that no-one was killed.
"It just cut through everything - new buildings, old buildings, houses have been demolished and there are roofs off.
"You had to see some of the devastation in the town to actually appreciate it," Kokshoorn says.
The mayor says West Coasters are a resilient bunch and locals are pulling together to help each other.
"We had phone calls from everywhere. Every carpenter in Greymouth was on the job trying to help. We had phone calls from the Buller District Council, Western District Council, Economic Development Trust, they all offered help financially. The way people rallied together was just remarkable," Kokoorsh says.
He predicts the cost of the damage will be in the millions, but expects it only to take a matter of weeks before the town is back to normal.
"It's remarkable how things jump into action. It's in recovery mode now - there's people helping in all directions, clearing the roads and the streets," says the mayor.
He says it is now a job for the insurance assessors to get things moving.
The region's topography attracts rain and thunderstorms and Greymouth was hit by twisters in 2001 and 2003.
In March 2001 a tornado ripped roofs off houses, destroyed greenhouses and tore down trees. There were no injuries then and it roared through the town in just 30 seconds, leaving some properties looking like bomb sites.
Then in June 2003 a twister destroyed buildings in an industrial area of the town causing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage.
| Headlines |
|
|
|
