New New Zealand Principals' Federation president and Whangarei's Mania School principal Leanne Otene (Te Rarawa) says the decision to close her school down amid the wild weather wasn’t a hard decision to make at all.
Numerous schools in the North Island have cancelled classes today because of Cyclone Gabrielle.
“No, not at all. It's all about the health and safety of our farm. No. And when you take into account the high winds, the possibility of power cuts, the rain, and it was a very simple decision to make.”
Otene said the weather from yesterday has been pretty rough, with rains and high winds continuing from midday yesterday.
“The rain came later in the evening and then the power cuts. The wind was very noisy and I heard that people were very anxious about that and also we've seen flooding across our region.”
25,000 plus without power
Far North mayor Moko Te Pania (Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa, Te Rarawa) says last night was incredibly wet and windy.
“It was definitely felt in the Far North district. We have 10,000 households without power across 33 different settlements."
Te Pania says Top Power is assessing the damage across the grid and trying to get power back to people’s homes with a further 18,000 houses in Kaipara and Whangarei without power as well, with North Power trying to fix that
Te Pania says the district is lucky to get away with the damage and flooding it has as, historically, the flooding is much worse in these significant storm events.
“The key message is if you are safe in your whare right now, then you should stay there. If you think that you need to leave, check in with friends and whanau in the first instance if you can go to them or call up our council so we can help you when and where we need to.”