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Trail of destruction through Cook Islands
Statistically, it shouldn't have happened. Three cyclones swept through the Cook Islands in as many weeks in Feburary, cutting a trail of destruction that left residents and officials reeling. A fourth cyclone came early this month, and it proved to be the most destructive of all. New Zealand Red Cross field assessment specialist Douglas Clark left for Rarotonga was there when Cyclone Percy struck, invited by the Cook Islands Red Cross to provide training and a debrief in the wake of the first three cyclones, Meena, Nancy and Olaf.
Mr
Clark had just returned from a month-long stint in Sri Lanka where the Boxing
Day tsunami claimed 40,000 lives.
"I'd been back 10 days, and I'd started to get back into normal things . . . and
then I was off again."
He left thinking he was in for a relatively relaxed few days. But then tropical
Cyclone Percy struck bringing winds of over 200kmh to the tiny islands of
Pukapuka and Nassau. Percy moved slowly, and settled over the islands for almost
12 hours. "Those two little islands got a hell of a bashing." Once the cyclone
moved on, Pukapuka, which lies 1400km north of Rarotonga, called for help.
"The information we got was that 10 houses were left standing on Pukapuka, and
there were none left on Nassau," he said.
Planning started immediately for relief efforts, and it was obvious there was a
pressing need for aid.
Both islands had key commodities, like food, delivered by ship every two or
three months, and the recent cyclones had delayed it.
Water was a concern as well, because roofs destroyed by the winds were used to
collect water.
freighter was loaded with food, fuel, tarpaulins, clothes and buckets and sent
to Pukapuka via a roundabout route: the lingering effects of Percy made direct
deliveries from Rarotonga to Pukapuka risky, he said.
The clothing was deemed vital to the residents' morale.
"People are often left in the same clothing they went through the storm in
because it's all they've got left, and they're wet and uncomfortable."
Mr Clark travelled with the supplies, sleeping on two wooden pallets on the deck
of an ageing freighter during its three-day voyage through high seas.
When he arrived at Pukapuka, Mr Clark led a team charged with assessing the
damage wrought by Percy.I
t
found the damage was not as had as the initial reports had suggested, but it was
still substantial.
About a quarter of the 260 buildings on the 5sq km island, had been flattened in
the winds or had simply disappeared. Despite the devastation, islanders were in
surprisingly good spirits. "They were shocked, because anyone under 30 who lived there had never
experienced anything like this, and no-one on the island had been through a
cyclone this extreme before," Mr Clark said. "But they were all pretty
philosophical."
Isolation had probably contributed to that, with the residents being resilient
and resourceful by necessity. Despite winds of more than 200kmh, there were no
serious injuries.
"During. the cyclone they all stayed inside, and if their house collapsed around
them they crawled to their neighbours."
Nassau was presumed to have suffered similar effects.
Mr Clark said it was hard to know exactly how long it would take for the islands
to return to pre-cyclone life. "Three months from now, I would hope that most of the physical work had been
done." Having returned to Dunedin, Mr Clark is enjoying a break from the
devastation, but is well aware his peace could be shattered any day by news of
another disaster in the Pacific. A suitcase remains packed beneath his bed,
allowing him to leave at a moment's notice. Mr Clark loves the lifestyle, and
has no plans of retiring just yet. "I just enjoy the challenge of the work. I
can never relax. I'm always doing something"