Cyclone Lusi

Heavy rain woke us in the middle of the night, and the sound of the winds kept me awake. The cottage is surrounded by trees, and their branches scratched and banged against it. Would the roof stay on, and would the windows withstand the forces?  At 3:30 AM, we still had electrical power. I wondered if the NZ power system is more robust than ours back home. By dawn, we found out it wasn't. The power was out. I also realized, I had forgotten to get the car filled with gas.

When we looked out on the bay, the anchored oyster boats bounced in the waves, and their bows pointed into the prevailing winds. We could see we were on the leeward side of the peninsula and protected from the worst of the cyclone's wrath.  It rained hard, and some of the wind gusts (gales as they call them) were scary.

 I got the emergency radio operational, and the first news report confirmed power outages were prevalent on the North Island. They also advised the worst was yet to come. We got out the backup gas stove and heated water for coffee, and were reminded of our relative comforts. Hour after hour, we watched over the bay, visibility to the far shoreline came and went. At times, the rain beating on the roof sounded like thunder. We were in the cyclone.

By mid afternoon, unexpectedly, the power came back on. The question was, for how long? We searched the internet for more cyclone news. It was sketchy and mostly outdated. But the data from NZ MetServices (meteorological service)  indicated the storm was moving down the west coast which was good news for us as we are on the east side of the Island. It also spoke of the storm being downgraded from a cyclone, as the gales had dropped to about 100 kmph, though there was a new high rainfall warning for our region, 100 to 150 mm (4 to 6 inches) over the next 24 hours.  With the gales diminishing but the rainfall increasing, was the worst risk over for us, or had one threat been traded off for another? The warnings spoke to slips (landslides) and flooding. Only time would tell.

By nightfall, we saw hope. The skies were breaking up, the winds dropping and the rain had become intermittent. We went to bed thinking that Cyclone Lusi was moving on, even though the Met Service forecast didn't support it.

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http://travellingwithsteveandmarlene.blogspot.ca/2014/03/a-bach-with-history.html