The Cyclone

Faith’s Memoir

 The Cyclone

On the 17th April 2014 the was the cyclone Ita hit Greymouth, the South Island of New Zealand.

It was a cold and windy morning, I got ready and Dad dropped me off at school.

Later on at school it was getting windier by the minute, we had morning tea inside because it was so windy. About 20 minutes later Dad came to pick me up because he got the rest of the day off work because the wind was too strong to work.

When we got home we just went on the computer and watched a movie.

Me and dad were inside our house in the lounge, when WHOOSSSSSSHHHHHHH the wind just got windier than ever. It was so strong we could here houses creaking and groaning. The clear light from our neighbour's house was ripping off and hitting our house and landing in our back and front yard.

Later while we were watching T.V we heard sirens. Dad went outside to see what the sirens were and I followed him to the front porch because the wind was so strong it kept pushing me over. Dad kept going and walked down to where a fire truck was parked, he talked to a fireman and came back. When he came back he told me that  we had to stay inside, so we did.

P.S. I didn't mind one bit staying inside. There was NO WAY I was going back out there

Later on we were watching the News on T.V, and it said that there was a cyclone in Greymouth. A few minutes later the T.V started going static and we turned it off.  Then all of the lights went off and wouldn't turn back on. We were getting hungry so we got out our gas stove and made toasted toast and boiled saveloys.

After tea we went into the spare room to look out the window. When we looked out we saw friend Alyssa's house roof was ripping off and flying down the street. Luckily Alyssa and her family were staying at someone else's house because their house wasn't stable, and they didn't have a roof so they couldn't really stay at theirs.

That night I got to stay on the couch in the lounge because Dad didn't think it was safe to stay in my room because it's at the front of the house and with all of the houses having thing breaking off and flying down the streets. I slept on the couch and Dad slept in his room witch it right next to the lounge. We watched a movie together and then went to sleep.

The next day there was still no power so after toast for breakfast we went in the car to see the damage that had been done around the town. There was a power pole that had been knocked down and in Cobden there were whole houses that had fallen down from the wind. There was so much damage in Cobden that it took years to fix all of it.

I learnt that in a cyclone you should stay inside away from windows incase they smash or something comes in through them.