Near misses during freak storm

BY PIERS FULLER

A woman in a car at a rural Carterton property was just seconds away from being crushed as a huge pine tree crashed to the ground during a ferocious storm on Friday evening.

The woman was moving her car from a parking spot and saw the tree coming down so close to her that a branch scraped the front of her vehicle.

Another car next to where she had just moved away from was totally crushed.

Sueanne McGlashan's car was the one that ended up under the tree and she said the other woman was lucky to escape.

"She was in the car pulling back and she saw the tree falling and the tip of the tree touched the front of her car  she was that close. Her car would've been even worse than our car."

Sueanne and her family had been getting ready for a party when the storm hit. She described it as like being in a mini tornado. The marquee they were putting up was almost blown away and a caravan was shaken so badly that all the contents of its cupboards ended up on the floor. It was to be Tony and Marie Trilford's combined 50th and 40th birthday party and it was their former nanny, Coleen, that narrowly escaped from ending up under the tree.

"We heard this big crash that we thought was really serious thunder and then other guests came running around the corner to say the trees had just fallen," Sueanne says.

Coleen was pretty shaken up for the rest of night.

Some of the guests were on the way to the party and got trapped on the Rimutaka Hill Rd for an hour or two.

Not knowing the extent of the damage around the region, the hosts decided to notify guests and they cancelled the band. Of the 150 invited guests about 80 turned up and they had a get-together inside instead.

The car was insured and the clean up for the two large trees that blew down continued this week. A small truck delivering supplies for the party was also damaged by one of the falling trees.

"We were just pleased that nobody was in there and got hurt," Sueanne says.

The storm on Friday evening caused mayhem across many parts of Wairarapa. Emergency services received many calls about trees falling down and branches blocking roads.

- Wairarapa News