When he looked outside \u201cthere was like an inch of water\u201d.<\/p>\n
It was unsettling but not enough to trigger panic. Her husband lay with his feet off the end of the bed so he could feel if the water became any more threatening.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until just after 5am that the situation escalated. <\/p>\n
In the big new tent, Bekki Mills said she and her husband had also lain awake all night, alert to the weather and making sure their children didn\u2019t panic.<\/p>\n
At 5.01am, she checked her phone. <\/p>\n
\u201cI put my phone back down, and the ground was perfectly normal\u201d. <\/p>\n
But at 5.12am water was coming into the tent. <\/p>\n
\u201cI stepped out, and the water was almost up to my knees,\u201d Mills said.<\/p>\n
In George\u2019s tent, the rush was immediate.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of a sudden \u2026 the water just came into our tent, like ankle deep and everything in our tent was moving,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cLuckily, the kids were in bunks, so they were all out of the water, but our air mattresses were just bobbing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The end of the tent where the water was entering was \u201cbulging and buckling, and then the poles at that end just cracked\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mills said the tent was held up against their bunks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to open up the side of our tent to get the kids out and into the car.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the water rose, debris surged through the campsite. <\/p>\n
\u201cWithin minutes, it was just like we were in a river and the water was just rushing through, and anything that was on the ground was just washing away.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mills\u2019 husband ripped a hole in the back of the tent to get their children out as he could no longer reach the zips, which were hidden underwater with the bulging canvas.<\/p>\n
Mills was trying to stop a massive 100-litre chilly bin from smashing into her 13-year-old stepdaughter. <\/p>\n
She was also trying to hold a double air mattress, which was floating with the couple\u2019s three-year-old still asleep onboard it.<\/p>\n
The toddler was nearly enclosed as the tent collapsed around them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tent had been folded down \u2026 There was only like two feet of space that I had to then scoop him out of.\u201d<\/p>\n
The women said the water came down the hill behind their campsite and overran a small creek beside it. <\/p>\n
With their tents nearest the creek, the women said they had the most water out of the whole campsite.<\/p>\n
Three Kerikeri families were happily enjoying their first day camping together before a weather bomb descended. Photo \/ Supplied
In the early hours of Sunday, a river of muddy debris suddenly came crashing through the families’ campsite. Photo \/ Supplied <\/p>\n
They worried about their debris hurtling into others, so they hauled their tables, chairs, barbecues and bikes out of the flow and chucked them on their trailers.<\/p>\n
Other equipment was swept away or buried in mud. The distance many items travelled was \u201cinsane\u201d. Bekki\u2019s handbag was swept out to sea and later found on the beach.<\/p>\n
The flooding also left their belongings contaminated with sewage, as the water had also poured through the campground toilets.<\/p>\n
While most of the families\u2019 belongings were ruined, it was the loss of some of the children\u2019s Christmas presents that hit hardest. <\/p>\n
A cherished origami book from a grandma in England was found \u201csodden and stinking\u201d.<\/p>\n
Their belongings saturated or swept away, the families wanted to get home but were trapped in the area by a landslip. Photo \/ Supplied <\/p>\n
A couple in a campervan onsite came to check on them, but the women claimed campground staff were nowhere to be seen, which they said was disappointing. <\/p>\n
Two days after the event, the families say their emails and phone calls to the campground are yet to be answered. <\/p>\n
The Northern Advocate approached the campground for comment but has not yet heard back.<\/p>\n
Saturated with no dry clothes, they were all keen to get home but discovered they were marooned in the area because of a landslip. With no help nearby, Mills approached a house, the occupants of which took all of them in until the road reopened about 2.30pm.<\/p>\n
That local couple\u2019s kindness was \u201camazing,\u201d the women said. <\/p>\n
Sarah Curtis is a news reporter for the Northern Advocate, covering a wide range of issues. She has nearly 20 years\u2019 experience in journalism, mostly as a court reporter in Gisborne and on the East Coast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When he looked outside \u201cthere was like an inch of water\u201d. It was unsettling but not enough to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[76467,4995,80654,18987,15357,4749,28447,22857,5988,2893,16776,24925,19876,71,78,16571,6187,16507,1362,111,43,139,69,1118,1523,6739,119161,1361,165,2846,8229,1529,210,12637,115851,19873,376,4767,143055],"class_list":["post-244317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-akura","tag-away","tag-belongings","tag-camping","tag-campsite","tag-childrens","tag-describe","tag-escape","tag-families","tag-fear","tag-flash","tag-flood","tag-flooding","tag-from","tag-in","tag-kerikeri","tag-lives","tag-lucky","tag-made","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-over","tag-river","tag-tents","tag-that","tag-their","tag-them","tag-they","tag-three","tag-through","tag-together","tag-tore","tag-washed","tag-water","tag-weekend","tag-whangaruru"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}