Wild weather skirts Bay

JOE DAWSON

The storm that wreaked havoc throughout the north of the North Island at the weekend had lost much of its punch by the time it hit Hawke's Bay, but the region was not left unscathed.

Wind knocked a large tree across Middle Road in Havelock North over night on Saturday, blocking the road for about an hour, and the Clifton Bay Motor Camp lost yet more of its precious land yesterday.

But emergency services were largely breathing a sigh of relief this morning after the region copped only the edges of the storm.

Hastings fire station senior officer Bruno Saathof said the brigade had expected the worst, but in the end had a quiet weekend.

``While it was pretty rough on Saturday night, it didn't cause a flurry of incidents,' he said. ``I don't think the intensity was there.'

The Havelock North volunteer brigade assisted Higgins Contractors in clearing away the felled tree and deputy chief Rod Triplow said it was cleared up in about an hour.

At the Clifton Motor Camp, manager Mel Gudgeon said although established pohutukawa trees and 2m of coast was washed away when high tide came in yesterday, campers were counting themselves lucky.

The camp has been facing severe erosion problems all year and has lost 12m of campground so far.

``We're very lucky,' Mr Gudgeon said this morning. ``We have lost a few trees and a couple of metres off the camp, but it didn't reach the heights it was supposed to.'

Mr Gudgeon said the camp wasn't out of the woods yet.

``We consider ourselves very lucky, we just hope the storm on Wednesday is not too bad.'

Metservice forecast more heavy rain and gales for Hawke's Bay on Wednesday and Thursday.