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Hope you guys are alright up that way.Just saw coverage on the news.Thinking of you.
Chris

I left work (in Albany) just before it hit. Experienced the downpour only.

Just checking out the news and footage now...it all looks pretty dramatic.

Yeah, Matt, was thinkin of you guys when I heard the news.

Missus works in the mall, fortunately left half an hour before it hit.....

MattG wrote:I left work (in Albany) just before it hit.

It must have been chasing you home then ... evidently it went from the Westfield Albany shopping centre (which seems to have been the worst hit area), through Albany and Glenfield, into Birkenhead, out into the Waitemata Harbour near Chelsea Sugar Refinery, and over into Ponsonby before dispersing.

It passed by only two streets away from us here in Albany - I heard heard a bang (which I thought was just the usual lightning hitting the nearby power sub-station) and then some real windy whistling, and when I looked out of my home-office window I easily saw it, but it was difficult to tell which way it was moving and how far off it was. After it disappeared from view we could hear all the sirens and helicopters, but didn't know how bad it was until the TV One News came on at 4:30pm.

Some of the houses on that nearby street have lost bits of their roof, fences, trees, windows, etc. and someone coming home later (past police blocks) told me there was a trampoline on top of another house. If it had been about twice as far away from us in that direction, it would have gone straight through one of the local schools right on home time.

In the news they have said two people up at the shops were reportedly killed by flying roof iron and quite a few injured, plus damage to buildings, cars, etc., an over-turned bus and lamp posts and traffic lights ripped out of the ground. Luckily there's a fire station, ambulance station and the main North Shore police station (as well asn the North Shore Legal Courts) all fairly close to the shopping mall so they all arrived very quickly.

Of course, that's all extremely minor compared to Christchurch's on-going problems.

Thinking of you all in North Auckland. I am relieved to read no one here was hurt, but what a scare! So sad that there were deaths. My heart goes out to those families whose loved ones never returned from their trip to the shops.

Tornadoes are such a freak occurrence here in NZ, it's something you always imagine happens far away, like the American Mid-West or South. What a terrifying natural phenomenon.

The one here was tiny compared to those in America - they get real skyscraper versions with massive power.

I think it also probably lost a lot of it's energy when it dropped over the big hill between here and the Albany Shopping Centre, but may have gained some back as it travelled further.

Someone I do work for lives in Glenfield and they said it went through the bottom fields of Glenfield College and then up their street - no real damage there apart from a few trees knocked over, leaves and rubbish everywhere, and some outside bits like plastic chairs missing from their back porch (from what they could see when they got home in the dark after work). Going through Glenfield College means we would have been very close in either of the previous two houses we lived in as well.

The sheer distance it travelled and mostly through fairly densely housed suburbs means it's amazing that it wasn't worse.