EERIE MUSIC NZ has a legacy of deadly disasters. The whole party seemed to fall at once. Praying to God, cos I wanted to survive. Scary. Bloody scary. Disasters that shaped this country. Where I'm standing is where my grandfather got involved in the battle with the Turks. Two yachts were lost forever. The worst motoring accident in NZ history. Seven well known NZers retrace our darkest days, bringing history alive... YELLS: Help! ...through the eyes of descendants. It stayed with me. Probably always will. It was something that we will never ever forget. All of us. WIND GUSTS WAVES THUNDER In April 1968, NZ was about to be hit by a ferocious storm. In Wellington, weather forecasters were watching tropical cyclone Giselle as she moved south. But nothing prepared them for her arrival. On April 9th, the storm hit. Then, as she ripped down the country, gathering pace and strength, she left a trail of death and destruction in her wake. With violent winds of up to 260km/h, torrential rain and widespread flooding, the storm was on a scale most NZers had never seen before. Cyclone Giselle battered the country for almost a week. This grainy film is one of the enduring and iconic images of the storm ` the final moments of the inter-island ferry Wahine before she sank with a loss of 51 lives. My aunt and uncle were on board the Wahine, and their experiences would leave a deep, indelible mark on their lives. My aunt Susan has never really talked to me about her experiences that day, and in some ways, I've been afraid to ask. Many of the other people affected by Cyclone Giselle ` those back on land who were injured or lost their loved ones ` have never told their stories at all. SCREAMS: Help! As a meteorologist of nearly 30 years, I want to understand Cyclone Giselle better. Why was she so strong, and how did she keep getting stronger? What made this storm so unpredictable, and how did that contribute to the loss of so many lives? Now, nearly 50 years later, Cyclone Giselle remains NZ's most costly and deadly storm ever. TENSE MUSIC In 1968, television broadcasting in NZ was in its infancy. But this film footage is an incredible insight into Cyclone Giselle's fury. By April 8th, the MetService did know the tropical storm with gale-force winds was coming. But it hit with unexpected strength and speed. In Wellington, Debbie and Carla Bellis' mother had heeded warnings to stay inside and kept her two daughters home from school. In the South Island, a prophetic dream was about to become a real-life nightmare for my aunt and uncle. (GASPS) But it was in Northland where farmers Clarence and Sophie Taylor found themselves right in the path of the storm when it first hit NZ. TWANGY MUSIC Now their daughter Shirley is returning to the family farm near Kaitaia, where she grew up. What's it like being back on the farm after so many years? What's it like being back on the farm after so many years? Oh, it's wonderful. Real refreshing. Has it changed much? Has it changed much? Oh, much. Yeah. No cow shed, no wool shed, no pigsty. BOTH CHUCKLE Did you have to get up and milk the cows? Did you have to get up and milk the cows? No. Mum and Dad always did that. Oh, that's` You're lucky` Oh, that's` You're lucky` I only had one job to do, and that was to catch the horse. (CHUCKLES) What was his name? What was his name? Nugget. I used to ride him everywhere. Dad used to take me out on the weekends with him, cos I pestered him that much. He would say, 'Well, go and get your gumboots on.' (CHUCKLES) We'd just go all over the farm, and he may be grubbing blackberries or checking on the sheep. So you loved hanging out with your dad? So you loved hanging out with your dad? Oh yes. Yeah. Very much. He was a very nice chap. When Cyclone Giselle struck, Shirley was living in Whangarei with her own family. What do you know about the accident? They heard that a storm was coming, and cos Dad had his hay, uh, 'bout a kilometre up the road, and him and mum rushed up there with tarpaulins and sheets of iron, and of course Dad wouldn't stop for anything. He had to keep going till he got things done. And of course he would have been puffing and huffing when he got up there. Why did he have to rush up to put the covers on? Why did he have to rush up to put the covers on? Well, they weren't rich. You know, they worked hard on the farm, but they weren't rich, and, I mean, saving that hay was most important to him. So he was saving his livelihood? So he was saving his livelihood? Oh, he was. Yeah. He was. Dad got on to the haystack to cover it. Mum was getting the iron up to him, and he was laying it on top. The wind started to get up, and Mum yelled out to Dad that the sheet of iron was coming at him. And he jumped, and that was it. He was gone when he hit the ground. SOMBRE MUSIC He would have been` It would have been his heart. The shock of it, I think, seeing the iron coming at him was what did it. Mum went straight to him, and she knew he'd gone. So she had to come all the way home to ring up, and then she had to go back up there and just sit with him till the help come. She was very strong but upset. It would have been very difficult for her. It would have been very difficult for her. Oh, it was. After the accident, a knock at the door brought Shirley the shocking news. They had rung my neighbour, and she'd came up to tell me. And I said to her, 'No, it wasn't true,' because I'd only been talking to them two or three hours before. And she said, 'Well, um, it is true.' Of course, then I went to pieces. I rung Mum, and of course then we were both gone to pieces then. I wanted to get up here as soon as I could, cos we travelled by bus in those days. So it was a couple of days later before I got up here. Shirley's mother continued to run the farm almost single-handedly until the strain of losing Clarence took over. Took about a year to sell, and that was the day she went into hospital. And she never came out. Two weeks later, she was gone. She was riddled with cancer. So you lost both of your parents in the space of a year? A year. That's right. Even now, I still miss them. POIGNANT MUSIC Cyclone Giselle had revealed her dark side, but she was only just getting started. By the evening of April 9th, the storm was racing down the country, and the east coast of the North Island would be next to feel her fury. The storm cut a swathe through the Coromandel, Bay of Plenty and Hawke's Bay,... Here we are. ...causing flooding, power cuts and widespread damage. This was clearly a once-in-a-lifetime storm, with many left to the mercy of Mother Nature, and others with lucky escapes. Like here in Waihi, a woman was swept across her lounge as the sea pushed through the side of her house. With record low pressure and at one stage moving at over 70km/h, the Bay of Plenty, East Cape and Hawke's Bay were next in Cyclone Giselle's sights. What have we got here? For the patients and staff at Cook Hospital in Gisborne, April 9th would be a night they would never forget. It was wild, basically. Really wild. There was one ward, and it had a corrugated iron roof. The iron flew at speed along past the women's surgical ward, where all the elderly ladies who had fractured their femurs were tied into their beds. They were petrified. This one here shows you ward eight. It shows you the absolute devastation. There was no choice but to evacuate. The roof is off. They were going to get wet if they'd stayed. It must have been absolutely petrifying for the patients. Irons flying everywhere. They took them in beds. It wasn't just putting them down the corridor? Oh, it wasn't putting them down a corridor. Ward eight was a separate ward. DRAMATIC MUSIC WIND GUSTS They came from here over to this building here... They came from here over to this building here... < Oh right. ...and into the TB ward. So what was the risk of bringing together all of these patients with different infectious diseases? Oh, it would be huge. TB is spread by breathing it in. Um, typhoid is spread by touching. There was only one main road to the hospital, and that was lined with gum trees. And the gum trees came down in the storm. You've got power lines lying all over the road. Road was totally electrified, totally impassable. The hospital was` was basically cut off. Gisborne fared really badly. There was damage everywhere you looked. But it was in Wellington where Giselle would reach her furious worst. In 1968, these houses were part of a new subdivision high on the hills above Wellington. Many of them are built by young newlywed couples like John Laker and his wife, Hillary. They'd only moved into their new home a few months before Cyclone Giselle struck. Whoa. (LAUGHS) John's now returning to the house for the first time in over 40 years. It was still dark, and we were woken up by this incredible noise, and next door's house was pulsating, like a giant heart. Bits of the roof started to come off. I actually saw it start to disintegrate, start to explode. It was as though it was a slow-motion movie and somebody had put a bomb inside it. And it sort of... blew out slowly. CRASHING It was` It was quite extraordinary. The wind was getting up, and our house was literally creaking backwards and forwards. But there was another noise, and it was coming from the roof. METAL CREAKS LOUDLY With the nails screaming as the tin tried to pull them out, it was extremely upsetting. Hillary was three months pregnant, and we went out, down the side of the house, but as soon as we got round the other side, we're battling against this wind, which I had never experienced in my life. So we crawled up through here, sort of commando-style down on all fours until we got to roughly about here, and then we ran across the road, trying to avoid the debris, until we got to the lee of this hill up here. So even though it was such a short trip, it would have been quite dangerous, with the wood and the roofing iron flying around. Yeah, it was probably one of the scariest parts of actually getting out of the house. Although they made it safely to their neighbour's house, they could only watch as their own home began disintegrating in front of them. Hillary was looking out the window and watched the roof peel off in one huge piece. And what's when she fainted. And what's when she fainted. Peeled off your house? And what's when she fainted. Peeled off your house? Peeled off the house. It was something absolutely dreadful, because this was our first house, in a new country. And we came back to this. It's a mess. It's a mess. But there was only half the house left. Total destruction. Total destruction. I wasn't sure where it had gone. POIGNANT MUSIC Stunned and lucky to be alive, John and Hillary's house was a write-off. The wind got in to this, and it actually picked this up, twisted it around, and... It was completely destroyed. Look at that. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like a tornado has gone through there. Apart from seeing this incredible destruction, we were homeless. But why had Cyclone Giselle got so much stronger in Wellington when she should have been dying out? WIND GUSTS Since making landfall on the morning of April 9th 1968, Cyclone Giselle had surprised many with her speed and ferocity. But even more surprising ` the storm appeared to be getting stronger, and emergency services were stretched to the limit. SIRENS WAIL Meanwhile, at the MetService's head office in Wellington, weather forecasters were desperately trying to predict the storm's next move. But for Alex Neale, just getting to the office was a challenge. So you walked down this path, you came in here... And I realised with the wind funnelling out of the alleyway, I was in danger of being blown over the bank there if I didn't hang on to something. So I made for the corner of the building, hung on to the groove here. So you hung on like this and the wind was racing through? So you hung on like this and the wind was racing through? The wind was racing through there. I looked up, and a colleague of mine was hanging on to a railing, waiting for an opportunity to come down the path. Such violent conditions made it clear the weather was far worse than forecast. Once inside, Alex focused on getting a new forecast out. We were anxious to get out an amended forecast from about 7.30 in the morning. And we tried to get Radio NZ to put in an extra forecast, but they were under strict orders that under no circumstances should they change the prearranged programme. RAIN PATTERS With roads impassable and traffic in chaos, the only person who could authorise the change couldn't be contacted. So at that stage when it went out it was actually out of date? Yes. Yes. I can't believe the bureaucracy! It must have been frustrating not being able to put that broadcast out. It was, yes, because we felt we had something that was people should know about but there was just no way we could do it. Compounding things further, the storm had changed direction overnight, and Wellington was now in the direct line of fire. You'd think it would come out here towards the Chatham Islands. You'd think it would come out here towards the Chatham Islands. You would think it would come here. Yes. Yes. But it became apparent it was not exiting the North Island. It's really just turned a corner, and it's heading straight south, isn't it? That looks quite unusual. But rather than weakening as it moved south, Cyclone Giselle was getting stronger. The warm tropical low was met by a cold Antarctic system, creating a perfect storm. One big thing that we didn't know about was the amount of cold air, which was starting to come up from the south to move into the Tasman Sea at the same time as the warm air associated with the tropical low came southwards. It was a clash between these two systems. It basically got invigorated again, didn't it? It did. Just how intense it was going to react was crucial to the development of the storm. And it all came together right over Wellington. And it all came together right over Wellington. Yes. If you look at these newspaper photos from the day, the gusts were 145 knots, so over 250km/h. That is massive. Apparently the winds were so strong that they sandblasted the paint off cars. So these gusts up here ` they're up around hurricane force? So these gusts up here ` they're up around hurricane force? Yes. They're off the scale. It's incredible. I don't think either before or since have they gone off the scale. Alex and his colleagues were also limited by the amount and accuracy of the data they received. Surrounded by oceans, at the time NZ relied on passing ships for a lot of their weather readings and observations. It's so different today. Now we have weather buoys, we have satellites. We have information coming in from round the world minute by minute. We've got so much information now sensed by satellite. The broad picture ` it's very difficult to get it too far wrong. But in April 1968, Cyclone Giselle raged on, and in Wellington's Hutt Valley, houses and businesses were taking a battering, including this former biscuit factory. At the time, John Bain's father was working a second job here as a transport manager. This is the first time I've been since it ever happened. I mean, I've seen a few accidents in my day but I haven't never been to where,... yeah, my father had, uh, died. In 1968, Bert and Helen Bain ran a local Four Square store, and along with their children, they were well known in the community. So, did your father get on well with the customers? So, did your father get on well with the customers? He did. Yeah. He was well liked? He was well liked? He was well liked. He was always helping. If anyone else wanted a hand, he would be only too willing to go. Sounds like a good guy... Sounds like a good guy... Yeah. Yeah, he was. Bert had survived the war and three POW camps, but it was his second job at the biscuit factory that put this life on the line. They had biscuit skips, and they were being blown into the stream, and the council wanted them taken down. So the containers were being blown into the stream from round this area somewhere. The river would have been a lot higher? I'd say the river would have been just up to those little trees there. A crane was brought in, and Bert offered to help the driver to move the biscuit skips to safety. WIND BLOWS It was dangerous work, and as they began lifting them, winds at the site were gusting at around 140km/h and growing. They managed to move several skips before the unthinkable happened. And the crane driver said one minute he was there, and the next minute he was gone. So he was just blown off? So he was just blown off? Blown off the top of the container. Must have been a ferocious gust to actually pick up a grown man and fling him. It was just that Dad was in the wrong place at the wrong time. SOMBRE MUSIC Bert was thrown right over the fence and into the stream. SCREAMS: Help! His colleagues rushed to help. An ambulance was called, but it was swamped by floodwaters, so Bert was rushed to hospital in a company truck. I can still see him lying in bed. He was all white, and he had these things beside his bed where all the tubes and stuff went into him. He kind of wriggled his head, but he didn't speak, but he could blink. Bert had inhaled water from the stream and developed a condition known as aspiration pneumonia. I think we all knew he wasn't coming home. You got to say goodbye? You got to say goodbye? We got to say goodbye, and, yeah, and it was... hard just seeing him lying there. Bert suffered a fatal heart attack the following morning. One thing he always said to me, and I can see it now and I can hear it now, is that, 'You...' EMOTIONALLY: 'You kiss your Mum and sisters and that goodbye before you go to work or go away, 'because you'll never know the day you might not come home.' 'because you'll never know the day you might not come home.' He actually said that to you? I can remember it now. And, uh, by gee it was true. Cyclone Giselle robbed John Bain of a father, and the storm hospitalised hundreds more. But at the entrance to Wellington harbour, the storm's deadliest blow was already unfolding aboard the inter-island ferry Wahine. The fate of many lives at sea and on land was at the mercy of the weather. WIND GUSTS, WAVES CRASH As Cyclone Giselle hit Wellington on April 10th 1968, her record-breaking winds were reaching their peak at around 9am. For the Bellis family, these cyclone-force winds would deal a devastating blow. UNSETTLING MUSIC Now Erika Bellis and her daughter Carla are returning to the house where their lives were torn apart. EMOTIVE MUSIC You haven't been here for a long time, have you? So you haven't been back here for, what, 40-odd years, Carla? > So you haven't been back here for, what, 40-odd years, Carla? > No, I haven't. Wow, it's just the same. On the morning of the storm, Carla and her sister, Debbie, were reading in their younger brother Chester's bedroom. Mm. Yeah, that was the room,... and that was the window. So, Erika, can you tell me what happened that morning? It was a windy day, but I didn't think it was any worse than any other. The radio said something about not to let anyone out unless they really have to. So Debbie just came running in, and I said, 'You don't have to go to school.' And she jumped around my waist and said, 'I love you all the stars.' She was so happy not to go to school. The windows were swaying, and I said, 'Go in the other room.' I put them in the little bedroom. I went out, made the breakfast, when my next-door neighbour's roof was just lifted up and taken right across my backyard and deposited out there by my clothesline, in one piece. I raced out to scream out, 'Sylvia, Ron, are you OK?' And they said 'Yes'. So I rushed into the bedroom... and found Carla slumped at the table and... (VOICE BREAKS) Debbie gone. There was a piece of 4X2 with a piece of steel on it where you nail to the roof to, and Debbie got that and Carla got the timber. It just had that cut through in the window, nothing else. It wasn't even shattered, the rest. It was from the house on the other side of the road. I grabbed Debbie and ran to the phone and rang the ambulance. Hello? And they didn't arrive, and I tried to ring again, and the phones had gone dead. So I just went in the little room,... EMOTIONALLY: and I sat on the little stools with Debbie and an arm around Carla until they'd come. I've never said that before. (SOBS) Erika's son, Chester, who had also been in the bedroom, was nowhere to be seen. And I called out, 'Chester,' while they had taken Debbie and Carla in the ambulance, and he came out of the wardrobe. He must've seen what had happened and gone hiding. So did Debbie pass away in your arms? So did Debbie pass away in your arms? She did, yes. EMOTIVE MUSIC Erika, I'm so sorry. Debbie ` she was very beautiful, but she was very mischievous. She used to pinch things from Carla. She wanted to be like Carla. She said, 'I wanted to be grown up.' Consumed by grief, Erika rushed to Wellington Hospital, where Carla was in a serious condition. Carla had an operation lasting eight or nine hours. All this side of the head was full of splinters that the timber that'd came through smashed all the bone. Carla was in a coma for a month until something miraculous happened. Carla went like this... and sat up, and I said, 'Get some food.' She loved food. and sat up, and I said, 'Get some food.' She loved food. (LAUGHS) She loved eating. She just loved eating. So I'll never forget it. They came with a tray that somebody had left, and it was tomato soup and a piece of toast that they already had a piece out of ` they just must've taken it quick and brought it. And Carla went like this,... CARLA AND KAREN LAUGH CARLA AND KAREN LAUGH ...and she took the` Honestly, that's what she did. And I said, 'She knows it's going to her mouth. She's going to be fine.' And it was such a beautiful sight. It was the beginning of healing. But Carla's recovery was slow. With her head injury and the shock of the accident, she didn't speak for more than two years. Do you remember struggling to speak? Do you remember struggling to speak? Yeah. Yeah, I do. And, you know, how did that feel to you? Frustrating, very frustrating, just wanting to talk. You're wanting to talk but not being able to. You're wanting to talk but not being able to. Yeah. Mm. Carla's school and community rallied around her, but Erika's healing took much longer. A turning point came years later when she reread the hundreds of sympathy cards she'd received after Debbie's death. We decided to read them over a few nights in front of the fire and read them all out loud, and burnt them as we went along, but... EMOTIONALLY: we didn't burn the memories of those people who sent them. No. > It was actually a very healing process. POIGNANT MUSIC I knew I was going to be hearing of stories of loss, but to listen to a mother explain how her daughter passed away in her arms, for me personally, I can't think of anything worse. But the bleak tragedies on land were about to be overshadowed by another at sea. The inter-island ferry Wahine struck Barrett Reef at the entrance to Wellington Harbour just after 6.30am that morning. By the end of the day, 51 of her passengers would be dead. WIND GUSTS, WAVES CRASH Cyclone Giselle caused chaos and tragedy throughout the North Island, but her most lethal blow would happen at sea. Just after 6.30am on April the 10th 1968, the inter-island ferry Wahine struck Barrett Reef. In the driving southerly, the crippled ship drifted up the harbour until she was just off Seatoun Beach. I can't believe the Wahine was so close to shore but many of the passengers were swept all the way across the harbour over to Eastbourne. My aunt Susan was one of these unlucky passengers. She was travelling with my Uncle Peter on their honeymoon, but in the rush to abandon ship, they became separated. When Susan washed ashore at Eastbourne, she was on her own. I came in, and it was another survivor who actually came out to rescue me because I couldn't get in with the undertow, and we'd come in so far and then whoosh out again. I was fighting for my life then, and that was quite terrifying, not being able to make land and not being able to make the shore. I knew the rocks were there; didn't see anyone on them. It wasn't until we got onshore and I'm sure it was out there closer, that I started to see bodies. POIGNANT MUSIC Lucky to be alive, Susan was taken to an emergency centre at a local women's club, but she had no idea what had happened to her new husband, Peter. I was sitting down this end here. Oh wow. Because there was lots of people here. They dressed us, because I'd lost my trousers and my boots, and I remember the place being full. As the shock of survival dawned, Susan became desperate for news of Peter. They came around and asked if there was anybody we would like to phone, and I said, 'Yeah, Mum and Dad.' But by then, the lines were down, so Mum and Dad got a telegram, and that's what I said,... READS: 'Ask if Peter rang. Tell him I am OK, not to worry. Susan.' Tell me a bit about Uncle Peter. Tell me a bit about Uncle Peter. Well, when my mother, your nana, met him, she called him a loveable rogue because he had wonderful manners and kissed her hand and all this sort of business, you know, like a Hungarian would. We got married at St Michaels. Oh yes. Here's a` Here's a photo of me. Oh yes. Here's a` Here's a photo of me. You were giving me the horseshoe. Yeah. They honeymooned around the South Island, but when they heard about an impending storm, they brought their ferry booking forward to try and avoid it. But an eerily prophetic dream about Peter put Susan on edge. On my honeymoon, I had a nightmare, and it was that the ship had sunk and he was dead on the bottom of the sea. He had a blue suit on, and his eyes were open, and in the dream I was wearing a pink twin set. As the Wahine neared Wellington Harbour on the morning of the storm, Susan realised she was wearing that same pink twinset. I was awake and dressed fairly early, and I was just standing there, and the next minute I was flying in the little cabin. And I wasn't aware then that the boat had hit Barrett Reef, and we found out later that it had torn a hole in its hull. Passengers were told to put on life jackets, and despite the cyclone-force winds and huge seas, they were reassured they were safe. But as the hours passed, the Wahine began to list dangerously, and the Captain ordered passengers to abandon ship. They were starting to throw the rubber rafts out, and, um, Peter and I were helping the older people. They were frightened. The seas were still amazingly stormy. People were having their limbs broken. I didn't know I was going to jump, just did it and pleaded with Peter to jump down with me, but he wouldn't, and that was awful. I was sitting on the ridge... of the rubber raft, wishing and praying to God, because I wanted to survive, to experience having children. I wanted children. And... And that's what was going through your mind? > And that's what was going through your mind? > Yep. By then we were having these huge seas behind us, and not long after that, we went ` we capsized. I remember rolling and rolling and rolling and rolling and then popping up and thinking, 'I'd better try and swim.' But with the life jacket on, you couldn't swim, so I just waited. I don't know how long I was in the water. I was so fortunate because I came into a little bay. Of the 51 passengers who died that day, most met their deaths along the deserted and rugged Eastbourne coast. By the time official rescue efforts reached them, for many, it was too late. The last you saw of Peter, he was` He was still on the boat. He was still on the boat. He was still on the boat? He was still on the boat. He was still on the boat? He was still on the boat. Yeah. Do you know why he wouldn't get in the life raft with you? He wasn't scared. He just thought, um, you know nothing would happen, that there's Seatoun, that he'd be looked after. Susan was taken to Wellington Railway Station, where survivors were being assembled. They were chaotic scenes, but amongst it all she finally spotted her new husband. I found Peter, and I walked up to him, and I felt very let down that he hadn't taken me in his arms, said, 'Oh I'm so happy that you're alive and you're safe. It's been so long. 'I didn't know what had happened to you.' Nothing, zilch, nada. How did he react when you told him what you'd gone through? Nothing. There was... It was like that with everyone ` 'Oh it's OK now. You're here. Get on with it.' But it wasn't OK. It affected me for years. I had these repetitive nightmares right up until the '80s. Well, I mean now they call it post-traumatic stress, but back in those days, they wouldn't have thought about that. You know, it's there. If you want to ask me, ask me. But nobody seems to want to ask. A lot of it is... Yeah. Yeah. ...probably trying not to upset you... ...or bring back memories that are` ...or bring back memories that are` Yeah. ...really really hard to deal with. Mm. But a turning point in Susan's recovery came when she heard of other survivors whose experiences mirrored her own. I felt a great release because the people were saying exactly what I was saying. I thought I'd imagined it, because, you know, you don't know, and I thought, 'Well, maybe it wasn't as bad as it seemed to be.' So you overcame it because you saw that other people had been suffering, and you realised it was normal, and... Yeah, I always thought... Yeah, I always thought... You weren't alone? Yeah, I always thought... You weren't alone? Yeah. Susan went on to have three children, but after 27 years of marriage, she and Peter separated. For Susan, the traumatic experiences of that day were never far from her mind. So how's it feeling being back here today? It doesn't bother me any more. Um, I laid my ghosts many years ago. It, um, messed with my life for a long, long time, but I finally got over it, and I can now come out here and see the beauty of it all. That's good. (CHUCKLES) Cyclone Giselle left hundreds of Wahine survivors with a legacy of trauma and grief, but its clash with a cold southerly over Wellington had also given the storm re-invigorated strength. The South Island would be next to feel Cyclone Giselle's fury. Cyclone Giselle is synonymous with the sinking of the inter-island ferry Wahine on April 10th, 1968. Among those who rose to the challenge during the disaster were NZ's pioneering television broadcasters. Reporter Fred Cockram was part of the team whose coverage put NZ on the world stage. It's all laced up, ready to go. You've not seen this before? It's all laced up, ready to go. You've not seen this before? Not the raw footage, no. ARCHIVE: Tragedy today in Wellington harbour. We normally would've opened the news with the theme, but in view of the dramatic nature of this, we didn't feel that that was appropriate, so we just used that rather dramatic shot. Now, what exactly happened? Now, what exactly happened? Well, we` at quarter past 6, half past 6, we were` had a` over the intercom, we had instructions for the passengers` Get in the van, boy. Get in the van, boy. ...to put on their life jackets. We all thought there was no danger of it sinking, actually, and they had cups of tea and sandwiches, all that sort of thing. It wasn't until the last few hours that she started to really go. They were trying to get access to some survivors. Some,... well, they seemed very keen to talk about it at the time. What was it like in the lifeboat? It was good when you were in it. But I got into a raft, and it was punctured. It collapsed. We all had to bail out of the raft to the lifeboats. Was it cut before it hit the water? It was punctured before it got in the water. Quite a few of us got in it. Was that a different approach to actually go out and put a microphone in somebody's face? I think everything was a new way of doing things. Television news certainly was barely established. We were still, to some degree, flying by the seat of our pants. ARCHIVE: Wellington's entire ambulance fleet stood by as the serious cases were brought in. We lost up to a third of all the footage that was shot in the cameras because of water damage, and maybe half of the rest was damaged in the processor because the power kept going out. It stayed in the soup too long and, uh, became unusable. So before you heard about the Wahine sinking, how big a story was the storm? It started out as a storm story, then it became a bad storm story, and then it became a ship in trouble, and then it became a ship sinking, and then it became deaths. So it built during the day. DRAMATIC MUSIC In those days, of course, we didn't have network. Each of the four main centres had their own television studios transmitting their own news. We had no way of getting that footage out on the day of the Wahine storm, but the other centres were clamouring for it. In Christchurch, they had the amazingly good idea of sending a camera crew north to Kaikoura, which received the Wellington transmission, and they literally pointed their camera at a television set and recorded our news, drove it back to Christchurch and put that on the air that night. Oh, brilliant. SOMBRE MUSIC The South Island felt cyclone Giselle's strength as well. Her lethal winds took two more lives as the storm passed east of the Canterbury Coast. But it was the torrential rain that caused the most widespread damage. In Southland large parts of the region were flooded, including the towns of Wyndham and Gore. Coverage of the storm and the sinking of the Wahine went on to win an international broadcasting award and marked a coming of age for NZ. This was certainly the most dramatic event that television news had had to cope with since it had been established in NZ, but it also involved the country emotionally. The general population were almost part of an event in a way that hadn't been possible in NZ before. After battering the country for almost a week, Cyclone Giselle finally abated. She'd cut a path of destruction the length of the country, and insurance claims ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Cyclone Giselle claimed seven lives from Kaitaia to Stewart Island, and hundreds more had been injured or hospitalised. The final death toll from the Wahine was 53. I've spent a large part of my career forecasting the weather, and so I know how important it is to get it right. So many people's livelihoods, and at times, lives, depend on it. We're getting better at weather forecasting, and we're definitely better at getting those forecasts out to the people that need them, but could another Cyclone Giselle happen? Absolutely. I mean just last year, we were struck with a storm eerily similar to Giselle. The difference was we knew it was coming, and we knew what it was capable of. Those people who lost their lives in Cyclone Giselle are a terrible reminder of Mother Nature's fury, and I hope that by never forgetting events like it, we can ensure that the records she set for widespread death and destruction are never broken again. Captions by June Yeow. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2015