I bought food and water for Cyclone Vaianu. What am I supposed to do with food and water?
As Cyclone Vaianu approached New Zealand, just about everyone who’d ever looked at cumulonimbus or even nimbostratus clouds warned it could cause widespread destruction. “It will hit hard, with a big impact on NZ,” said 1News. “Life-threatening weather set to hit North Island,” wrote the Herald. Metservice blanketed the North Island with wind warnings. The National Emergency Management Agency urged people to prepare now because “later on is too late“.
Then Sunday came and went, and few of the most dire warnings came to pass. Yes, people were left without power in Rotorua. Wastewater systems were damaged in the Coromandel and Gisborne. Paeroa was flooded. But thanks to Cyclone Vaianu passing slightly further to the country’s east than expected, it didn’t hit major population centres with the level of ferocity initially forecast. No-one was killed. There was no widespread destruction to homes or property.
This is an outrage. The next time I’m warned about a potentially deadly weather system, I expect to die or at least be maimed. As Newstalk ZB’s Nick Mills wrote yesterday, the alternative is to risk a “boy who cried wolf” effect where we become a country that “overreacts too quickly”. He was joined by his colleague Ryan Bridge, who fretted about “over hype”, and Wairoa mayor Craig Little, who blasted his region for its frankly “woke” efforts at cyclone preparedness.
These commentators have a point. There’s nothing worse than forecasters and authorities overstating a threat due to the notoriously difficult nature of perfectly predicting the weather. When they see a cyclone coming our way in future, these weather boffins should shut up until an hour before it hits in order to mitigate the risk of giving out inaccurate information, or at the least temper their advice to prepare with a couple of shrug emojis and the words “or don’t idk”.
There will, of course, be some who say it’s better to be safe than sorry. They might point to the 2023 Auckland anniversary weekend floods, where a lack of warning contributed to residents being caught in life-threatening situations or performing dangerous actions that would likely have been discouraged in a more comprehensive Civil Defence response. That weekend, four people died, 350 homes were destroyed and billions of dollars worth of damage was caused.
On the other hand, several cafes and shops were closed on Sunday that didn’t need to be. At an individual level, lots of people stocked up on food and water in preparation for the storm. Now those same people are faced with the conundrum of having to figure out what to do with the necessities of life. Personally I’ve been staring at a tin of beans trying to come up with a plan for two days. So far I’ve come up with burning them for warmth during the “properly cold” winter forecasters say we have coming up, only now I’m not sure whether to trust them on that prediction either. Thankfully the water may be of use putting out the bean fire in my living room.
But it’s not just food. What about the grab bags? What about the tarps or the sand bags? What about the batteries people bought for torches? In what other situation could batteries be useful?
On Tuesday, Civil Defence emergency management director John Price insisted our nation’s caution still ended up saving lives when the cyclone hit on the weekend. But it also mildly inconvenienced many people into sourcing supplies that might benefit them in the longer term. Thanks to the shrieks of the media, authorities and forecasters, thousands of New Zealanders have now unwillingly put together plans and bought gear that could help get them through the damaging weather events that are likely to hit with increasing frequency and severity in a warming world.
Never again. The next time a category three cyclone bears down on New Zealand with a cargo of potentially life-threatening winds and torrential rain, our authorities should hold their nerve and chill out until they’re absolutely certain of its final path across the nation. That may mean some people don’t evacuate when they need to or engage in measures that may save their homes or lives. But that’s a small price to pay to avoid overreaction. If the floodwaters rise, I’ll be at peace knowing I didn’t engage in woke weather prep. “At least the cafés didn’t close,” I’ll croak as I finally close my eyes and sink into the least overhyped state of them all, rigor mortis.
