Jason Syms and his family narrowly escaped with just moments to spare as their Puketapu home became submerged in the early hours of Tuesday.
“It was biblical, all we need now is locusts.”
Syms woke at 5am to the sound of wind and rain.
At the time he recalls not being too worried, but little did he know that moments later he would be running for his life.
“The rain was really heavy, but it was, you know, everything was fine,” he says.
After getting back into bed, conditions outside rapidly got worse.
Tutaekuri River had burst its banks sending a tsunami of water into the valley and right into the direction of the Syms property.
“I started to hear a ‘glug glug’ type noise. I went back into the bathroom and looked outside, you couldn’t see anything but the sea,” he says.
“It was just absolute fear."
Syms says he knew he only had moments to react, realising that would be the difference between life and death for his family.
He woke up his wife Nicky and as she went to threw on the clothes nearest to her, Jason went to find his daughter and their two dogs.
At this point rising flood waters had started to breach their home which was three metres off the ground.
To make matters worse, the Syms’ family operate a caravan hire service and their property started to get surrounded by several edging closer to the house.
After looking out to see where was easiest to reach higher ground, the Syms family made a move.
“We got what we could together, we got to the end of the decking, but we had to drop down into rising water,” he says.
Jason managed to get his daughter and their two dogs across the rapidly increasing floods and onto the ridge of a hill.
He says by the time he got back to his wife, the caravans started swirling into a vortex.
“[They] started to become buoyant, they were moving towards us,” says Jason.
Jason and Nicky started to make their way through the waters while dodging the oncoming vehicles, all the while their daughter and two dogs watched on.
He was able to wrestle a caravan out of his wife’s direction as she jumped on the ridge.
The family then had to scale a fence, sodden and muddy, to get out of harm’s way.
It was at this point Jason turned back to look at his home, now completely underwater.
He says it was at this moment he realised if they had taken just a moment longer they would no longer be alive.
“I stood there just to look, that water came so quickly, if we had another couple of minutes we wouldn’t [be] here.”
He says he’s lived in Puketapu for 10 years and seen nothing like it.
“It’s absolute carnage.”
The Syms family made their way to safety, seeking refuge at one of three neighbouring properties on the hill.
Jason says while his family has lost everything, at least they still have their lives.
And another moment of hope on Wednesday.
“We have these big pine boxes that were complete submerged. I managed to open one yesterday and obviously everything was wet, but at the bottom, and I’m still going back to this, was uh…[emotional]… was my wedding album and an album of when my kids were younger,” he says.
“It was great.”
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