Storm Aftermath

I got a big fright yesterday when someone told me they'd heard on the radio, that the area where my mum lives was being evacuated.

Scary because, due to my late dad's insecurity, my mother was never allowed to learn English. She's made up for it a little since he died, but her English is limited to getting really good bargains with retailers.

So I rang the Civil Defense office in town to find out whether it was true. I probably should have done that before ringing my mother and asking her whether she'd been asked to leave her home....

Anyway, it turned out to be a false alarm - there was some surface flooding in a different part of her suburb, but the water was receding and no-one had to evacuate.

It reminds me of the time Cyclone Bola struck, leaving devastation all over the lower North Island. I was holidaying in the South Island at the time, and only heard about the cyclone on the news. Worried that I'd get home and find no home and no job, I rung home in a panic. Only to be reassured that my home town was pretty much untouched. Phew.