Dani Simpson and her daughter were upstairs quietly chatting on Saturday morning, unaware they were seconds away from a tornado ripping the roof off their house.

It was one of those peaceful weekend mornings in the coastal village of Waihī Beach, with hardly anyone stirring yet.

'I was still in bed, my daughter had come upstairs, we were just talking, and I was actually complaining about what a crap summer we've had,” says Dani.

Tornado at Waihi Beach on Saturday morning, February 25. Photo: Shelz Lynette.

"Then I looked out the window past Emma and said ‘What's that?” it was like sand swirling around.

'Next thing my husband Chris started to yell to us girls to get downstairs as quickly as possible because it was a tornado.”

Dani says the noise the tornado made while they waited downstairs for it to pass was like a train.

'It was horrendously loud. I was worried the windows would shatter. They didn't obviously, but then Chris went outside, he was just standing on the front lawn and saying the whole roof is gone.”

She says while inside, they weren't aware that the roof had lifted.

'We went back upstairs and could see, weirdly, blue sky through the manhole in the bathroom. But we didn't really realize the extent of it until he went outside to take a look.”

In about 20 seconds the tornado had torn off the roofing iron which could now be seen a few houses away.

'The whole lot came off, the whole roof.”

Oddly, a glasshouse 30 meters away, full of growing vegetables was completely untouched. As was a little pot plant sitting on the top of Dani's fence at the back of the house.

Emergency services responding to powerlines down and roofs torn off in Seaforth Road, Waihi Beach. Photo: Dani Simpson.

Emergency services responded very quickly.

'They were awesome because obviously power lines were down, so they made sure that everyone was kept away from those and that it was safe.”

Over 1000 properties had a power outage, with ‘Tornado' being the listed cause on the PowerCo website, probably a historic first for the village. Dani says the power came back on about 24 hours later.

Builders and scaffolders give up their Saturday to help

Dani and Chris moved into Seaforth Road about a year ago and have been building a new house with Oswald Homes.

'This one is a temporary base while we were building further up the north end. So we knew Greg Oswald and his crew. My husband rang him and he was here in a matter of minutes along with his guys.

'They got straight away into securing it. And the guys from Katikati Scaffolding were here superfast, it's just been amazing.”

Oswald Home builders and Katikati Scaffolding came to help. Photo: Dani Simpson.

Builder Greg Oswald lives just north of the Waihī Beach village and that morning had watched as one tornado came through about 500 metres away from his house.

'I was upstairs looking out the window, and said to my wife it looks weird, looks like a water spout. I've seen a few of them before in the past. The next thing we know, we see these big water spouts start touching down just out off the coast.”

They watched as the waterspouts got closer, coming towards them.

'Then my mum, who just lives up the hill rung and she said 'take cover there's a big tornado coming for you”. Through the window I could see a whole lot of debris and stuff getting ripped off, obviously off roofs up the crescent. It went flying away up into the air.

'At that point we grabbed the young feller and went downstairs.”

Greg could still see it out the window, with debris flying.

'There were bits of building paper, pink bats and shoes. And couch pillows, lilos, boogie boards and stuff - raining down on the street for a couple minutes, which was a pretty surreal thing to witness.”

Then his phone rang.

'I know Chris and Dani. They bought that house as we started to build their new house for them. Dani just says 'the roof's gone”. I said 'what do you mean the roof's gone?”

'He said 'the whole thing is gone”. I thought 'holy moly”. So I jumped on the phone straight away and rung a couple of the guys that work for me and just said 'Hey, what's everyone doing? Anyone give us a hand?” Two of the guys, and one of my workers' friends, they said 'yeah, yeah, sweet, we'll give you a hand”."

The house in Seaforth Road following the tornado. Photo: Connor Hendrie.

'We shot down and had a look and I couldn't believe it. Because it wasn't just the roofing iron, it was the roof, the purlins, all the paper, the netting, and even bits of the trusses and the cross members and stuff had just been ripped out. Four or five of the trusses had been ripped out with it.”

Roping in mates

'While I was there looking, a friend of mine, Mike, who owns the Bowentown holiday park, just happened to be driving past. I waved him down, and said 'Mike, you got a spare trailer I can use? I need to get some timber and stuff.”

'He was like 'yep, sweet”. So I shot down to the holiday park and grabbed that off him. While I was driving my worker phoned another friend of ours and said, 'Hey, you got any big tarps” and he said 'I don't, but my mate's got some”.”

Greg and his team went into Waihī and rounded up a lot of gear and worked fast to try and get the house covered up as quickly as possible.

'Because who knew what was going to happen for the rest of the day.”

At that point, he says the weather fined up.

'We were pretty lucky to be able to get into it and get it somewhat repaired. But the roof has suffered some serious damage. Probably have to rip the whole roof off the house, I would say. And some of the cladding, just to repair it.”

Greg rang Mark from Katikati Scaffolding.

'I've been dealing with him a long time and know him fairly well, and I just said 'Mark, what's the chances of getting some scaff put up here as quick as possible? This is a major”. He rang me back said he could probably do something like today or Thursday.” I said it's going to be too late by Thursday, so he said, leave it with me.

'He rang me back probably within 20 minutes and said he'd got a crew and they'll be there in an hour. They loaded up, came out and started putting up the scaffold.”

Scaffolding being erected by Katikati Scaffolding. Photo: Dani Simpson.

By then Greg had decided they needed to fully enclose the house.

'Obviously, because we need to get engineers through and council before we can do any repairs. It was pretty severe. You can't really comprehend seeing that, just so devastating for Chris and Dani who only moved into the house about three weeks ago. Super unfortunate for them.”

The tornado had left a trail of debris.

'We were picking up roofing iron and stuff and timber over on Hanlon Ave, which is a street to the west from Seaforth Road. We saw bits of purlins and bits of framing timber sticking out of people's sheds.

'How no one got hurt or killed I don't know.”

He had finished building another house on Seaforth Road about a year ago.

'I was straight onto the phone to them and checking to make sure they were okay as well. And if they still had their house and what was going on with them.”

He says it's a 'pretty tight-knit” community at Waihi Beach.

'There were quite a few other builders that I know that jumped up and put their hands up to help people, out fixing roads and stuff on Dillon Street. No one had really dealt with it before, so it was a bit of a panic and working out what do we actually do in this situation.

'A bit of instincts kicked in and let's just get it covered up the best we can, strap it down and get some scaffold put up as quick as possible. Get the house somewhat waterproof because I know it wasn't just a case of putting some iron back on the roof. It's fairly major.”

Wrapping the house in large plastic enables time to assess the damage, although unfortunately the house did suffer water damage.

'I feel so sorry for Chris and Dani. It's very unfortunate. They moved here about a year ago and recently bought the property. And they're getting another house built.”

A meeting has been arranged on Thursday with the assessors and engineers.

With the roof being ripped off, either end of the gable has been pulled over up to about 50 mm in a few places. Greg says seven out of the 12 trusses have been fully ripped out.

'Once engineers have checked it and council has okayed what they've checked, then we can go back in and start to repair it.”

Greg says he saw another four houses at Waihī Beach that had sections of their roofs ripped off following the tornado.

'Also trees down on a car, there was just carnage everywhere. We've got friends that have an orchard on Capamagian Drive, and you can literally just draw a line through their orchard where the tornado went and just bowled over the shelter belt, snapped off older, mature avocado plants, and then through the shelter belt on the other side. It was pretty crazy.”

Greg is a second generation builder in Waihī Beach and the Katikati area, as his dad has been a builder there too for 30 years.

'Dad was down there helping us out as well, and like all of us had never really seen anything like that.”

Dani says they are immensely thankful for the help on Saturday.

'We're just really grateful to Greg and his guys, and Katikati Scaffolders, and the lovely friends we've made since we've lived at the beach. They just rallied around, just amazing support in a community like this. It's very special.”