Sheila McLean was saved by a kind stranger after she was spotted riding her scooter on a state highway in the dark following the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Wellington on Monday.
The resident at the Bayswater Retirement Village in Mt Maunganui had received a phone call from her daughter at 2am on Monday telling her to evacuate immediately after a Civil Defence alert was issued telling people in coastal areas to get to higher ground.
Heading for higher ground
Not seeing any lights or movement from the other 280 residents in her village, she jumped on her scooter and heads for the nearest evacuation point at Baypark Stadium.
Struggling to find the entrance, she drove along the highway until local woman Angela Neville stopped to offer her a ride.
Mrs McLean said she didn’t think the other residents in her village had their mobile phones on and that was why no one else evacuated. “We need a siren like in war times, people everywhere will hear it and know exactly what it means,” she told the New Zealand Herald.
Operations manager Joanne Coates-Reid from Metlifecare, which owns the village, said their villages did have disaster management plans in place. A staff member on duty on Monday had been checking the news reports and concluded there was no danger to residents.
Ryman village residents taken to safety
The earthquake also forced the evacuation of around 40 residents at the Malvina Major Retirement Village in Khandallah after a block was damaged at the village.
The owner Ryman Healthcare has moved most of the residents to its Bob Scott Village in Petone, with the others staying with family and friends.
