In the New Zealand city of Napier, black army helicopters hum overhead. Leonard Fleming has damp clothes, no food and faces a third night sleeping in his car with his dogs Beadle and Mika. Fleming knows he has likely lost everything he left behind when he fled his home in nearby Eskdale, Hawke’s Bay, ahead of Cyclone Gabrielle on Monday.
“I’ve never had my house burned to the ground but I imagine it’s the same thing,” he tells the Guardian over a crackling phone line; service to the area is recently restored but coverage is intermittent. “All you can do is run away and I started thinking this morning about all the stuff that I’ve lost.”
