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Here we are team, 12 months on from the storm that blew the blue blazes across Southland.
For me it seemed like an ordinary October day when I headed to work for a 7.30 start. Little did I know that pretty much everything would be turned on its head by lunchtime.
I recall hearing and feeling the wind as it picked up through the morning saying to myself. "gee, it's getting windy out there." Then upstairs on my lunchbreak I saw the weather change, and not for the better. It came speeding up Leven Street. I couldn't believe how quickly it changed. Never seen weather change so fast.
I also recall a couple of workmates who started at 1 o'clock had the devil's own job braving it all to drive into work.
Looking back at the broader picture it wasn't just Southland affected but also Otago and Canterbury and up to Wellington and Hawkes Bay.
By The Numbers:
7,000 storm-related insurance claims nationwide;
NZ$28 million worth of insurance claims in Southland and Otago.
$2.39 million worth of damage to infrastructure and property in Invercargill.
Our jewel in the crown, Queen's Park took a right ol' hammering, widespread devastation which took months to repair. There was also significant damage to Ascot Park Racecourse.
And there were trees of all shapes and sizes uprooted all over the province which created all manner of problems.
Our electricity networks across Southland and Otago were also hammered with extensive damage with loss of electricity supply to 65,000 properties. 6,000 properties were still not reconnected one week later.
Electricity line crews were brought in from around the country and did a sterling job working around the clock to restore power services.
The sudden loss of power caused havoc in our diary industry with some farmers having to dump precious milk as they were unable to refrigerate it.
The mobile phone networks also suffered significant damage with 22 cellphone towers in Southland knocked out by wind damage on 23 October, disrupting phone services throughout the region. The following day, October 24th Southland Federated Farmers President Jason Herrick reported that power outages had disrupted the local dairy industry. While some dairy farmers had emergency power generators, there was a limited supply.
As Mike said in his Facebook post today, “How time flies! Twelve months ago today, it started out as another beautiful spring day in Southland, despite MetService forecasting an extreme weather event. I remember walking back to the office and saying to a colleague, ‘Look at it! It’s a beautiful day. MetService couldn’t run a bath, let alone forecast the weather!’ Well, ten minutes later, all hell broke loose! That certainly taught me a lesson about questioning the weather forecast.”Hard to believe it’s already been a year!
Such was the scale of the event that emergency generators were flown in on an RNZAF Hercules with priority for use given to rural areas.
A State of Emergency was declared across Southland which was in place for several days.
The Cost - As of 28 October FMG Insurance has received over $10 million worth of insurance claims, about half of which were from Southland and Otago. That's just one insurance company.
In January 2026 FMG Insurance announced that the storm had resulted in $50 million of paid claims - the second highest in its history.
Looking back, the scale of the event was colossal, the damage in some cases taking months to repair. The miracle was, as far as we know, no-one in our region lost their life or was seriously injured.
The event reinforced the need for us all to have a readily accessible survival kit. We just don't know when something like this will happen again.