Bay of Plenty District Health Board emergency operation's controller Brent Gilbert-De Rios said they did not have to evacuate patients from Whakatāne Hospital as they were outside the flood zone. However, the hospital’s Tsunami Plan was implemented and patients and staff in the hospital were relocated to the first floor of the Dawson Block on the hospital campus. In Northland, resident Rosie Stone, who has lived in the Helena Bay area for 30 years, said she had never had a warning “quite as dramatic as this”. She got the civil defence warning on her phone and just grabbed her dog and phone and drove to higher ground.