Hawke’s Bay settlement Puketapu is alive with the sounds of diggers scraping silt and people dragging flood-damaged items from their homes.
The community, west of Napier, was in clean-up mode.
The local pub had transformed into an information centre, while the school hall had become a general store of donated essential items.
Puketapu School hall is full of donated food and clothes for people in need to pick up.
Photo: RNZ/ Jimmy Ellingham
Puketapu resident Olly Midgley still had water lying throughout his section.
He and his wife could not live in their home, which was yellow stickered, but during the day they were doing what they could to dry out household items, while a builder removed sodden gib.
The piles on a cottage on the property had moved, while their garage had completely filled with water on Tuesday last week.
Two vintage cars were inundated, but Midgley had drained their engines.
Olly Midgley is salvaging possessions from his Puketapu house.
Photo: RNZ/ Jimmy Ellingham
Their house was moved to the property from Taradale, and years ago was two metres higher, before a previous owner lowered it.
When Cyclone Gabrielle tore through, Midgley and his wife were taken to safety by neighbours in a kayak, having thought about using a wine barrel as a flotation device.
“[The water] was about eight-foot deep inside the house… I first discovered water seeping up, little brown spots growing up through the floorboards, like an amoeba.”
Many of Olly Midgley’s possessions are covered in silt.
Photo: RNZ/ Jimmy Ellingham
He said, half-jokingly, that forecast rain would act as a rinse cycle for his mud-covered possessions.
“There’s a bit of stuff we’ve saved. We’re fine. There’s a lot of people a lot worse off than we are.”
Clothes from Olly Midgley’s house dry in the sun.
Photo: RNZ/ Jimmy Ellingham
Some of those people lived down nearby Dartmoor Road, where houses were washed away and residents clung to roofs waiting for rescue.
The water was powerful enough to blow out local bridges.
For those in need, the Puketapu School hall had been transformed into a general store full of donated items, such as food and clothing.
Mindy Windross, a mother of children at the school, was among the volunteers at the hall.
“The first couple of days, [people were after] undies, socks and a change of clothes. We had a guy in tears because we were able to give him socks and gumboots after three days of walking in bare feet through mud and whatever else out there.
“Just to give him fresh gumboots was huge,” she said.
Damaged household items are piling up on Puketapu roads, but volunteers are removing the rubbish.
Photo: RNZ/ Jimmy Ellingham
There was even a shower at the school, built by locals for those without water. Initially, they were using the school pool to wash.
For most of the past week community efforts had kept going despite the loss of power, water and communications.
“I keep saying, I make confectionery for a living. We’re just mums… I don’t know how we’re in charge, but we’re here and we’re doing it,” Windross said.
Mary Danielson, owner of The Puketapu, has opened the pub’s doors for community use.
Photo: RNZ/ Jimmy Ellingham
Mary Danielson, who owned the pub The Puketapu, had flung open her doors as well.
“We’ve got lawyers. We’ve got insurance people. We’ve got MSD – helping people with their money problems, or insurance problems, so people just drop in.
“It’s fantastic because there’s a lot of people here that have no access to computers.”
Danielson had her own clean-up to worry about, too, as floodwaters came through the pub.
Meanwhile, residents were working in shifts, manning roadblocks overnight.
“They’re there to stop all the looters coming in, which was starting to happen, so that’s fantastic,” she said.
“There’s four to six people on at the same time and there’s a big truck in the middle of the road, and they’re stopping people coming through unless you have a residents’ card.”
Farmers Phil and Louise Alexander were also in clean-up mode.
Their 600-hectare property had slips along fence lines, they had stock that was not theirs in their paddocks, and the floodwaters had dumped a container on a shed.
Until Tuesday they had no power, but now they could pump water to stock to drink and use electric fences to contain animals, they said.
“We’ve got a big lake out the back caused by the river. The river breached its banks,” Louise Alexander said.
“But, we haven’t lost our house and didn’t lose any family members, so we’re blessed.”
RNZ met several people from outside the district who had come in to help, such as Steve Orchard, from Napier.
He was part of the effort to remove rubbish from the streets. It had been piling up as residents dragged damaged items to the roadside.
James Danvers, from Napier, was there on his days off, barbecuing food for lunches and breakfasts.
He said it was hot work, but worth it.
* People could donate to Puketapu relief efforts at, bank account number, 12 3479 0013308 50, or email puketapufinance@gmail.com
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