Some residents remain almost completely isolated a week after the Marlborough region declared a state of emergency.
People stand on the banks of a flooded Wairau River last Saturday. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Many properties in the Marlborough Sounds can only be accessed by helicopter or boat while scores of roading crews try to clear mud, trees and rockfall from state highways and local roads.
So far, 29 properties have been red stickered and 48 yellow stickered.
Whole trees were dumped along State Highway 6 from the Rai Valley to Havelock, tangled in fences, the ground strewn with mud and rock.
Slips have continued, hills and rivers have turned brown.
A muddy stream in the Rai Valley. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Wendy from Havelock Takeaways said the small town felt isolated, bordered by road closure signs.
"It's horrific. No traffic, all the roads have been closed. We had to close for three days because we couldn't get to work because of the road closures," she said.
The business's seafood supplier has shut for two weeks and other deliveries were only arriving every two or three days, if at all, she added.
Chris Faulls's property in the Sounds was also cut off.
"We've got a property in Linkwater, so we couldn't get in or out. And we've got a couple of hectares of silt on one of our farm paddocks. We own a tourism business too and haven't been getting any business - and won't do for a couple more months I think... We're all in it," he said.
Faulls is an adverse event co-ordinator for Rural Support Trust and said there's been less angst and frustration from people this time around, as they began to accept the new normal.
"The community out here, Rai Valley in particular, has probably come together over this, which will certainly make it stronger for the next time this happens. There's probably more damage than last year ... and people's futures have been altered, I suppose, with what's happened."
Flooded vineyards in Renwick. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty believed the weather event has raised some pretty big questions.
"What we have to face as a country is that climate change is making these things happen more regularly and when they happen, more severely. And that is a challenge that we have to take up as a whole country in terms of our resilience of our communities and how we adapt to, essentially, what is the new reality," he said.
Kieran McAnulty says the recent spate of huge storms has raised questions the country must debate. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Parts of SH6, including a winding section through Whangamoa, will be closed until at least next week.
Wendy was just trying to stay positive.
"I'm hoping the Whangamoa will open soon and people can get through... hopefully, but the rumour has it it won't be open for months and months... So we've just got to bear with it and carry on, I guess," she said.
The damage to Marlborough's roading network was likely to cost more than $85 million, McAnulty said.
A flood warning sign on a footpath to the Taylor River in central Blenheim. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
