The College Rd house was the family home where he had lived almost all his life. In the instant it flooded and was pushed off its foundations, a lifetime of memories were washed away.
"Oh, it broke my heart," he said. "We were staying at my daughter's place and I'd come and park up there on the front lawn and sit there and look at the house. For up to two hours, just sitting there and remembering things from when I was young."
Mansell paused to think and said: "It sort of took its toll on me."
His wife, Pare, didn't find out until later about his daily vigil outside his childhood home.
"He's not the same," she said. "He's aged a lot. He was never idle, and [now] a lot of the time I catch him sitting down and it's like he's watching TV, but he's not."
Their long-time neighbour Arleen Watters often saw Mansell sitting in his car.
Fred Mansell spent hours at the site of his childhood home, which was swept away. Photo / Jaden McLeod
"It's especially hard when you see Fred trying to cope," she said. "And same with Pare. Pare is a strong woman, and she didn't break until we did a karakia and blessing over there ... she's been Fred's rock right from the start."
Mansell agreed, letting his wife in on his feelings about her for the first time.
"Without Pare ... she's my backbone. Without her I don't know where I'd be, probably had a breakdown or something. That's one thing I'm really grateful for."
Like Mansell, Watters has lived in College Rd almost all her life. But for her the river holds a special significance: "That's where I had my accident."
Watters is a partial tetraplegic and has used a wheelchair since she was a teenager when she twisted her neck badly while diving into the river directly across from her College Rd home. She was paralysed and had to be resuscitated twice in the ambulance.
Decades later, she's a well-loved member of the Edgecumbe community, and a great neighbour to the Mansells on College Rd.
Arleen Watters, who is in a wheelchair, barely escaped after being roused by neighbour John Kearns (below), who has since left Edgecumbe. Photo / Jaden McLeod
In the next house along were John and Marilyn Kearns, who were also a strong part of the neighbourhood.
Before the flood last April, they were concerned about the concrete wall across the road.
The river had risen up out of its banks, quadrupling in volume and pushing up against the wall.
They became even more nervous when they saw it starting to leak.
"Tuesday, the wife noticed it," said Kearns. "I noticed it more on the Wednesday when I came home from work, the volume of water that was coming down the road. And it was actually seeping underneath the stopbank."
That morning it was Kearns who woke Watters and with the help of her carers, she was bundled into a van with minutes to spare.
A year later, she's back in her home but she's lost some of her neighbours. John and Marilyn Kearns moved to Kawerau and on the other side, the Mansells' house was completely totalled.
"Losing Pare and Fred is like losing my aunty and uncle," Watters said. "Yeah, losing part of your whanau."
John Kearns of Edgecumbe. Photo / Jaden McLeod/Local Focus
The good news for Watters is that the Mansells have stayed in Edgecumbe, moving two doors along, into John and Marilyn Kearns' old place, on the other side of her.
"I think it was meant to be," said Mansell. "We didn't want to go anywhere else to live. And the opportunity came up and it was meant to be that we bought it."
For others the flood was too much.
"We feel safe here [in Kawerau] away from that river," said Marilyn Kearns. "It's always in the back of your mind, every time it rains."
But Pare Mansell couldn't bring herself to leave College Rd.
"I know there are people out there that think we are crazy staying here," she said. "But our children were brought up here, our grandkids are coming through now and this place is just special."
Watters is emphatic: "This is my home and this is my hometown. Having the river there doesn't faze me. I know it's there and it's always been there."
