By Robin Martin of RNZ
Faced with never-ending piles of silt and slash, their homes badly damaged and families traumatised, some property owners in the Esk Valley are wondering if they will ever return.
Upturned vehicles still litter the Esk Valley, many torn apart like tin cans while others are wedged up against flattened homes.
A container barrelling along in floodwaters smashed into the caravan that Rawinia Anderson lived in, on family land.
The caravan is destroyed - but what’s left has been searched for something precious.
“They’ve cleaned it all because we were still looking for my husband’s ashes and we are still looking today.”
On the night of the cyclone, she had a bad feeling and slept in the family home.
“It just didn’t feel right that night, so I grabbed my dog, Buddy, and we went over to the house and slept there the night.
“And it was lucky we did because I woke up about a bit after 2am and I saw something shiny in the kitchen window and it was water and I so opened the curtains to the sliding doors and I saw our cars floating away and that’s when I woke everybody up.
“We had just enough time to get the boat out of the shed. The son-in-law managed to knock down the wall so we could take the boat out and tie it to the chimney because we had all the dogs in it as well as my niece and my nephew.
“And so we sat in the boat and the guys sat on the roof and we were there for a few hours.”
The house was a wreck and Anderson was not sure if she would be able to return to the yellow-stickered property.
“I have mixed feelings about that, I don’t think anyone can predict what’s going to happen next anymore. I just think the whole climate has changed; the seasons have changed. I’m not sure.”
But she would still like to.
“I do because it’s family land. It belongs to my siblings and my great grandparents they were business people and very proud people and they loved living in Eskdale Valley.”
Philip Barber and Sarah Johnson are co-owners of Petane Wines.
Their vineyard has been wiped out and they too had a close escape on the night of the cyclone.
Barber said the flood began slowly.
“Sure enough the flood waters got up each step, each step, each step and then it came into the house and into the kids’ room,” he said.
Johnson was not too worried at that stage.
“We thought surely it’s not going to ... because it’s a split level house ...[reach] the top level but it did and that’s when I got really scared.
“We put on a brave front for the kids but at one point I had a wee panic attack and the kids calmed me down. They started saying ‘it’s going to be okay, mum, someone’s gonna save us’ but no one did.”
Not that Barber holds that against anyone.
“No one could save us because we were here by ourselves, it was pitch black and it was a ferocious storm, so at that point I said let’s get up on the roof.”
Amazingly, Ella, 3, managed to sleep on the roof while Jimmy, 5, got cold and found the ordeal more of a challenge.
Johnson said they would not be returning to live in Esk Valley.
“No, no we won’t live here again no way, yeah. If the vineyard is salvageable it would take at least 10 years, so we won’t be growing grapes here again.”
Barber had mixed feelings about returning.
“Well Sarah doesn’t want to. I could but Sarah doesn’t want to, so no my decision is made for me, so I can’t.”
The couple said they would find land and a new home in the Bay and were determined to save the wine brand.
Emergency services were called to the incident around 4pm.