”There’s just so much devastation, but nobody knows how other people in Napier are doing,” she said.
”There’s no power in the city, texts are occasional but everything else is down. It’s just eerie - there are helicopters and Army trucks, it feels more normal today but there’s just mass devastation, stories coming out of terrible tragedies.”
The couple evacuated their homes, along with the rest of Meeanee on Tuesday after the neighbouring Tutaekuri River breached its banks.
Police were forced to intervene when an ugly shouting match erupted in the queue for petrol at BP Carlyle this morning.
Meanwhile emergency supplies of food, water and fuel are arriving in cyclone-struck Gisborne, but warnings remain that there are “still major issues in the ravaged region”.
“The water situation is still critical and with residents failing to reduce their usage, the reality of the taps running dry looms large,” local authorities said today.