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Weary residents face their second big clean-up on flooded properties in a month as days of heavy rain caused chaos across the South Island.
The flooding across the top half of the island yesterday forced evacuations, cut off towns and water supplies, while numerous slips blocked roads and surface flooding was widespread.
For Rose Tierney, the thought of her new home being flooded for a second time was almost too much to bear.
The Herald first met Ms Tierney when she and her son and boarder were forced to evacuate as floodwaters poured through their house and possessions in Amberley Beach, North Canterbury, on July 31.
Since then they had been stuck in a motel waiting for the home to dry out and be refitted.
But in the last couple of days, as floodwaters returned with a vengeance, Ms Tierney ventured back to anxiously watch as the waters spilling over from the local lagoon flooded her section and shed, and threatened to enter her house again.
"My preschool where I worked closed down, because they were worried about the flooding. So I went down [to the house] and watched it. It was getting close to the foundations, so I was worried."
Fellow Amberley Beach resident Alan Rawsthorn also feared a repeat after the last flood in the home he rents and is planning to buy.
"I've been shifting everything around in the house and drying everything out, and then you sort of look anxiously outside at the rising waters again."
Ms Tierney had been down to the local council office, yelling at staff to do something about the flood-prone lagoon, which they did by opening a channel to let water out, probably saving her home from another round of flooding.
