"It's pretty wild and woolly, and there's a fair bit of surface flooding."
There were some trees down and debris floating around, she said.
"Nine out of 28 are away because of the weather, slips on the road, trees are down, things like that."
She said no one was allowed outside because the winds were too strong.
Because of the wind, the school bus was unable to pick up some students on its normal route.
Yesterday, Masterton resident Susan Rogers said she had been looking at a 6-metre tall wattle growing in the front yard of her Cameron Cres home about lunchtime when the tree toppled on to the roof of the house.
She said the tree had been on a lean and she had just asked her nephew, Jade, to check it out.
"I was sitting in my room having a coffee. There wasn't really much noise but it was quite scary when it fell, because I was looking right at it."
Ms Rogers said she was vacating the home, which she has rented for the past five years, until after firefighters had cleared the tree from the property.
MetService forecaster Brooke Lockhart said yesterday was the worst day of the storm and people could expect the weather to ease for the weekend.
"Winds are blowing particularly strong in Masterton and Castlepoint, reaching average speeds of 62 km/h and gusts up to 90km/h," she said.
Later in the afternoon, MetService predicted 130km/h southwesterly gusts.
Masterton postal services braved the weather to get mail delivered on time.
NZ Post postman Terry Diamond, who had been hand delivering mail from a bicycle yesterday morning, said he had been on the job for more than 25 years and the weather had been "almost as bad as the day the Wahine went down".
Carterton fire chief Wayne Robinson said some telephone lines came down early yesterday morning, leaving a woman in a car stuck between them.
The woman was able to drop her children off at school once the lines were removed, he said.
He said they had been pretty lucky so far.
Castlepoint Store owner Devon Oakley said the seas around Castlepoint were rough but the weather was not as bad as he thought it would be.
"It's quite surprising, it's hardly that windy here."
When spoken to by the Times-Age, he had just come from Masterton and said the weather was much worse there.
Laraine Nix at Kahutara School, said some of the students were stuck at home but the majority were present.
She said there was no damage that she could see.
"We have got power so there's no excuse not to come to work, the brave souls we are."
Yesterday, buses replaced all Wairarapa train services between Upper Hutt and Masterton.
Trains were also replaced by buses from Upper Hutt to Wellington because the sea wall had been washed away, causing damage to the train track.
Tranz Metro said new surfacing was being installed at the Western Lake Rd level crossing, just outside Featherston.
