Tears well up in Esk Valley resident Maria’s eyes as she surveys the state of her property.
The house and surrounding land – on the corner of State Highway 2 and SH5 on the outskirts of Napier – were pummeled by the violent waves of water that consumed the area as Cyclone Gabrielle hit last month.
The property, like so many others in the once-beautiful area, was then covered in thick mud and silt; deposits in some places in Esk Valley are two metres high.
Photos of Maria and her partner’s property have regularly featured in media coverage since the disaster, and until recently, the land was still under floodwater. For more than two weeks, a boat could be seen up against a fence where it had been hurled by the waves, the roofs of Holden cars poking out from the wall of silt and mud.
Given the amount of water on the site, it has only been in the last couple of days that Maria, her partner and friends have been able to return to truly survey the magnitude of the destruction of their home.
“We’re are doing the best we can ... words are all a bit hard at the moment,” she told the Herald.
“It’s a heart-breaker coming back here. It’s hard to talk at the moment without breaking into tears.”
Maria and her partner were in the house when the wall of water washed through Esk Valley with deadly force in the early hours of a mid-February morning.
When asked how they got out, Maria said: “Only just...
“My partner woke up and saw the water coming through the lounge doors. He woke me up, and we were already in waist-deep water by then.
“I can’t talk about all that [their escape], to be honest. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.”
Maria believes the house will be demolished. Several vehicles on the site are also ruined.
Monday night marks three weeks since so many people’s lives were turned upside down in Hawke’s Bay by Cyclone Gabrielle.
As record rainfall fell in the region, hillsides slipped away, dumping tonnes of silt into nearby rivers. And as the water headed down to the valleys and riverbeds below, it also bought with it a multitude of logs and forestry slash.
The force of water that then made its way violently through Esk Valley was described by Tyrone Hetariki as being a “sea of water, a rising tide. It was like large waves just coming through”.
Hetariki says he and his partner only survived after he was able to smash his way through a skylight in their motorhome and seek sanctuary on its roof.
Three weeks on, what was once a valley known for its vineyards, orchards and holiday hotspots is now a scene of pure destruction.
Where bountiful fruit trees once stood, mounds of smelly mud and silt make for a barren landscape described by volunteer helper Caleb Thompson as being “like a warzone and Armageddon at the same time. It is apocalyptic; it is mind-boggling”.
Today, home and business owners – helped by friends, family and volunteers who continue to turn up and offer their help to complete strangers – continue to try to dig out the mud from their homes.
Houses are being stripped back to their wood frames so insurance accessors can see whether the properties are salvageable.
Roading crews continue with the arduous job of trying to clear out debris on SH5.
With the mud and silt drying, thick plumes of dust rise from every vehicle that travels by.
About 20 kilometres away, that thick dust is haze-like in Pākōwhai.
Like other rural Hawke’s Bay settlements such as Puketapu, Fernhill, Omahu, Dartmoor and Rissington, the fruit-growing area was left a scene of destruction after the Cyclone Gabrielle flooding.
Many people had to be airlifted to safety from the roofs of their houses. In at least one case, one man was choppered off the roof of his two-storey house as floodwaters came within two feet of reaching the peak of its roof.
The smell of mud and rotting fruit is strong in Pākōwhai.
Properties – both commercial and residential – have piles of rotting fruit spread throughout them.
The sight of piles of decaying pumpkins washed away from the paddocks they had been growing in is a common one.
Reminders of other ruined crops can be seen on farm fences, including long lines of washed-away onions stuck to barbed wire.
Those crops that remain on their trees are ruined; and in the cases where the produce-growing land has been covered in silt, it will need to be cleared quickly if it is to be used for crop growing again.
And throughout Pākōwhai and other badly impacted areas, household appliances, beds, carpets and other items ruined by the mud and water are stacked waiting to be collected and taken to the rubbish dump.
The Napier CBD and surrounding suburbs escaped the flooding that hammered so many other areas in Hawke’s Bay.
But large reminders of the force of the storm almost three weeks ago aren’t far away in the city.
All along the Marine Parade foreshore, large piles of driftwood and slash can be seen.
A lot of the wood will be taken to a location in Whakatu to be sorted, and then the majority will be chipped up.
And the devastating power of the Cyclone Gabrielle floodwaters was such that one log was washed away from a logging truck at Pākōwhai and ended up at at Nūhaka; about 150km away.
Commercially-felled logs have a serial number stamped on them, with authorities later tracking the huge route the log took up the eastern coastline.
It’s not just wood that contractors have had to clear from along the coastline.
A shipping container also washed ashore at Awatoto, on SH51 near Clive. The bloated and smelling bodies of sheep and cows have also had to be disposed of.
One contractor working on the Marine Parade clean-up summed up the job ahead for his comrades and owners of badly damaged homes and businesses.
“It is not going to be quick ... and it certainly is not going to be easy.”
An ambitious project to rid Southland of pests has been put on hold amid financial issues.