Franz Josef locals hope the Waiho flood bank which breached, causing major flooding in the West Coast township on Thursday, can be repaired by the end of this week.
But a Westland District Council civil defence spokesman said it was unlikely to happen before the end of next month.
The river's protection wall breached early on Thursday, leading to the evacuation of more than 180 people.
A state of emergency was put in place, but has since been lifted, and now the local community is hoping repairs to the damaged flood bank can begin, so the township can once again be protected.
Franz Josef Civil Defence co-ordinator Wayne Costello said the repairs could begin as early as tomorrow or Wednesday, but the decision was ultimately up to the Westland District Council.
"From a Civil Defence perspective, we're quite keen on seeing the stop bank that was breached reinstated as soon as possible.
"We're hoping to see it repaired by the end of the week.
"At the moment, any significant rain - it wouldn't even take that much rain, to be honest - would just flow through that gap again. So we need something done about that urgently.''
Many properties had been left vulnerable by the breach, he said.
One of the worst affected properties was the Scenic Hotel, which had up to 2m of water flowing through it.
"We believe that to protect the state highway and those properties, we need to extend the bank that's been put in place by the NZTA, just a further 50m to 100m down stream, which would fix the area that's been breached.''
He believed the work would strengthen the flood bank to "a much better standard''.
However, Westland District Council civil defence information manager Andy Thompson told the Otago Daily Times yesterday the repair work was more likely to take weeks, rather than days.
"There's a huge amount of work that has to be undertaken to decide how it will be done, who's going to pay for it, what entities are paying for what.
"There's not an appetite to throw a whole lot of money at a temporary fix that might be blown out in a very short period of time.
"It's a really complicated situation.''
He said the ratepayer base at Franz Josef was "tiny''; only 300 permanent residents to fund all of the repair work.
For that reason, he believed the Government needed to be involved in the funding equation.
A team of Canterbury-based river engineers investigated the river at the weekend, and was working on a proposal with NZTA, the Westland District Council and the Department of Conservation to develop short and long-term strategies for managing the river, he said.
