A Banks Peninsula farmer is still trying to come to terms with the damage caused by floodwater this week.
Tom Power farms at the head of Lake Forsyth near Little River.
His paddocks were still completely underwater when RNZ spoke to him on Wednesday.
He described the storm as "chaos".
"It was predicted to be 100mm or so and we ended up tipping out 430mm in this catchment. It was chaos."
It was the worst flood he has seen because of how fast it came and how widespread it hit, with people losing their livelihoods.
"It's not just us, it's the entire community. I've never seen anything that threw Little River like that before."
He says when the rain comes off the hills, it ends up on their place.
It was too early to tell the full extent of the damage, but he knows they lost stock, a few fences have been swept away, debris is caught in fences and there had been slips.
They were prepared for it and moved a lot of stock to traditionally high areas that they have never seen go under, Power says.
Now he has stock living on high knobs.
He was preparing for a long clean up but first the water needs to recede.
