More than 10 residents arrived with tools and shovels yesterday morning to help clear mud from the flood-stricken café.
Owner Cameron Gordon said the support had been a silver lining after what had been a “soul destroying” day-and-a-half.
Gordon also owns the restaurant, The One Next Door, which was also flooded to a lesser extent, and will not open this weekend. He has not yet been inside the restaurant to assess any damage.
Gordon’s Airbnb has also been affected, with four bookings cancelled over the next two weeks while repairs are carried out.
When the clean-up began, staff and volunteers were standing in about three inches of mud and filth. Gordon said water levels inside the café reached about 12 inches at the peak of the flooding.
“The walls are pretty badly sodden and damaged from the water, we’ll have a few fridges and freezers that are no longer working,” he said.
“All the food in the chiller has been thrown away – it got contaminated. There’s thousands of dollars worth of orders in there that have been tossed, which is pretty gruelling.”
He has owned the café for 20 years and experienced five floods during that time, but said Tuesday’s event was by far the worst. The café will remain closed for at least another day.
“It’s awful, it’s a beautiful day here, we should be busy, we should be taking a lot of money and instead we’re throwing stuff out,” he said.
“It’s pretty soul destroying to be honest.”
Nearby, Little River Campground owner Marcus Puentener described the past 24 hours as disheartening, disappointing and daunting.
“It’s sort of like, where do you start?” he said.
“Just one small job at a time – that’s how we tackle it, it’s one day at a time.”
The flood destroyed the campground’s two foot bridges which has cut off access to tent sites and a 5ha native habitat. It also caused major damage to the campground’s driveway.
Puentener spent much of yesterday cleaning the toilets and kitchen. The campground has been offered a replacement bridge by Aqualand New Zealand.
Puentener, who has owned the campground with his wife Megan Gainsford for 16 years, said it was the worst flood he had seen.
He said the event followed an already poor summer for visitor numbers due to persistent wet weather.
“I can’t imagine it picking up from here,” he said.
Two bookings have already been postponed. A wedding is scheduled in two weeks, along with The Drum Festival on March 15, and Puentener hopes the campground will be back to normal by then.
The campground remains operational, though he said it was far from ideal.
Despite the challenges Puentener ruled out the possibility of the campground falling over.
“We are down, but not beaten,” he said.
Among Little River’s flooded residents is former Exponents frontman Jordan Luck.
“Absolutely surrounded by water. It is a moat!” Luck told the NZ Herald.
Luck said he was woken by his partner’s sister at around 3.30am on Tuesday after more than 24 hours of heavy rain.
“She lives in a tiny home on ours. It was a torrent and lake from daybreak.”
Luck and his partner have lived at their Banks Peninsula home for more than a decade and said the flooding was as bad as they had seen.
“My partner’s brother lived here before, from 2004 it had never flooded to the house.”
Luck’s treasured music room as well as his laundry have been breached by the floodwaters.
“The water is creating its own new rivers. Some may go through homes on its way, some they will pass, ” Luck told the NZ Herald.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand earlier said “around four people” were rescued from a car stuck in floodwater at the Wairewa Marae in Little River, at around 8.40am on Tuesday.
They were taken to the local fire station, safe and well.
