\u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything like it. It was predicted to be 100mm or so and we ended up tipping out 430mm in this catchment. It was chaos,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything through Little River like that before and even up Okuti Valley, properties up there. It\u2019s so widespread, it\u2019s unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Power is dealing with stock losses as paddocks remain underwater, with troughs and fences swept away and debris strewn across the property.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe moved a lot of stock away to traditionally high areas that we\u2019ve never seen go underwater. We spent hours doing that beforehand and we were prepared for a lot of it, it was just the severity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Flood damage in Little River. Photo \/ RNZ, Nathan Mckinnon<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still trying to get our head around what the damage is, to be fair, until the water goes away you don\u2019t really know.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople\u2019s livelihoods have been well and truly affected by this, which is a crying shame.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Little River, Deja New Preloved Goods owner Lisa Ashfield had cleared mud and silt from her shop with the help of firefighters \u2013 the second time her business had flooded in 12 months.<\/p>\n
Flood damage at Deja New in Little River. Photo \/ RNZ, Nathan Mckinnon<\/p>\n
\u201cI imagine this is probably the end of the shop,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of my furniture, my bookshelves, my storage units, people\u2019s home-made jewellery, toys, books, clothes, furniture. Everything is just a mudbath,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was flooded in May last year, about 300mm, over the top of your gumboots kind of level. This flood, unfortunately, was thigh-deep. All the preparation we did on Monday, raising everything off the floor, just wasn\u2019t high enough,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Lisa Ashfield said her shop has been flooded twice in 12 months. Photo \/ RNZ, Nathan Mckinnon<\/p>\n
Ashfield was now sorting through stock to work out what to throw in a skip.<\/p>\n
Little River Cafe & Store owner Cameron Gordon also spent the day shovelling mud and silt from the building after water gushed in on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
He said food from the chiller had to be thrown away and fridges and freezers would need replacing but he hoped to open the store by the end of the day and the cafe by the weekend.<\/p>\n
Little River Cafe and Store. Photo \/ RNZ, Nathan Mckinnon<\/p>\n
Gordon was heartened by the support of locals who were helping to clean up the mess.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re pretty keen to get the shop back going and get us up and running again. We got a lot of calls, a lot of messages overnight with people offering help, a lot of tools brought down, water blasters, squeegees and brooms and random people I haven\u2019t met before. It\u2019s great,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gordon said the cafe had flooded five times, most recently last May when a foot of water washed through some businesses, but he had never seen flooding so bad in his 20 years living in the settlement.<\/p>\n
He said water in Little River drained away quickly once Lake Forsyth was opened to the sea on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it was opened before this I think we would have had a lot less damage and probably a lower level through the building,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Outside the shop on Wednesday. Photo \/ Nathan Mckinnon<\/p>\n
\u201c[The council] seem to have their rules and their guidelines about how they monitor all that but it doesn\u2019t seem to work for us. It seems to be the same story every year, with the same excuses every year as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Living Streams Community Nursery coordinator Nicky Steinmetz said raging floodwaters had left a layer of silt over the plants, leaving a months-long clean-up job.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of our volunteers will be really upset about what they see. It\u2019s the small seedlings that will be most impacted, rather than the bigger plants. We\u2019ll be able to wash those down, but it\u2019s going to take forever,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Flood damage at Little River nursery. Photo \/ RNZ, Nathan Mckinnon<\/p>\n