Esk Valley was flooded by the time an emergency alert was sent to residents. Photo: RNZ / Tess Brunton
A rural Hawke's Bay community says many received an evacuation alert when the valley was already flooded and it was too late for most residents to leave.
When the flooding hit the Esk Valley, Eskdale resident Billy MacDonald said it was wall to wall of water, and roaring.
It was a disturbing time - he saw people calling for help on their rooves, surrounded by fast moving flood waters, but cell reception died before he could call for help.
Reporter Tess Brunton has been in the Esk Valley to witness the damage
MacDonald said he got an alert on his phone to evacuate just after 5am - hours after he had evacuated his neighbours in rapidly rising floodwaters.
When the alert came through, he said the valley was already flooded.
"That's unfortunately I think where a lot of people got stranded on rooves, having to punch their way through ceilings to get up into the roof cavities," he said.
"It's the middle of the night, people were in bed, people were asleep so I imagine a lot of people woke up just water everywhere."
Flood damage in the Esk Valley in Hawke's Bay. Photo: RNZ / Tess Brunton
He has 11 displaced neighbours and whānau staying at his home of four, and said the community was doing what it could to support each other.
Hawke's Bay Regional Council confirmed it never issued a valley-wide advance evacuation notice, instead only those deemed to be at specific risk were warned.
Interim chief executive Pieri Munro said the intensity of Cyclone Gabrielle exceeded all forecasts based on the data they had on the Monday night up until 10pm.
"What we received was greatly in excess of that, over the conditions and over the information that we had in hand."
The intensity of rainfall in the Esk Valley exceeded all forecasts. Photo: RNZ / Tess Brunton
The council and Civil Defence were hampered by the lack of data due to a repeater station failing to relay the data, Munro said.
Seven of the 10 sites monitoring river flows and rainfall in the Esk Valley went offline from 1am Tuesday, leaving them rather blind, he said.
Before this week, the Esk Valley was fertile land, covered in productive vineyards, apple and stone fruit orchards and farms.
Now, some residents are not able to even sift through the remains of their homes - they are too full of mud and debris.
MacDonald took RNZ up the hill near his Eskdale house to see the damage.
"As we were getting the neighbours out of the house, apples floating past, crates, everything. The next day as the sun sort of came up, furniture, everything was just floating past."
The thick mud left behind is slowly drying up, with vehicles creating clouds of dust.
Flood damage in the Esk Valley in Hawke’s Bay. Photo: RNZ / Tess Brunton
There has been a lot more activity this weekend, with trucks with diggers and other machinery arriving and setting about the mammoth task of cleaning up, clearing vast quantities of mud and debris, and restoring access to damaged homes.
From the hill, he pointed out a small white house amongst a clump of tall trees, saying that it originally sat roughly a kilometre away before floodwaters dragged it through vineyards and over a road.
Multiple flipped cars were visible, one he said travelled a few hundreds metres from the sheer force of the water.
Many of the residents RNZ spoke to described the incredible lengths the community has gone to help out, with one saying dozens of people were helping to clear around his derelict home.
For most, it is still too raw and for others, they just want try to move past what has happened, but they doubt they will return.