Craig Little. Photo: RNZ / Tom Kitchin
The mayor of Wairoa says it is going to be a huge amount of work to build the town's necessary flood protection.
More than 680 of the town's homes have been placed in category two, meaning better flood protection is needed for the area to be safe to live.
Despite the carnage wrought by Cyclone Gabrielle, none in the town have been deemed worthy of category three - and therefore eligible for the government's buyout.
Mayor Craig Little told RNZ between $60 million and $100m of work needed to be carried out to prevent similar disasters.
The government announced on Thursday it will co-fund protection work with local councils.
The estimated cost of the damage nationwide is $2.8 billion.
"If we don't do the mitigation work, those [category two homes] two could go to three, you know? … We've gotta work out how we're gonna stop this happening again, and there's ways around it, obviously - that might be stopbanks or a bypass and things like that. So it's a bit certainty for people, but still, we're not there yet."
Little said he has been talking with Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty about the region's options, wanting to avoid having to do it all again after a future storm. The town was also badly hit by Cyclone Bola in 1988.
Wairoa after Gabrielle. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
But with a small ratepayer base, Little is worried about putting the cost on current residents and leaving debt for generations to come.
"We've really gotta do this once and once for all. And who pays for it? Well, that's what we're saying. We're a small council, a small ratepayer base. We're gonna be struggling. We're quite a prudent council, we've got a bit of borrowing room and things like that, but if you borrow your max, your future generations are going to be absolutely unable to do things."
Wairoa is of course hardly the only part of the country recovering from Cyclone Gabrielle, which devastated large parts of Hawke's Bay. Auckland, the country's biggest city, still has a lot of work to do in the wake of the anniversary weekend floods, which arrived a couple of weeks before Gabrielle.
"This isn't the only project," said Little. "You've got projects right throughout New Zealand at the moment happening. I just would not want to be in government at the moment."