Emergency housing arrived in Westport on Friday, weeks after historic flooding caused widespread damage to thousands of homes.
The Buller region is now moving from its state of emergency to a rebuild.
The new homes may be small but at least it's dry and that's welcomed by many Westport residents.
The first of fifteen containers were delivered in the town following historic flooding three weeks ago.
But Buller District Mayor Jamie Cleine says many, many, more more are needed to help the hundreds of displaced Westport residents.
"I'm aware of 80 to 100 in accommodation that's been arranged by Civil Defence and probably sort of 200 and 300 that are looking for temporary accommodation in the medium to long term."
Pauline Williamson feels lucky to be one of the first to be able to move back onto her property.
"It's really good. At least you're home," she says.
She's all too familiar with container living. It's the second time in three years her home was besieged by flood waters.
"A metre of water through yeah, everything was tipped over the fridge and freezer and everything so yeah must've come through quite a strong current."
Her family of three will make do with what they have left.
"We've got the upstairs two bedrooms upstairs so we can bring the two beds down from there and we'll just have to find a couple of chairs and things to put in here and a table just a small something."
While the state of emergency is now officially over, Cleine says the operation is set to ramp-up, as the district formally moves into a recovery phase.
"Going forward we are still exploring the opportunity to establish more sort of semi-permanent village arrangement to accommodate families and such like and then there's also the question around whether or not we should be establishing a temporary worker's accommodation to facilitate the rebuild."
Which is the next big project for the flood stricken town.
