The downpour of heavy rain in Taranaki forced locals to self-evacuate, flooded farms and washed bridges away - and a big clean-up is now in residents' hands.
The rain threatened the South Island's West Coast earlier in the weekend before moving north, impacting much of Taranaki. The region had a red weather warning for most of Sunday while the downpour occurred.
Most of State Highway 45 was underwater, which cut off communities along Taranaki's coast.
Local Mahara Okeroa lives on the tip of Cape Egmont, an area that saw 138 millimetres of rainfall in just four hours on Sunday morning.
"To say it's terrible is probably an understatement," he says.
His backyard is flooded, but he's one of the lucky ones. His neighbours were forced to spend the night elsewhere as the water made its way into their homes.
"We thought we were going to get rainfall because we do rely on rain for water out here, but we didn't expect the heavens would open and the water would flow to the extent it has done," Okeroa says.
At least 400 millimetres of rain has been recorded at Mount Taranaki. That's made its way down, turning streams into torrents and flooding farmland.
"As we've seen from the footage there, there are significant impacts for the people of Taranaki," says Lisa Murray, head of weather communication at MetService.
A bridge at Parihaka is understood to have washed away and water streamed through a school in Rahotu.
While the red warning has lifted, it isn't over yet for locals.
"Their impacts do still exist and are still ongoing, and of course, the clean-up afterwards is another thing to think about," Murray says.
MetService is also warning other regions to prepare as the weather tracks across the country.
