The real damage across some of rural Buller was revealed on Friday - and it's not pretty.
Homes are inundated with water and mud; infrastructure, roads and water supplies wiped out; and one community still completely cut off.
Damien O'Connor flew in to survey the damage, but Buller residents are crying out for help to stop these repeated disastrous events.
Parts of rural Buller are bearing the brunt of this catastrophic flood. Farmhouses like Troy Richardson's are awash with water, sludge and mud.
"It was just a current through the house because gumboots from this end ended up in the bedroom," Richardson said.
What you can't see is the smell.
"The septic tank has gone through the toilet and gone through the house," Richardson says.
This family live near the tiny settlement of Inangahua and have lost everything - they're heartbroken.
"It's going to be trip after trip to the rubbish dump, there's nothing else we can do," Richardson says.
He fled his house at 3am when it was inundated with water. His first stop was to rescue his dogs.
"Their necks were only just out of the water, so half an hour later, I wouldn't have had dogs," he said.
Buller rivers made themselves at home on farmland throughout this district, land and stock now gone for good.
"It burst its banks further up there and we probably had 3m of water right through here, just covered probably a third of our farm with quite heavy silt and we’ve lost a lot of the fence lines and the irrigator," Inangahua Dairy Farmer Vanessa Lee says.
Minister of Rural Affairs Damien O'Connor visited the area today and flew over to survey the damage.
"I’m a local, I've seen floods in the past and this is clearly one of the biggest," O'Connor said.
Weary Westport residents returned to their homes after staying in evacuation centres.
Carolyn Dolden's house is still under repair from last year's flood and this time around the temporary accommodation on her front lawn narrowly escaped.
"The last time I looked, it was that far away from coming in the lip and it didn't," Dolden says.
Her neighbour Kevin O'Loughlin also opened the door with trepidation.
"Ruined my tomatoes, bloody pissed me right off," O'Loughlin said.
But thankfully his brand new carpet is okay. It only went in two weeks ago, after the last two floods.
"It only came in a wee way, oh that's great," he said.
But relief only runs so deep when you've been hit three times in eight months.
"See I lost my partner too, (crying), she had to go in the home... I'm not a very happy chappy at the moment," O'Loughlin said.
O'Loughlin loves his home and has been here for 30 years, but now insurers refuse to cover it so any more floods would take him out.
Residents are tired and worn down and want action.
"There's a lot of people around here who want answers and action, not just talking," O'Loughlin says.
"They're down in the dumps, very depressed, getting sick of waiting for their house to be fixed and something to be done by the councils," Faye Bell says.
Government and local authorities say they know action is needed.
"There's a focus on climate change, mitigation, adaptation. The events of the last few months here in Westport are a reminder we need to get on with that work," Rural Affairs Minister Damien O'Connor said.
But the mayor says they need a large amount of help which won't come cheap.
"It's tens of millions of dollars, stormwater alone in the Westport situation it's a huge discussion that has to be had with somebody if you really want to make great gains," Buller Mayor Jamie Clein said.
And there's no question this community deserves some of those.
