The sun was out on Tuesday, but it hasn't provided much relief for Nelsonians.
At least 130 households at risk from slips remain under evacuation in the city, with hundreds more in possible danger, as the clean-up from days of rain, flooding, and slips continue.
The recent wild weather means Nelson's hills are on the move and are simply unable to hold firm after more than a metre of rain in four days.
It's leaving 350 homes at risk.
"I think we've got about 130 that were evacuated," Civil Defence geotech response lead Grant Maxwell said.
Including people like Brett Daniell-Smith, who had to evacuate himself early on Saturday.
"I heard a significant amount of rocks and breaking concrete and so forth, so I didn't mess around," he said.
His home is one of 50 red-stickered and deemed unsafe to live in within the Tahunanui and Rocks Road area.
This is where the region's greatest concentration of slip-affected homes are.
"We're moving very quickly to reassess as much as possible and get people back into homes," Maxwell said.
Authorities took Newshub behind the cordon where not even residents are allowed because it's too unsafe.
"So at the moment we're seeing [movement] in the centimetres range, not in the metres range. Still moving slightly. We are collecting as much data as we can to see how much it's slowing down and maybe do some controlled entries," Maxwell said.
- Are you affected by the recent wild weather? Email Alexa Cook in confidence at alexa_cook@discovery.com
This is something that Mac Crampton is an expert on. In 1970, he was an engineer for the council when flooding and slips killed two people.
It’s devastation that he said sparked major changes and spending for the council. That included more geotechnical surveying on land for housing developments.
Crampton said there are areas today that, if they knew then what they know now, should not have been built on.
One house that was evacuated and red-stickered in 2011 when a slip above it came down was red-stickered again and left there as a monument to what happened back then.
It's in an area called the Tahunanui slump.
"By the time I retired, if it came up for development it would not be approved for subdivision. But that's like a lot of areas in New Zealand," Crampton said.
This past week has given Nelsonians a front-row seat to massive slips and raging rivers. But it's a sight that isn't deterring red-stickered residents from eventually returning.
"I'd be back there like a shot, I love it there," Daniell-Smith said.
