It is one month since Cyclone Gabrielle packed an unprecedented punch and left New Zealand with a multi-billion dollar cleanup.
The latest numbers show:
- 851 homes across Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Tairawhiti, Hawke's Bay, and Tararua are red-stickered
- 753 households in Hawke's Bay and Tairāwhiti still have no power
- 11 communities in Tairāwhiti and 19 in Hawke's Bay remain isolated or only accessible by 4WD
- 147 roads, six state highways, and at least 40 bridges remain closed across the North Island
- 10,000 cars have been written off
- At least 40,000 insurance claims are expected
- The death toll stands at 11.
In Hawke's Bay, people are still picking up the pieces of their lives one month on and are crying out for more help.
Amid a mountain of debris, there's a jagged and undulating path to Stephanie Wilson's home in Puketapu. Access was only recently carved, but beneath the mess of slash once stood a pristine apple orchard.
Stephanie said she's in a holding pattern and is waiting to find out how to clear the slash and silt. She's also hoping to find out if she'll be able to rebuild and where.
"We're just waiting for the government agencies to let us know what we can do and we just have no control over our futures at the moment," Stephanie said. "[It's] incredibly frustrating. It's a real mind-boggler, really."
Inside her home, thick sludge coats the floor. The pink bats that are heavy with floodwaters hang from the ceiling. The coffee table she and her brother used to clamber onto the roof still rests in the silt.
The memories of the cyclone are fresh, especially the sight of animals being swept away.
"The livestock was not able to get up onto the slash or anything. They were sucked under, and just watching animals feeling pretty helpless. Knowing that they weren't going to make it. Yeah, I still have nightmares about it."
Her family has lost 90 hectares of apples in total, which includes land run by her dad, Des Wilson. He said funding support offered so far just doesn't cut it.
"The relief through MPI [the Ministry for Primary Industries] - we've used that already. So extreme areas are going to need extra support," Des said.
Forestry workers are clearing slash and salvaging some trees for sale. There's also progress on the stopbank.
The stopbank failed spectacularly one month ago when floodwaters overwhelmed it. Work is now underway to rebuild it, but locals said the new stopbank must be longer and higher.
In nearby Eskdale, the work ahead is hard to comprehend. Silt remains the biggest problem there and there's acres of it.
In the absence of a digger, local resident Mal was doing what he could to clear his fence line.
"The lack of interest in this valley is quite amazing. We're operating with 1930s tools yet we hear from politicians that everything is under control and that the state of emergency is over," he said.
"I'll tell you what an emergency is - using a spade inside of a digger. Let's see some action and less talk."
The first convoy of freight trucks rumbled through Eskdale's State Highway 5, but there's concern about a fixation on roads rather than the reality for residents.
"There seems to be only one priority, that's opening the roads, opening the roads. But the roads have got to go through a disaster zone where people's lives are in tatters," Mal said.
In tatters - with some concerned bureaucracy is blocking desperately needed progress.
