A Northland local has offered up his digger services for free after the region was hit by wild weather this past weekend resulting in once in 500-year flooding.
The weather has left some homes uninhabitable.
Seeing the damage around his region, Andy Murdoch stepped up to help out the community of Moerewa.
He told Seven Sharp offering his help is a bit of a “no-brainer”.
“I thought you know what, people needed a hand and that’s all it took really."
Mr Murdoch posted on Facebook to see if anyone was interested in some free help locally and he says the post was received really well.
“It was amazing. I got a tonne of messages like 'thank you' and congratulatory messages and at that stage I felt a bit guilty because no one had actually texted me for assistance.”
But that soon changed.
“Luckily I started to get a few texts through and as a result we were busy today and tomorrow and probably Wednesday as well.
Huge downpours hit Northland overnight. (Source: Other)
“It’s really nice that people are confident enough to ring up and book a job that they don’t want people to talk about. They don’t want to put their hands up and say 'look I need some help.'”
He says he thinks a lot of people need assistance that haven’t reached out yet.
“It’s what you don’t see and what people aren’t saying.
"Locally I think there’s people that need some help. The Moerewa Rugby Club was inundated with water, the floor was still covered in mud, some of the furniture’s probably useless now.”
On Tuesday Mr Murdoch will head to Karetu to help a couple families whose main route into their properties were washed away by the floods.
“So they’re isolated. They’ve had a couple of days where they haven’t been able to budge at all, they’re simply stuck at home."
He says “it’s his pleasure” to be helping.
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