State Highway 5 in Esk Valley, Hawke's Bay, has been devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle.
The area is ground zero, with scenes of destruction showing the unforgiving force of the cyclone.
Christopher and Luciana Barber told 1News about how their family tried to escape.
"We had a big rush of water come in, and it just started rising really quickly. That's when things got scary, and we did our last 111 calls. But we knew no one was coming to save us," Christopher said.
They have two small children - when the floods hit, they had one last chance to survive.
"I found a little wooden train track and smashed a hole through the ceiling. Then she passed up the children and a seven-month-old puppy...we sat in that roof space for a few hours."
Huddled together, the family were finally rescued as dawn broke.
Now, days on, there is little left to salvage.
"It's the kid's room - we put a few toys, and we put a few toys on the bed, and the beds have floated, so there are a few toys we can grab for the kids but the mud. You can see it's just too wet," Christopher said.
They're just one of many families in Esk Valley struggling to come to terms with the scale of the disaster.
Residents are now left wondering why calls to move weren't made sooner.
"It's been real carnage. We woke up at 5.30am would have been Tuesday morning after that CD evacuation notice we got on our phone, and she was already flooded," Jacob Freeman-Broderick said.
"We couldn't get out of our road. It would've been alright if we had a snorkel on our ute, but buildings were already six feet under."
Back on the ground, many are just thankful they walked away with their lives.
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