A Hawke's Bay family have witnessed a miracle after an urn containing ashes managed to survive the devastation caused by Cyclone Gabrielle.
The Hogans had just moved into their home three months ago, where they planned to retire, when the floods hit.
John Hogan said he and his family were all packed in his vehicle when he began stalling in the river.
"Two more minutes and I tell ya, my son's family and my wife and I would have been gone," he told Seven Sharp.
"I stalled in the river and I thought 'Oh God, I'm gone'. I started it again and it went and I just booted it. By the time I got up to the house, I turned the ignition off, got out, turned around and [the river] had risen another four feet and we would have been gone.
"There's someone up there looking after us, I reckon."
Luckily, an urn containing the ashes of John's brother-in-law also managed to survive the ordeal.
"They were on a table. My son and I, we found them over in a corner of the garage all intact with his address book and his watch sitting on top of it," John said.
"When we told [my niece] about the devastation and what had happened, she thought there's no way we're gonna find her father's ashes. And we did."
John said hundreds of people in the community have been pulling up to offer a helping hand.
"My sons and their friends were in here, and there was truckloads of them here yesterday helping, and a lot of them we don't even know.
"That's what I reckon we should be focusing on — the fact is that everyone's pulling together here in Hawke's Bay."
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