The community in the Tāngōio valley got some much-needed help clearing debris and mud from their marae and homes today.
Local iwi leaders are calling on the government to not forget them as more help will be needed.
Mountains of mud have swamped Tāngōio Marae and surrounding homes - today getting a much-needed hose down with hundreds arriving to help clean up.
Tāngōio Marae chair Hо̄ri Reti said some items saved were priceless.
“The whare tipuna has been yellow stickered so that’s allowed us the opportunity to retrieve our carvings, recover our carvings and our tukutuku and take to a safe place, no insurance will be able to replace those,” Reti said.
Tāngōio valley residents have been busy helping others for weeks today the favour was returned.
Hoani Taurima lives in the home his great grandparents built sitting beside the marae.
“I'm still trying to get over that morning, to see the water lapping as high as the windows, still in disbelief and sorrow for our marae,”
“My house and the marae have basically taken the brunt of all the water and slash,” Taurima said.
Just one kilometre south of Tāngōio Marae a local road was completely covered in silt and water, it’s only just been cleared, and locals say they were cut off for days.
Today much-needed help was able to get through and begin the lengthy clean up.
Iwi leaders fear the government will forget about their small community as locals now face heart-breaking decisions.
Ngāti Kahungunu Chair Bayden Barber said they need all the support they can get.
“We have another two years of working through this and we do not want to be doing that alone, so the government really needs to be chipping and reinvesting in the region.
“We're going to have an important conversation as a Māori community and a wider community about where we relocate because we've been wiped out here and a number of communities in Hawke’s Bay, it's a difficult conversation but we need to have it as climate change knocks on our doors," Barber said.
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