A resident in the low-lying area of Ruby Bay near Nelson has described the "very scary" night in which a king tide washed log debris across the road.
Ruby Bay resident Nick Ferrier said his home on Stafford Drive was "very close to flooding" overnight as it sits right next to the bay.
"We were up a good part of the night. We had a huge wind forecast and a big swell forecast, so we knew it was going to get very close to flooding."
The swell forecast was up to 3m and it got to probably to 2.5m, he said.
"The wind was blowing 40-knot gusts and we had breaking surf right on the edge of the property."
Ferrier told 1News he even had a pump ready in case his property needed to be bailed out.
"The swells went into some of the properties, went over some of the fences, and there was maybe a foot of water in the car park."
He described a similar situation five years ago during Cyclone Gita in which 20 houses flooded, and said the council should have closed the road early this time around.
"Yesterday morning I rang the council and left a message to say that road was definitely going to flood.
"The council has built the road higher over the years but we are at risk here, definitely."
"I went down there just after midnight [and] the road was completely covered, probably close to a metre deep in places and it was very, very dangerous with waves breaking right on the road," Ferrier said.
He said there are roughly 30 houses "at risk" due to being low-lying, and not all of the people occupying them follow the weather.
"Some are holiday houses, some are older people. If the council had sent a simple message out to say 'at midnight, be aware, there is a risk' — especially a midnight tide like that, people could have woken up in water."
He also said there was a "big risk" of people driving into the debris as there are no streetlights.
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