As people dig their houses from the silt, the country faces questions over where to rebuild, as the climate crisis heralds more and more extreme weather
“It was a tsunami from the hills. It was bigger than the tides. The noise – it was like Huka Falls.” Rikki Reed gazes at the wall for a moment, and you get the impression he can still hear the sound of water flooding into Esk valley. His five-year-old son Parker sits nearby, quietly playing.
Reed was part of a night-time road crew that came in to help when Cyclone Gabrielle struck – blocking off parts of the state highway, where huge trees had fallen. At around midnight, as waters started rising fast, they began evacuating people – but then he realised the truck he was in was stranded. “There were waves over the highway. The rapids were on both sides,” he says. He saw the road itself start to ripple, as the water forced its way underneath the asphalt.