New Zealand remains in a national state of emergency following the devastation of Cyclone Gabrielle, which brought severe gusts and monster rainfall causing flooding this week.
The death toll stands at six as Fire and Emergency NZ confirmed a second volunteer firefighter died on Thursday from injuries sustained in a collapsed house in Muriwai, in Auckland's west, earlier int he week.
While much of North Island was lashed by the storm, most fears are centred on Hawke's Bay, where three people have died and expectations that number will grow.
The government's most senior figure from the region, Police Minister Stuart Nash, de-camped to Napier when parliament was called off for the week.
Mr Nash, basing himself at Napier City Council's response headquarters "as it's the only place to get power and wifi", says the devastation is worst in the Esk Valley, to the city's north.
"It's a very fertile wine producing region. It is quintessential Hawke's Bay," he told AAP.
"There's a lot of vines, a lot of trees and the Esk River runs down the right hand side.
"That valley has been completely devastated. There's silt up to two meters in some places.
"There are going to have to be some very hard conversations between local and central government and communities around whether we build out there ever again."
Heartbreak stories are commonplace.
Thousands have been evacuated, hundreds may have lost their homes, and many farmers have lost orchards and livelihoods in the region known as New Zealand's fruit bowl.
Napier received 203mm during the storm - more than an average summer's rain - and the Esk River swelled to 10 metres, twenty times its usual height.
The deluge smashed bridges and ruined roads, with many nearby properties and towns - including Hastings and Wairoa - remaining under water, making movement of essentials difficult.
A critical substation is also flooded, meaning most of Napier is without electricity.
"When you get a city of 57,000 people that doesn't have a hospital, that loses all road access, and telecommunications and power, that's pretty serious," Mr Nash said.
Improvements are being made, with generators moved in, and 700 defence force personnel joining police and civil defence on the ground.
"I'm most worried about critical infrastructure. I'm talking getting the power back on, getting the comms sorted and getting the roads open," Mr Nash said.
"When you haven't got power for three or four days, there goes every bit of food in your fridge and your freezer. That makes it really difficult.
"The supermarkets in Napier have just opened and they're getting cleaned out.
"You can put up with this for an amount of time, but if you extend that beyond what is reasonable, you begin to test people's patience.
"Some of the telecommunications is now up and running again but if you haven't got power, you can't charge your phone and so getting information out there is hard."
Helping the information flow is the local paper.
The Hawke's Bay Today will distribute their first edition since the storm on Friday with a headline "what you need to get through".
"Napier, you might not be able to see this social media post, but tomorrow you will be able to see a newspaper, written by the journalists who are right here living through this with you," editor Chris Hyde tweeted.
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