New Zealanders in parts of the North Island are low on cash, lining up for food and fuel and running out of fresh water.
But among all the challenges authorities are facing, one of the greatest concerns is for those who remain out of contact and are cut off from any assistance at all.
On Friday, the death toll from former Tropical Cyclone Gabrielle rose to nine and New Zealanders were warned "emergency services continue to hold grave fears for others".
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said there were "still small communities cut off and isolated" and where no ongoing contact had been established.
NZ Police said there were 4,549 people reported as uncontactable, but work was being done to narrow down that list and prioritise making contact with those most likely to be missing.
"We are making progress, but I can't overstate the scale of the task that is ahead of us. We are going as far and as fast as humanly possible," Mr Hipkins said on Friday.
New Zealanders are taught to prepare for disaster, but the scale of ex-Cyclone Gabrielle is putting even the best of planning to the test.
Preparing for disaster
Some of the richest people in the world have decided New Zealand is the place they will go if the world looks like it might be coming to an end.
A multi-million-dollar bunker is a nice backup plan to have in place if the unlikely event happens, but New Zealanders know to prepare for likely events.
Earthquakes happen every day on the shaky isle, volcanoes are active and weather events such as flooding and cyclones are getting more extreme.
Soil in New Zealand is prone to landslides, so there are expectations some of the road network will be lost in a disaster on the scale of ex-Cyclone Gabrielle.
Being prepared to survive without additional resources or any government help is something some communities in New Zealand know they need to be able to do.
And in the calm times, they prepare for the worst.
New Zealand has a National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and, as part of that, a regional Civil Defence network.
Those regional groups report up the chain.
Down the chain, and at the most grassroots level, some communities have their own groups, with disaster preparedness plans that should be put into action during an event like this weather system.
Earlier in the week, NEMA boss Roger Ball said in communities that could be contacted, authorities had seen local emergency groups doing "exactly what we've asked of them", and hoped that meant there was a local response happening in cut-off areas too.
"We don't know what we don't know," he said.
"It's quite likely and expected that there will be some isolated pockets around but … there are very well-established community networks.
"They have a responsibility to connect in with each other, check on the neighbours, assemble at the marae, help feed each other."
Disaster-preparedness expert and associate professor at the University of Otago, Caroline Orchiston, said communities were trained to prepare for the risks around them.
"There is very targeted planning that goes on at a very sort of disaggregated level — it could just be a few suburbs of the city, it could just be one part of part of a community where they are supported to understand the risks that are present in their specific location," she said.
"How they might deal with that as a community? What if they couldn't get external help? What would they be able to do for themselves to look after each other?"
Part of the planning takes stock of who in the community has useful resources — such as heavy machinery or helicopters — and who has specialist skills.
There are also ways for at-risk members of the community to register with the local Civil Defence group that evacuating them may be a priority or come with complications — for example people who require oxygen and will have to travel with tanks.
That information can be collated and stored as part of disaster preparedness.
"The scale of events that we're having these days means that people need to be able to very much look after themselves, their neighbours, their communities, their businesses and be prepared for any kind of disruption," Dr Orchiston said.
The worst of former Cyclone Gabrielle hit New Zealand on Monday night.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, emergency evacuations were happening and the full force of the system was being felt.
New Zealand is a country perhaps more prepared than most for disaster, and still its North Island is seeing an immense scale of damage, loss of livelihood and tragically loss of life.
Five days after the peak of the weather event, there are people who cannot access supplies and who cannot communicate with emergency services — putting the local disaster management plans to their ultimate test.
Cut off but connected
There are several areas across the upper North Island that have been hit hard, but communities along the east coast and in the Hawke's Bay regions are of particular concern.
Wairoa and Gisborne were cut off and communities there had been without supplies; Gisborne residents were asked to stop using water as the town's main supply failed.
Across the Hawke's Bay region, there have been remarkable stories of rescues and locals working with what they have to help out.
People with self-sufficient solar power have helped neighbours charge phones and restore wi-fi, a local jet boat club has coordinated a pick-up service to rescue people from roofs of flooded houses, while others have been ferried to safety in all-terrain vehicles and fire trucks.
In Hastings, 20 orchard workers were rescued after sharing a live stream on Facebook from the roof as floodwaters rose around them.
Surveillance flights are being undertaken to survey the damage and identify those who may be isolated.
Convoys of trucks carrying essential items such as food, water, medicine and fuel are making their way into affected areas where the roads have reopened, but along the coast cut-off towns have received supplies via sea, with the navy making deliveries.
The priority now
After five days of isolation, Dr Orchiston said cut-off communities might be getting into an urgent situation.
"The messaging from our national government over the last 20 to 30 years has always been [to] get ready for three days of being on your own," she said.
"Well, that's really patently inadequate.
"They've managed to get supplies into the very top — the East Cape region — through the navy, but again rural communities, you can't get to them all.
"So there's really going to be a lot of stress and deprivation happening probably in the next few days as people just run out of food."
The Rural Support Trust group operating in the Hawke's Bay region told local media they had concerns for farmers and families they could not reach even with the help of the military.
"There are a number of people still missing, particularly over in the Valley Dartmoor area, and we have concerns for them," coordinator Jonathan Bell told RNZ.
"We have concerns for the mental wellbeing of our farmers, and as a Rural Support Trust that's one of the main things that we're involved with.
"Unfortunately, we can't get to people and they can't contact us."
The prime minister said authorities were inching closer to being in contact with all isolated communities.
"I think we've managed to manage to make contact — whether that is regular contact or whether that is just simply a quick assessment to identify what the need is there — with most places," he said on Friday.
"That doesn't mean that that contact is regular or ongoing and that doesn't mean that we have necessarily got an open supply line to them."
Dr Orchiston characterised ex-Cyclone Gabrielle as "one of the worst weather-related events" New Zealand had ever faced.
"When something like this happens, you just have to react to what's coming at you," she said.
"It's the scale of it — the water being right up to and over rooftops. You just can't prepare for that necessarily.
"You can make as many arrangements as you like and then you have to react and you hope that you have what you need at your disposal. And it's not always the case, but you do your best at the time."
