Sunday will mark six months since Cyclone Gabrielle made its destructive arrival in Aotearoa, and those in Muriwai say their community remains a "disaster zone".
Cyclone Gabrielle swept through Muriwai, on the west coast of Auckland - before heading on to Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne, claiming the lives of 11 people and destroying thousands of homes.
There are still more than 100 families displaced in the Muriwai community, including Caroline Bell-Booth.
Bell-Booth showed AM around the heart of Muriwai's community near The Muirwai Deli. She said there's "still a lot of cleanup and progress to be made" six months on.
"We have had a lot of promises and, as you can see, we've had very little progress to the eye.
However, Bell-Booth told AM's Ryan Bridge she's confident progress will begin to kick off over the next few months.
"This road on which I stand will be open to the public from August 21 - obviously the roadside, there's a bit of room for improvement," she said jokingly while standing in front of a destroyed home.
She's hopeful categorisation of homes will come soon, which she said will allow residents to begin moving on from the devastation Gabrielle left.
"At the end of this month, the council will publish its geotechnical report and so within the next sort of week or two we will start a series of meetings with the council about what the real future of Muriwai is going to be."
Bell-Booth is one of 100 Muriwai residents who were forced out of their homes. She said like many other displaced residents, she's had a total of about nine hours in her home since Gabrielle.
That was largely due to "the complex logistics of the council making sure it's safe for us to even enter those homes to get the bare essentials of what we need", she said.
Red Cross spends $20 million of the $27 million disaster relief fund
It's been revealed Red Cross has spent $20 million of its $27 million disaster relief fund - after it was criticised earlier this year for being too slow at distributing funds.
Red Cross general secretary Sarah Stuart Black broke down the spending on AM.
Stuart Black said Red Cross spent $1 million on the initial response and recovery - items like equipment, generators, satellite phones and blankets.
She said just more than $14 million was spent on grants to support community organisations in Cyclone Gabrielle-affected regions.
Another $5.5 million was also spent on "household bundles" to provide new furniture, whiteware, crockery and home supplies for those who have lost everything.
And with $7 million left in the fund, Stuart Black told AM much of this would be spent in the next few months helping affected communities to be better prepared and supported in another devastating event.
Watch the video above for more.
