The storm which battered Hawke's Bay earlier this month causing flash flooding, evacuations and road closures is still being felt in Eskdale.
Members of the primary sector and more than 50 people attended a community meeting to discuss the event, share personal tales and work through any issues and possible solutions.
Although represntatives from Beef and Lamb were not present, they said "the thing about farming on the East Coast is that this is going to happen".
"We are going to have weather events whether it means to much or not enough."
Hastings District Council Deputy Mayor Tania Kerr said; "This is about fellowship - getting together and ensuring no one feels alone or isolated after this event. This is about tomorrow and next week rather than last week if there are learnings we will take them away."
Eskdale Holiday Park owner Daniel Gale shared his story to the crowd, noting that he had received a lot of support from the community to help with the clean up and we are waiting for the "weather gods" to be nice to allow them to grow.
Mr Gale spent that morning evacuating more than 20 people from the riverside site, and was successful in getting every caravan and motorhome out safely by 11am.
"Civil Defence was fantastic. I got a text from the Regional Council telling me that the river level had reached 2.4m. From when we got that first alarm in an hour it had risen rapidly."
He had his own river alarm went off when the levels reached 3.6m and then 4.6m but by that time they were already "long gone."
Another resident said they were given very little warning about the weather event and before he knew it the water was up to his chest.
"My biggest concern was we didn't know anything about it and if it happened at night we would have been a lot worse off."