Editorial: Counting the cost of rain bomb

I'm not much of a photographer, but I took a photo last week that tells a story about the rain bomb that hit Hawke's Bay.
It shows sheets of newspaper laid out on the floor in the Hawke's Bay Today newsroom, and on top, a line-up of mud-caked gumboots.
Gumboots aren't the usual footwear for our reporters and photographers, but last week they were in hot demand.
And during a sodden day of sloshing around Te Awanga on Wednesday, I would have given just about anything for a pair.
But nothing was normal about last week. Our most fashion-forward reporters were seen dashing about in jeans, woolly socks and raincoats, photographers squelched around in full wet-weather gear, cars were driven out clean and returned with a coating of silt and mud.
And yet, despite all that, it became clear as the week went on that we were only scratching the surface of what had taken place across the region.
We couldn't get to so many places -Waimarama, Ocean Beach, Kairakau, Pourerere, Wairoa and others - and, in some cases, no news was coming out. Even Civil Defence officials didn't know what the damage was.
Phone calls started to come through, readers from Waipatiki, Elsthorpe, Porongahau, saying "what about us - we've been hammered too".
And you had. So many had.
As roads started to be cleared we got further into the flood zone, with reporters begging rides on quad bikes when cars couldn't get any further - but still, we couldn't get to it all.
Extraordinary stories were phoned and emailed in - some of the photos that showed up in my inbox and weren't published would have made the front page on any other week.
But even if your stories and photos didn't make the paper, we were glad to have them; they helped us piece together a fuller picture of what was a growing, fast-changing emergency.
And we still need to know what's happening, we still want to hear from you, because this is not over.
The cost of repairing the damage to infrastructure, farms, businesses, homes and the region's economy has yet to be counted.
What do you need now? What should be done to help the recovery?
And - something that will be talked about more in the coming weeks - what could be done better next time?