Rotorua floods: Duck Tours staff describe a 'village completely underwater'

Nobody anticipated how bad the flooding in Ngongotaha was until they saw it first hand, a Rotorua Duck Tours driver says.

It has been nearly a week since the amphibious yellow duck bus was called to ferry evacuees from the village to safety.

Driver Sean Russell said when the banks of Ngongotaha Stream burst on Sunday afternoon, the council called for help "Things happened really fast.Tand the drivers headed straight to the Agrodome to collect 32 stranded tourists and staff.

Sean Russell and Shelley Chapman from Rotorua Duck Tours drove into the flood zone on Sunday. Photo/Ben Fraser

"We didn't realise how bad it was," Russell said.

"We couldn't have anticipated a whole village completely underwater.

"It was a pretty intense atmosphere."

Russell said once they knew people were stuck in their homes they drove in to help.

"We saw the emergency workers up to their necks in water.

Rotorua Duck drivers were called in to help with the evacuation of Ngongotaha. Photo/Supplied

"One of the most incredible things we saw was a guy pushing his car down the road, all by himself, because it was just floating."

The drivers ferried the evacuees to Ngongotaha.

It was a different experience to giving a tour and certainly "mixed things up a little bit", Russell said.

"We were just trying to keep people calm."

Not many people are able to really comprehend what it was like out in Ngongotaha the other night with the flooding. We have managed to put together some of the dashcam footage of the Duck showing just how bad it was out there. Nasty currents in that water and I think it's deeper than most people thought. Take a look and as you do spare a thought for those affected by these floods.

Posted by Rotorua Duck Tours on Tuesday, 1 May 2018

He said drivers went through emergency training in case anything happened on a tour, which came in handy on Sunday.

Once the evacuation was over the team "cleaned the trucks up and were back at work on Monday", Russell said.

A video shot from the front of the trucks has been viewed more than 35,000 times on Facebook.

"It's given people the first-hand view at what it really looked like in the emergency," Russell said.

"A lot of people are highly thankful."

He said the feedback had been overwhelming and they were still receiving phone calls thanking them for helping.