"We did Edgecumbe last year so we had an insight into what we'd be dealing with... Once we had permission from the owners and/or insurance we had to start the removal process on properties and get the carpet out as soon as possible to stop further damage."
The Steers have four staff in Rotorua who spent the following week working 16-hour days so they could "talk to and work with people in the first four days".
They called in labourers and support staff from the Waikato and Tauranga franchises, and the Taupo and Far North branches were put on standby.
An emergency response truck was also brought in from Hastings with "a whole lot of extra gear".
"We have been working seven days a week since," Amanda said.
"We have had a lot more work than we would normally see. It is quite extensive and it will carry on for the next couple of weeks at least. 80 per cent of the jobs are through insurers."
Once the carpet was out of a building, sometimes builders needed to come through and strip parts of the walls, then Chem-Dry returned to decontaminate and dry out the rooms.
"It takes a few weeks at the minimum," Amanda said.
"Ngongotaha has some very big homes so the cost and the length of each job varies."
Rotorua builder Danny Ioane has taken on some of the post-flood work, assessing homes and helping with repairs.
"One shop in town was completely flooded, a big mess. Another big job was a property by Utuhina Stream where the water took out most of the section right up to the door. We had to get the silt excavated out and redo the drainage... It was a pretty massive rainfall I must admit."
He said his team of workers and contractors varied from two to five people typically.
"We got through the last of the clean-up jobs last weekend."
The 11 staff at Morrow Builders had also been heavily involved in the flood-response.
"Mainly our jobs have been in central Rotorua. They are still coming in. We have mainly stripped houses out, the bottom third or half of the walls. Other jobs have been at homes that were not necessarily flooded, they just had water coming through their roofs in the heavy rain or gutter problems," owner Scott Morrow said.
When asked how his team managed the sudden requests for extra work, Morrow said it was "a juggling act".
"We were already pretty busy. Some things you just have to prioritise, most people understand. If someone has just lost everything you do what you can to help them."
He said he had stripped homes after floods in previous years, "but never to this extent".
Waste disposal had been another vital link in the clean-up chain in Rotorua.
Mini Skips owner Brian Moore said he was distributing almost twice as many skips as usual in the week after April 29.
"People getting rid of carpet, furniture, fridges, freezers... You name it, all sorts."
He said he took on an extra driver for the first few days.
"Sometimes it was only a few hours later that we would be back to pick a skip up and empty it. That helped make sure we did not run out of them."
