People in the Kaipara region are still cut off from the rest of the country after another flood resulted in road closures across the region.

On Friday, the Northland towns of Mangawhai, Kaiwaka, Langs Beach and other surrounding areas were hit with a heavy deluge of water, with the rain gauge at Hakaru at Tara recording 377.6ml of rain from 12pm-9pm.

The downpour resulted in bridges being severely damaged, meaning key accessways that allow people to travel down to Auckland or up north to Whangārei have been closed.

Daniel Smith, who owns an outdoors business, said he was having to scale back his operations due to roading issues, making it difficult to get supplies to him.

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“Going forward we will no longer be servicing anywhere north of the Brynderyns or south of Dome Valley due to the state of the roads,” Smith said.

Smith estimates he’d lost about $10,000 in jobs and another $20,000 in materials, which were “sitting in limbo due to freight issues”.

Ashleigh Nightingale is about to start her first semester studying nursing in Whangārei and had planned to travel from Mangawhai each day, which would take an hour each way.

However, she now has to go through Paparoa, which would take upwards of two hours each way.

Instead of travelling for almost four hours per day, Nightingale will instead stay the night in Ruakaka to save money on petrol.

That means she will now have to leave her family for two days a week.

Nightingale estimated the cost of travel would be $200 a week, but “the cost in dollars is nothing compared to the cost of stress on family taking the time away from home”.

She has a 2, 6 and 14-year-old. The 2-year-old is a type 1 diabetic and it would be “even harder to be away from a medically dependant toddler”, she said.

Julie Scott, who runs the Campbell Park Christian Youth Camp in Mangawhai, took in 55 stranded travellers on Friday night.

She said she was heartened by the strength in her community.

“We put the call-out for extra bedding and people were bringing things even though their homes were flooding,” she said.

Despite the community spirit, the weather events put significant financial strain on the camp, she said.

“We’ve only had two paying camps this whole month and we had to cancel three this week.”

The camp usually hosts eight or nine groups per week.

Otamatea High School principal Dirk Smyth said the signage on some cordoned-off roads wasn’t clear.

“People are driving on roads that they shouldn’t even be able to access, not knowing that they shouldn’t be,” he said.

“Drivers are dancing with death, hugging cliff sides with a big drop on the other side.

“It’s a nightmare.”

He said the roads were “only getting worse” with each drop of rain, which the area was forecast to see more of on Monday.

The Kaipara District Council on Monday morning asked for patience from its community.

It said there were no further updates to a statement issued about the road closures on Sunday evening, which described the situation as “challenging”.

“Friday’s downpours over Mangawhai and the surrounding area have caused significant damage and despite the contractors giving it their all over the weekend, the options are still quite limited,” Northland Civil Defence Emergency Management group controller Graeme MacDonald said.

A full list of road closures can be found here.