Neighbours look after neighbours, strangers come to the aid of others, volunteers step up to help with work which is hard yakka, and first responders and workers, leaving their own families, turn out in foul conditions for long hours.
When it is so easy to feel despondent about the appalling abusive behaviour by keyboard warriors and others, it is reassuring to know when the chips are down, kind and decent people readily show up for others.
Emergency management minister Mark Mitchell declared the official response to last week’s dramatic rainfall emergency in the south "gold standard".
In the time ahead as people across the lower part of the South Island clean up and come to terms with damage to homes, farms, roads and other infrastructure, that overworked word resilience will be trotted out again to describe how people are coping.
But, as major weather events become more and more commonplace as a result of climate change, bouncing back will become more like tired old pants’ elastic than a new bungy cord.
This will be particularly true in places hit more than once.
South Dunedin is one of them.
However, the government is not keeping up. Earlier this year when the councils asked the government for a funding bid they had submitted at the invitation of the previous government, they were turned down.
They had sought $132.5 million to establish a council fund to buy low-lying properties over time.
What is particularly disappointing for South Dunedin about the government’s inertia on adaptation measures is that the councils here are attempting to do what Climate Change Commission chairman Dr Rod Carr sees as important — enabling the local community.
As he says, climate change adaptation is an inherently local issue.
"Central government can provide a way forward by giving communities the tools they need to make their own choices.
"Supporting councils as they plan and take action with their communities to live with the impacts of climate change is a key issue that needs to be addressed as soon as possible."
However, the report released last week of the Finance and Expenditure Committee’s inquiry into what should be in an eventual government framework to guide how New Zealand adapts to the effects of climate change suggests there is a long way to go.
The report says although important progress had been made on cross-party consensus on critical issues, some committee members felt "we have still been left with a number of recommendations that remain vague, open to very different interpretations, and seem at times contradictory".
These members also worried about the report not answering some of the most challenging questions around such things as who pays, something which would pose problems for whoever had the task of drafting a Bill on it.
In the meantime, it is easy to understand the frustration of community and council leaders about the dilly-dallying over all of this while they wait for the next deluge.
The urgent case for some government coherency on climate change matters was dramatically made by Dunedin man Ben Nevell to a different select committee — for Economic Development, Science and Innovation.
The video of him wading about a flood-ravaged South Dunedin Street was beamed into the committee hearing submissions on the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill reversing the oil and gas exploration ban.
He asked the politicians to consider why the short-term economic benefit of the Bill was more important than long-term protection from ecological and societal collapse.
"Who are you benefiting in the political choices you are making? Not me and my neighbours here in Dunedin where we are currently experiencing a flood caused by the continued problems of climate change."
Quite.
