Waitaki District Council chief executive Michael Ross said the professionalism shown by the council and community team assisting Civil Defence was impressive.
"People worked hard and were very dedicated to the tasks that had to be solved," he said.
However, a debriefing identified some lessons from the events, during which the Civil Defence headquarters were activated for six days.
Heavy-rain warnings predicted up to 380mm of rain for North Otago over three days until Wednesday, May 26.
That was followed by more rain on Queen's Birthday Weekend, which caused problems because of saturated ground from the first event.
On Sunday, May 23, farmers were warned to move stock, and low-lying houses were visited by Civil Defence to warn of potential flooding.
On Monday, May 24, the decision was made to activate the Civil Defence headquarters in Oamaru, with the first shifts starting at 6am the next day.
Widespread flooding affected the district, 120 district road-closure notices were issued, state highways were closed, nine rural water schemes were shut down and houses were threatened.
Damage to roads was estimated at about $1.5 million.
The New Zealand Army provided vehicles and staff to help with reconnaissance and welfare runs to isolated families.
Mr Ross said some of the lessons learnt from the events included improving computer access for staff, varying shift numbers during 24-hour periods, having eight-hour shifts, the need to start morning shifts at 5am, having two public information managers present during the day to cope with media demand and sharing jobs so section managers did not burn out during long periods on duty.
