Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown has addressed the media after extensive flooding in the city, 40 properties red-stickered, roads closed and further rain forecast.
The death toll from the floods in Auckland is four and the city went into a state of emergency after torrential rain hit on Friday.
Officials are warning Aucklanders to prepare for more damage as another storm is forecast for Tuesday.
"It has taken some time for everyone to appreciate just how wide and deep an event this is, and it isn't finished yet," Brown said.
"It's nothing like Friday night but the ground is so saturated and the drains are so full so it could be even more dangerous than Friday."
Brown said he was recommending businesses and schools remain closed tomorrow and that the Army should be brought in to help sandbag and other duties.
"Stay home if possible," he said.
Brown has defended himself against criticism that he did not call for a State of Emergency earlier, saying he followed the advice of the professionals when deciding whether to declare an emergency.
However, today he acknowledged communication with the public on the disaster on Friday fell short.
"I want to say to Aucklanders that yes there have been hiccups of course.
"I accept that communications including mine and my office were not good enough, especially on Friday night."
Brown said he "is certainly not going to resign" despite criticism of his early response.
"I was elected to fix Auckland and this is a giant fix-up.
"I believe that my role is in first of all making sure that we are getting the best, most efficient use of the resources that we have available, and that's what I've been concentrating on."
Even before the state of emergency, staff were making decisions right from the start on Friday afternoon, he said.
There would be an independent investigation into the response on Friday, including his own, he said.
"We want recommendations for improvement, and we will act on them.
"I don't think I personally did anything wrong.
"Everyone's going to be reviewed here. Myself, the performance of the organisation, and it needs to be kept in mind, this is unprecedented in scale and it took some time for people to understand."
Brown said he agreed that climate change was the reason for the extraordinary weather event.
"As the prime minister has said, this is climate change. And I agree with him."
Speaking to Kim Hill on RNZ's Saturday Morning, Brown was asked if this was an example of climate change affecting the city.
He said it was "a bit early to jump to that".
"Let's fix things that we've got now, I'm worried about the people here and safety first, then I'm worried about the restoring of the infrastructure and then we'll be worrying about the impact on people who've lost property and we'll work our way through that. But it's a bit early for that and it's not helpful either to be honest."