Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Grant McCallum: Northland MP on the Mangawhai tornado, clean up effort

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Grant McCallum: Northland MP on the Mangawhai tornado, clean up effort · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Speaking of storms, the cleanup will continue this morning in
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Munga Phi after a tornado ripped through the beachside northern town.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Around fifty buildings received damage and two people were taken
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: to hospital with serious injuries, one of them thrown out
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: of her second story house while sleeping. Yikes. Northern Power
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: says some areas will be without power for much of
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: the day. Grant McCallum is the MP for Orphaned and
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: he's been in Mungafi surveying the damage and he joins me, now,
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: good lord, Grant, what on earth struck the place?
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good morning, Raman. Yeah, it was. It was pretty devastating.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: It was. It's quite uncanny. We will see those pictures
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: in America where the tornadoes go through town and you'll
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: go there'll be a strip with our destruction on either side.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Not now, pretty okay, And that was pretty much what
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: it was like. And it was just it was just phenomenal.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: It was one of the fire Emergency Control of They
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: told us the worst he's ever seen from a tornado.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: That he's very experienced. There's not the Jilm's history of
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: tornadoes is not nearly that destruct as a whole, So
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: that's just amazing. It's just a totally devastation. Are really
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: few of the people that have had their lives turned
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: upside down? In some cases quite literally?
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, there'd be a lot of people just wondering
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: what's next and literally, who's going to help me? What
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: is the latest information that you've heard from from the
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: local authorities.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well we at the end of the day yesterday
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: things have been clean up with progressing pretty well in
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: terms of getting rid of the trees from the from
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: the roads and getting the power power back on. The
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: there was a numerous poles down broken. Some of the
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: poles are smashing the little pieces, you know, the concrete
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: poles pieces, and North Power did a great job of
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: putting getting the power back on unfortunately, because we'll probably
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: all been back on by about midnight last night, but
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: some of the reasons took to cutting the wires across
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: their driveway, which slowed down the progress. Not something recommended
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: to treat all wires as live at all time, please people,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: because there's no guarantee that they won't be and we
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: don't need that into the challenges we've got.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely not. You know how television always focuses on
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: the worst picture, and they go back to the worst picture.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: How widespread was this, how much? How much of that
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: damage was isolated just a couple of very tight little
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: areas as opposed to a wider region.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. It was only relevant small area. They
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: said in your leader about fifty homes affected, and some
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: of them, some of them were just completely devastate a handful. Yeah,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: it was only a very concentrated area, two concentrated areas,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and the devastation was immense. And where it did hit,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: you know, you couldn't believe. It's some big trees that
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: have been there for well over one hundred years. It's
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: like flat cars crushed, you know, and people just distraught.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: And one lady came up to us as we were
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: having a looked around and said, this a husband needed
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: when they needed boughter to flush the toilet. And this
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: is suppose what happens in is as like this. I
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: said to the label, you've got a water tank, Yes,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: you've got a bucket, Yes you've got a rope. Yes,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: we'll chuck the bucket in the tank, and just clearly
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: whereas we can think clearly because you're coming to the
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: outside and when you be caught up in a pretty.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Devastating absolutely, Grant McCallum, north of the MP thank you
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: so much for your time this morning on Early Edition.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: I hope you get some central government support as well.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Even though it's small, it will be expensive.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.
• 3:17
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• 3:21
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