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Speaker 1: Good afternoon. Wierua appears to have borne the brunt of

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Speaker 1: the extreme weather. Today. The town is under a local

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Speaker 1: state of emergency. At least one hundred and thirty people

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Speaker 1: have evacuated. Many of the roads into town and now closed.

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Speaker 1: Craig Little is the mayor of Widawa.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Craig, Hi, how's it going? Heather?

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Speaker 3: Good?

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Craig. How's it going with you? Are you

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Speaker 1: guys totally cut off again?

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Speaker 3: Oh?

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Speaker 2: I totally cut off a highway too to Napier. Look,

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Speaker 2: it's a bit of a common occurrence, to be quite honestly.

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Speaker 2: We time it range the road closed, but this time

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Speaker 2: it's rained bit more so we're not sure when that's

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Speaker 2: going to open. We've also cut off to State Highway

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Speaker 2: thirty eight as well as Gustborn. We have been closed off.

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Speaker 2: We're open at the stage.

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Speaker 1: How high did the water GETI?

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Speaker 2: Look, it wasn't too high, but it was high enough

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Speaker 2: to flood about one hundred homes and it's a lot

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Speaker 2: to do it. It's totally in a different states place

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Speaker 2: this time than last time. It's out towards the river mouth.

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Speaker 2: Homes of flood that have never flooded. In Memory, Living

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Speaker 2: Memory so it's pretty scary.

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Speaker 1: And was it the surges that were causing the trouble?

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Speaker 2: No, No, we believe there's a combination of the river

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Speaker 2: mouth and then the sea levels and we'd have to

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Speaker 2: get to the bottom of us because we can't have

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Speaker 2: this happen again. You know. Side Lane Gabe was probably

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Speaker 2: enough for us, and we haven't got over that. We've

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Speaker 2: still got seventy people out of seventy homes unlived as well,

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Speaker 2: so we've got a long way to go.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, jeez, how are you guys feeling Are

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Speaker 1: you feeling despondent?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, we're devastated, to be quite honest, because you know

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Speaker 2: there's so many people hurting our community, and honest, we

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Speaker 2: don't know how we're going to get above this. We've

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Speaker 2: just gone out to our rate pays last night with

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Speaker 2: about twenty percent rate increase and that God knows what

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Speaker 2: it will be now, you know, if we have to

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Speaker 2: pay for the South Elves.

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Speaker 1: Are you through the worst of it weatherwise right now?

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Speaker 2: No, we're not. Our high tide comes back at nine

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Speaker 2: o'clock to night, and then if the rain doesn't stop

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Speaker 2: and it all comes together, well, we could have the

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Speaker 2: same effect at what happened this morning. And I'm not

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Speaker 2: trying to scare people, but we're well and truly monitoring it.

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Speaker 2: So they've just got to keep watching our Facebook page

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Speaker 2: and that and we should be able to help them out.

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Speaker 1: Craig, thank you very much and go well tonight. That's

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Speaker 1: Craig Little the wider we're mayor Hastings has also been

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Speaker 1: hit really hard by the weather. The mayor there, Sandra Hazelhurst,

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Speaker 1: is with us A Sandra, Hi, Heather, what's the damage

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Speaker 1: with you guys?

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, we stood up our community emergency hub

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Speaker 3: out at home one last night and from eight o'clock

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Speaker 3: we had people coming in. There's been about forty four

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Speaker 3: people that have stayed overnight and have been staying in

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Speaker 3: the community hub. One hundred and forty families were do

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Speaker 3: orknocked last night by the police. The high tide once

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Speaker 3: again is just like wide or is our consun for tonight.

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Speaker 3: So our state of emergency remains in place and so

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Speaker 3: does the evacuation notice. So we just want our community

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Speaker 3: to stay pot and stay where they are. I know

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Speaker 3: there's an inconvenience of being with friends and family for

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Speaker 3: another night, but we are concerned about the high tide

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Speaker 3: at nine pm, and it's you know, we're building back

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Speaker 3: some of the all of the impacted areas, some of

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Speaker 3: the breaches through the inundation and the gravel barriers that

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Speaker 3: protect the community of Harmajuana, and just really nervous that

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Speaker 3: they haven't there, still vulnerable and we don't know what

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Speaker 3: this high tide is going to do, so we're just

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Speaker 3: going to leave that state of emergency in place in

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Speaker 3: the meantime.

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Speaker 1: Sandra, thank you, best of likeck again. Also for you

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Speaker 1: guys tonight, we'll surely be talking to you again tomorrow.

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Speaker 1: That Sandra Hazelhurst, the Hastings Mayor.

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Speaker 3: For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to

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Speaker 3: news Talks.

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Speaker 1: It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio