Mark Mitchell: Emergency Management Minister on Cyclone Vaianu

Emergency Management Minister, Mark Mitchell, says Cyclone Vaianu could've been much worse - and Kiwis prepared well. 

Gisborne and some other East Coast communities are still cut off with sections of State Highways 2 and 35 closed, due to fallen trees, flooding and slips. 

The last of MetService's strong wind warnings and watches for Wairarapa and the Tararua District are set to ease at 7 this morning.

Mark Mitchell told Ryan Bridge several thousand houses were evacuated across the North Island.

He says some of them have flooded, but a lot were precautionary evacuations - which was the right thing to do.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's talk about the cyclone. Seems to have been and gone.
Eight hundred properties were evacuated across the North Island. Looks
like none at this stage were actually flooded. Mark Mitchell,
Emergency Management Minister with us this morning. Minister, Good morning,
Good morning, Ryan. So what do we dodge a bullet?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, I did. We did. Really it was I mean,
without a doubt, we've had impacts. It's been a major
event for us. So we've had ten local states emergency.
We've had we've actually had several thousand houses that were
evacuated and you know, in about fourteen thousand without power,
So we've a it has been a significant event for us.
But the good news was that everyone was well prepared,

(00:39):
well positioned, and so we've been able to sort of
keep those impacts to a minimum.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Of those houses that were evacuated, did any of them
actually flood did they need to be? I guess it's
the question.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yes, some of them, some of them have flooded, but
a lot of them were precautionary evacuations and that was
the right thing to do because you know, this this
the event could have been much worse for us. We
were lucky that it actually started to move out to
the east and now it's sort of it's left the
North Island altogether. It's sort of moving southeast and thankfully

(01:11):
should pass the west of the Cheddam Islands.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
How many houses flooded, I haven't.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Got an exact number in terms of how many have flooded.
I know that I'm heading over to a Hope, Fokatani
and Potoqui today. There was an inundation at a Hope,
so we'll go and check the damage on that. I'll
get in a proper update this morning at about six thirty.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
With all those numbers all right, Minister, I went round
just in my area in Auckland on Sunday morning and
most of the businesses they were closed. It was an
orange warning, you know. I guess the risk is that
next time there's a warning, the businesses will open because
nothing happened this time. So what do we do about
that should they have opened.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Well, they can use their own danger scents in terms
of what they do. But one thing I would say
is that certainly there is no room for complacency at all.
We deal with this with events. We've been through a
tragedy as a country with you know, with an event
earlier in the year at at the Mount and also
Welcome Bay and we lost the farm up around a
Pookey as well. They're dangerous without a doubt, so you know,

(02:14):
there's no room for complacency. When I became minister there
sort of there was a report that came to me
from Sagerian Matapari. One of the things that one of
the issues that we do face is there's a optimism
bias sort of sits inside the system and as key
we we've got a sort of a Shelby Right attitude.
But these weather events are serious, they impact people in

(02:34):
they and we can lose people. So, like I said,
there's we're always going to make sure that we take
every step in every measure to keep people in properly safe.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
All right, Marke, appreciate your time this morning. Mark Mitchell,
Emergency Management Minister.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
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