The law that passed in a week
A law rushed through parliament after a single incident was meant to be temporary. Harriet reads the debates, finds who it has actually been used against and asks whether anyone intends to repeal it.
The town that flooded, one year on
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Show notes
One year after the water
The flood was everywhere for a week. Then it was nowhere. Harriet spent three weeks in the town, read every council minute since the water receded and tracked the relief fund line by line.
- The week of the flood as the residents remember it, not the coverage
- Where the relief money went, from the public accounts
- The families who rebuilt and the families who quietly left
- A council meeting about a levee that has still not been built
- What the insurers decided, and the street that cannot get cover
Full source list, including the fund accounts and meeting minutes, in the notes.
Transcript
Welcome to The Long Lede. I am Harriet Ngata, and this is slow news: one story, told properly, once a month. A year ago a small town was on every screen for about a week. A river rose, streets became canals, a woman was rescued from a roof and became the image of the whole event. Then the water went down and so did the coverage. I went back. I spent three weeks there, I read a year of council minutes, I followed the relief fund through the public accounts, and I knocked on the doors of the people who were quoted once and never called again. Some of what I found is encouraging. Some of it is not. All of it is sourced. Settle in, this one takes a while. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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