The weather bureau has now said the massive storm that hit the Gold Coast on Christmas night was indeed a tornado. The super cell claimed one life and left a trail of destruction, the likes of which the city has never seen before. Thousands remain without power, while others have lost everything.
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00:00 Len Latours has lived in this home in the Gold Coast hinterland for 40 years.
00:07 He was in bed when the tornado hit like a bomb blast.
00:11 There's almost nothing left standing.
00:13 In this end of the house you wouldn't have survived and you'd have been hit for sure.
00:18 And I just don't know how the dogs got out.
00:20 A lifetime's worth of possessions wiped out in 15 terrifying minutes.
00:26 Yeah, that's great.
00:28 His neighbours helping him salvage anything of sentimental value.
00:33 From the air you can see how lucky the 74-year-old was to make it out alive.
00:39 Dozens of houses were blown to smithereens.
00:45 For the owners it's hard to know where to start.
00:48 Sam Bray hid under his car as his home was torn apart.
00:53 I'm just glad I'm alive at this point because there was a time there when
00:56 I didn't know what was going to happen.
00:59 The people who were inside this house behind me as the storm passed through
01:04 described it as harrowing as heavy rain and winds ripped the roof off the top of the house.
01:11 Homes completely uninhabitable.
01:14 Roof's out on the street right now as well as down in the field.
01:19 The shed's been blown to smithereens.
01:21 The roofs are falling in, water dripping through the whole house obviously.
01:26 This plant nursery was flattened.
01:30 The damage bill is likely hundreds of thousands of dollars.
01:35 The guy at the end of the street's been here 57 years, he's never seen anything like it.
01:39 In Hellensvale, fallen trees line every street.
01:44 One smashing the roof of this local primary school.
01:48 Others littering a golf course and crushing cars.
01:52 It's the biggest task Energex has faced in decades.
01:57 They're trying to reconnect power to more than 80,000 residents.
02:01 It will likely take them weeks.
02:04 The Gold Coast Mayor says residents were not properly warned the destructive storm cell was on the way
02:10 and wants to know why.
02:12 I think it's unforgivable.
02:15 So we've got to sort it so it doesn't happen again.
02:19 The Bureau of Meteorology says it issued severe weather warnings days in advance.
02:25 It's very hard for them to be predicting the kinds of events that we haven't really seen before.
02:31 same before.
02:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]