Corin Dann: Grandad's spire must rise again

Corin Dann. Photo / Supplied

I was in Auckland when I heard. It was pretty scary because my wife Lotta was in Christchurch with our youngest child, Jakob. I arranged for my brother to look after my other kids and then got on a plane.

We got through to Nelson - me, a producer, reporter and camera-man - grabbed a Toyota 4WD and went straight to the supermarket to fill it with as much food and water as it could carry. We just blasted down to Christchurch without sleep. The adrenaline was really kicking in.

We got into the city at about two in the morning and went straight to Lotta's mother's place - Lotta was there, crashing on the floor with the baby. So I got an hour's sleep on the floor too, and then went to work. It was great to see her for that hour - she managed to get out on a plane to Auckland in the morning.

My folks are really staunch people. They live in a 1930s two-storey wooden bungalow at the base of the Port Hills. A couple of chimneys came down the first time - now it's worse. The beautiful old fireplace has completely fallen forward, so we were sitting round in a lounge full of bricks and finding old photos that had fallen down the back of the fireplace over the past 30 years. Photos of my sister, someone's old school photo.

They don't want to leave, so there's a tent in the backyard. It's pretty heart-wrenching to know what they've got to go through now. People here are gutted.

I've done these things before: I've been to Pike River, I've been to the Boxing Day Tsunami in Asia. There were moments in Phuket when I almost lost it. Now, there's these flashes. It's like a bolt of emotion - whoah, this can't be happening.

Yes, I've cried. I just get emotional when I see my family and I see how brave they're being.

And I can't help but think of my grandad Colin. He was 97 when he died earlier this year. He was a born and bred Cantabrian - my family goes back to the early pioneers of Canterbury.

My grandad was a plumber. He had a business called Dann Brothers, very close to where Pyne Gould Corporation was. In the 1930s, when plumbers were specialists in metal work, he worked up in the Cathedral's spire refurbishing the copper peak that now lies on the ground. I remember going up the tower myself as a kid.

In some ways I'm glad he wasn't here to see this. This city is going to be so different to what it was for him.

I think we have to rebuild the cathedral, if possible. It will signify that the city can rise again - it will be different, it will be so different, but it will have to rise again. If it's possible, I'd like to take my kids up there one day.