A verdict on the city's land

The first official government report on the state of the city's land came out today. It doesn't cover everywhere (some places haven't been assessed yet, or have to be re-assessed after last week's shakes) but it is a start.

For some people it will represent a sense of closure, knowing that the land under their home is in such bad shape that they should leave it. The government will buy them out if they have insurance, and they can move on with their lives. For others in the orange and white zones, it means nothing except that the wait for a decision goes on.

We are incredibly lucky - although we are relatively close to the Avon river, we aren't close enough to be in the red zone that follows its path. Our house is in the green zone. But I really feel for the people who have to leave a house they once loved in an area where they may have spent their whole lives and have so many memories and so many friends and neighbours. Whole communities are going to be torn apart and it will take a long time for many of the displaced people to feel at home somewhere else.

Of course some people have had enough and will be delighted to take the money and run. They have been living with broken houses, few services, and wet silty ground since September, and they don't want to spend any longer in that situation than they have to. Who can blame them?

I hope today's decision is good for most people even if it represents bad news about their house. But I don't envy anyone outside of the green areas.

June 13th Aftershocks

I have been meaning to update this blog anyway, with non-earthquake stuff, but that can wait for another day.

Yesterday we had two major aftershocks here in Christchurch; a 5.7 followed some time later by a 6.3. I was working from home for both of them and was by myself in the house. Both times I dived straight under the dining table to ride it out. A year ago there is no way I would have dived under a table -- it just wasn't in my mind or my muscle memory -- but now there's no hesitation whatsoever. As I clung to the table leg, both me and it bouncing around on the floor, and listening to things crash down in the kitchen beside me, I was glad to have some solid wood between me and whatever might come down over my head.

As it turned out, we had no structural damage to the house and no damage to contents either, which seems miraculous, especially as I am certain I heard glass smashing. I can't find any broken glass now, so either it is hiding until I let my guard down or else I was mistaken. It could have been the roof tiles crashing around a few feet above me -- they do sound like breaking glass when they shake against each other.

My husband was at work for both shakes and they had no significant damage either, although a window cracked and I believe some insulation tiles in the roof came down.

Since yesterday we have (so far) had more recorded aftershocks than I can count. In the last 24 hours we have had 44 of them. Check out the action on the quake maps -- there has been a very significant change in the last day or so!

Coping

A few people have asked me how we're coping after the earthquake. I feel like a bit of a fraud when they ask, because honestly we haven't suffered much at all. Our house is mostly fine apart from some superficial cracks, we both have jobs, our toilet flushes, etc. But that doesn't mean everything is normal, so I suppose I'm allowed to exhibit some strange behaviour as part of the coping process.

The strangest thing for me is that I have almost stopped wearing perfume. I've worn perfume just about every single day for the last decade or more, but since February 22nd I have hardly worn it at all. A very sweet lady in Australia sent me some perfume oils recently and I've put those on from time to time, but other than that I've hardly reached for a spray bottle at all. However, I have become obsessed with soap, and washing in general.

In the last two weeks I have purchased almost fifty bars of soap (24 of them are tiny guest soaps but the rest are full sized bars) and enough face cloths and wash cloths to see me through a lifetime. I freely admit that I tend to obsess about things that take my fancy, but this is strange behaviour even for me. It has been suggested that it is an effort to take control of my immediate surroundings and also to reassure myself that I can still be clean and smell nice even though we have had all sorts of problems with water and sewerage over the last couple of months. It seems likely that it's some sort of psychological coping mechanism. Oh well, if the way I cope is to have lots of nice smelling soaps then I suppose I can live with that!

On the plus side, I have learned a lot about soap recently, particularly as far as men's shaving and washing habits go. There are a lot of shaving-related internet sites out there, and a lot of men who really enjoy a good bar of tallow-based soap. I would have assumed that women would be the driving force behind most fancy soap purchases, but it turns out that plenty of men are at least as bad, if not worse.

As for today's choice? It is Caswell-Massey's Almond Cold Cream soap, triple-milled, finely scented, and apparently good enough for President Eisenhower of the USA. It's certainly good enough for me.

What's working / what isn't

On a personal level:

• We got electricity and water back a few days after the earthquake. Going to the toilet in a plastic bag became the new norm for people in this city, but people on our street only had to do that for a few days. Some people are still doing it now.
• Tap water has been chlorinated in the last few days but is still not safe to drink or cook with. Everything has to be boiled before it can be used, but that's not practical in the shower. I come out of the bathroom wondering if I'm less clean than when I went in. The boil water notice should be lifted once the chlorine gets through the whole system, but then we get to smell like a swimming pool at all times. Lovely.
• Our house shows only very minor damage (apart from to contents which were flung everywhere), just a few cracks in the plasterboard where boards join, and some flaking paint in the corners.
• Our garage, despite being badly cracked in September's quake, shows no new damage now. We were told by EQC in early February that it would have to be demolished and rebuilt, but I assume that has been shoved way down the list of priorities. It's certainly less important than fixing somebody's house.
• My husband and I are both working fairly normal hours in work that is reasonably close to what we normally do.

On a grander scale:

• Our part of the city is very badly damaged. I don't know how we escaped so lightly, given what surrounds us. Liquefaction, broken walls, broken buildings. Five minutes on foot will take me to our local park, which has ruined rugby pitches and badly cracked and slumping paths. The little drain that runs along the perimeter, which is normally a stream with ducks swimming on it, is now an open sewer. Another couple of minutes on foot takes me to our local shopping mall, which has to be partially demolished, and our local shops which have collapsed on one side of the road. 
• The city centre is a complete mess. A month after the earthquake, building and business owners still don't know what is happening with their property or their livelihood. The CBD is cordoned off for safety reasons (not just overly PC safety reasons but very genuine ones, given the huge aftershocks we are still having and the risk of people being electrocuted or otherwise harmed by broken power connections) and nobody knows when it can be reopened. It must be a really awful time for those who own irreplaceable stock or personal items and are terrified -- with good reason -- that the building will be demolished before they have a chance to rescue anything.
• My office building, housing well over 1000 staff, will not reopen for at least a couple of months. It has some minor damage but is surrounded by buildings that need to be demolished. Even if my office had no damage at all, which is not the case, it would not be safe to go anywhere near it. So all the staff have been distributed around various locations in the city, often without their own computers or any access to the staff network (computer network and also people network). I'm working from home this week but have no idea where, or on what, I'll be working next week. Right now I'm just grateful that my employer is still in business.

February 22 Earthquake: My Experience

Hereford St just after the quake

My husband and I had popped out to buy some lunch, and were walking along Hereford Street heading towards the river and our office building. We were almost outside Mythai Thai Restaurant & Monkey Bar (which was red stickered in September and still cordoned off while being repaired) when the quake hit. Almost immediately we could hear and see debris crashing down around us. We tried to run into the road but it was impossible to direct ourselves because the ground was moving too much. We managed to stagger away from the buildings and were not hit by anything but it was extremely frightening. I'll never forget the sound of glass and bricks shattering around us, and the screams of other people on the street.

Damage to Mythai

When the shaking stopped we realised that Mythai had been severely damaged. If it hadn't already been cordoned off then we probably would have been on the pavement right beside it and been killed. The concrete kerbstones on Hereford Street were buckled and broken. We had to cross the Hereford St bridge to get back to our office building and see what had happened there and it was also buckled in the middle -- we had to jump over it.

Buckled bridge

At this stage I knew things were bad but had no idea just how badly that part of the city had been hit; we happened to be walking away from the worst of the devastation rather than towards it. It wasn't until we walked home along St Asaph St and saw what had happened in Colombo and Manchester streets that I grasped the magnitude of it. I still don't know how we got through the day without a scratch.

Damage to Colombo Street

February 22 Earthquake

Just a quick note to let you know that I'm still alive. The earthquake has been utterly devastating. I will post more when I have the time and energy, but that might not be for some time.

Things New Zealand Doesn't Have (Part 9)

Haven't done this for a while, but I thought it was time to talk about something other than earthquakes.

This may not be a blanket rule throughout New Zealand, but it's something that we have noticed in many places, including our own home. Sinks here don't have overflows!

I managed to flood our kitchen recently by turning on the tap and then responding to some emergency (chickens vs cat, if I remember rightly). By the time I turned back to the kitchen there was water all over the place. A simple overflow built into the back of the sink would have prevented it. So why isn't there one?

This is what I'm talking about:

Maybe I've only ever looked at really old sinks and modern ones here do have it, but even really old sinks in Ireland have overflows. It's just bizarre not to have such a basic feature.

The earthquake's back

We had a lovely relaxing December and a glorious calm Christmas Day. Swimming, barbecue, relaxation, calls to family elsewhere around the world -- it was great.

On Boxing Day in the early hours of the morning we had a very big aftershock. Then at 8am we had another. Then at 10.30am we had a 4.9, shallow and located right under the city and therefore both frightening and damaging. People are freaked out and lots more buildings are cracked or otherwise damaged, but thank God nobody was killed (despite bricks raining down around tourists in Cathedral Square), and the infrastructure is fine.

Here are some photos from today. Lots of damage high up on buildings, cracked parapets and fallen bricks.

(Note: the street in the first photo was already damaged before Boxing Day, but not as badly as this.)

What will this weekend bring?

This weekend will be the three-month anniversary of the earthquake. We had big shakes on the one-month and two-month anniversaries. I wonder what December 4th will bring! It has been really quiet over the last couple of weeks, but that doesn't mean there aren't more big aftershocks just gearing up to give us a wobble. The North Island got a couple of good-sized earthquakes a few days ago, but they get earthquakes quite regularly and nobody seemed to bothered. I do wonder if something down here triggered something up there.

One other thing this weekend will bring is the third anniversary of our arrival in New Zealand. It's hard to believe that it has been three years already. We've had our ups and downs, and we miss family and friends and Ireland, but still: no regrets. Moving here has been a wonderful experience overall, and I hope it continues to be one.

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: Two months on

Things have been relatively quiet recently, but two months on we are still getting aftershocks. Just after midnight we got a 4.2 and just before seven this morning we got a very shallow 4.1 which woke most people up. It reminded me of the bad old days in September when I was woken before my alarm on a daily basis. The first time that I slept right through until morning was wonderful!

Two months on and the rebuilding process has barely begun. The nightmare of red tape for doing anything with heritage buildings or any other work that needs consent is way more than I can go into here, but it is badly affecting a lot of people. It wouldn't surprise me at all if some building owners end up committing suicide because of the pressure they are under from all sides. Safety barricades are blocking the roads and preventing access to shops and businesses, people can't live or work in dangerous buildings, businesses can't reopen, the insurance companies won't pay out until they know what they're paying for, rebuilding can't happen without consent, consent can't be granted without money to pay for the consenting process, building owners can't pay out of their own pocket because they don't have any money left... It just goes on. I don't know what is going to happen to the unlucky folk caught in the middle.

I'm still waiting for the time to change on the clocks that were stopped by the first earthquake.The clock tower on the old train station on Moorhouse Avenue still reads 4.35ish on two faces (I think the other two read 6). It's a constant reminder of what happened.

NaNoWriMo 2010

Some of you may remember that last year I took part in NaNoWriMo, which is a one-month whirlwind of fiction writing. People across the world take part, writing a 50,000 word first draft of their novel during the month of November.

I finished my novel last year (well, I finished editing it last weekend, and am still not 100% happy with it) and decided to go for it again this time around.


I am still working on the plot, but here's the back-cover blurb. It could well change a little, a lot, or completely between now and November 30th, but it's a start.

Rose Cooper has almost everything a girl at the end of the nineteenth century could want: a loving family, a handsome suitor, a fulfilling social life, and a great future ahead of her. The only thing she doesn't have, the one thing which threatens to drive a wedge between her and the most important people in her life, is the vote.

The women in the fledgling colony of New Zealand are fighting to overthrow the Victorian oppression of the British Empire, and become the first in the world to have their say at the ballot box. Despite the misgivings of her family and the treachery of her opponents, Rose is determined to stand tall with her suffragette sisters as they fly in the face of everything society expects of them.  But is the price worth paying when every political move she makes threatens to tear her personal life apart?

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: Manchester Courts

Manchester Courts is a seven-storey building on Manchester Street in the city centre. It was built in the early 1900s and at the time was the first "skyscraper" in Christchurch. It's a listed heritage building, but unfortunately it was badly damaged in the earthquake and is very dangerous at the moment. A 5.5 or bigger aftershock would probably send it crashing to the ground.

This is how it looked before September 4th:

This is how it looked straight after the earthquake:

And this is how it looked last time I saw it:

 

That is normally one of the busiest streets in the city centre, and it is very strange to see it blocked off and completely empty of cars and pedestrians. Obviously the businesses in the immediate vicinity have been forced to close as well, which must be causing a lot of problems for their owners, staff, and customers. I found this out the hard way when I went on a lunchtime trip to Dick Smith's to buy a new pair of earphones, completely forgetting that Dick Smith's was located on this corner.

The demolition was bitterly opposed by those who thought the building should be saved at all costs, although I don't remember seeing any useful suggestions about how to raise the many millions of dollars that would require. If the building had a steel frame there might have been some hope for it, and newspaper reports from the time it was built suggested that there might actually be a steel frame, but that turned out to not be the case. Engineers used radar to scan for a steel frame and saw nothing, and then they drilled into the supporting pillars and found nothing but brick. The only steel is in some horizontal beams and internal columns, not in any of the load-bearing features.

The demolition is expected to take six weeks or so, assuming that Mother Nature doesn't speed things along. There is a webcam here where you can follow its progress (use that link, don't rely on this photo updating itself):

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: A very bad aftershock

Just before lunchtime on Tuesday we had a very violent 5.0 shake, shallow and close to the city, that caused minor damage in my office building and forced the evacuation of all staff for an hour while structural engineers were brought in to check the place. I understand that it caused more damage around the city to places that were already vulnerable. I took a half day from work so I could go home and check our own house. We have some more minor cracks and damage to plaster but nothing that looks serious.

I found this clip of a liquor store during Tuesday's aftershock. (For comparison, here is video from another branch of the same chain on the morning of the 7.1 earthquake.)

I can't help but feel that I partly brought this one on! I was at a vendor presentation that morning by an Australian company who are hoping to sell us some very expensive software, attended by about 20 local staff. The two presenters had just arrived in Christchurch and I thought to myself, "I hope we have an aftershock just so they see what it feels like." Twenty minutes later, BAMMM! The place felt like it was about to come down around our ears. Of course we had to stop the presentation because the building was evacuated, and I never went back. I wonder if the presenters (who had never felt an earthquake before) were able to hold it together for the rest of the session when they had just seen half their audience panic and run for the doors!

The panic reaction was quite interesting. I am not a panicker by nature (except inside my head), but I could feel the actions of those around me influencing me. A couple of people lost all dignity in their haste to run for the door and they spurred me into action, although in retrospect that was not the smartest thing to do at all because you're meant to duck and cover where you are even if there's nothing to duck under (I had been aiming for the nearest wall). At least one chair was knocked over and one lady had to be escorted out of the room afterwards because she just fell apart. If there had been a larger audience today that could quickly have become dangerous if the crowd lost control of itself.

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: Ongoing in October!

We still rock and we still roll. It's not to the same extent as last month, thank God, but still noticeable.

On Friday night I was playing pool with a few friends when a shallow 4.6 struck. The whole venue wobbled noticeably, resulting in what would have been a hush if the band hadn't kept playing, and the slight displacement of all the balls on the pool table, then a sudden burst of conversation. I have to say one thing about this earthquake: it has given us all something to talk about. No matter who you are, what you do, or who you know, there is common ground ripe for discussion. Over the last few weeks I have had heartfelt chats with friends, colleagues, cleaners, taxi drivers, neighbours, sales assistants, and random strangers at the bus stop. It's way better than the weather as a subject for small talk!

Most of the weekend was quiet, but this evening we had a 3.something that made the ground wobble as if we were at sea. Most of the aftershocks are shaky but some of them have a very rolling motion which leads to queasiness. It can go on for 30 seconds or more and leaves me feeling a bit strange for quite some time.

Looking back at the 7.1 and the immediate powerful aftershocks, the worst memory for me is the lack of any way to get away from this. There was no refuge, nowhere to flee to. Roads were broken (at the time we did not know how badly), the airport was closed, the port was out of action -- but even if those places had been available I would have been too scared to travel to them because the ground was so unstable. There was literally nowhere to go that would get me away from the earthquake. It's a horrible feeling to be scared and insecure in your own home. If your home isn't a refuge then what is? That first night I made a nest for myself in the bedroom, with emergency food supplies, torch and batteries, cellphone and charger, laptop and charger, and I holed up in there for the night. The ground woke me up on probably an hourly basis, but I felt safe there because nothing had fallen on the bed during the 7.1. Other things did fall in the room but nothing actually fell on me. I was by myself for a day and a half, until my husband got home from Ireland, and I barely left that room the whole time. I just didn't feel safe in the living room or kitchen, where so many things had already fallen over, and it took about a week for me to relax in those rooms or anywhere in the house outside the bedroom. As I said, it's a horrible feeling to feel insecure in your own home. I hope I never feel like that again.

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: And still we rock and roll

Three hours after my last blog post we were hit by a 5.0 aftershock, the biggest in weeks. Clearly this isn't over yet.

At any other time a 5.0 would be a newsworthy earthquake. But because it followed a bigger one we have to just shrug our shoulders and put it down as an aftershock. It doesn't seem fair, does it?

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: One month on

It's hard to believe the earthquake happened a month ago. It all seems so long ago, and yet it's fresh in my mind too. We haven't had any noticeable aftershocks in a couple of days, but that doesn't mean they've stopped -- they're still going on and there's no guarantee that we won't have any more big ones. The three we had last Saturday night did some visible damage to the plasterboard in our living room, so I do hope we don't get any more like that, but nobody really knows.

Damaged plasterboard with the panels visibly out of alignment (ignore that bit to the left of the light switch)

The city feels largely back to normal, but of course it isn't normal at all. We're just doing better at looking past the broken buildings and the rubble. Many people still don't have basic sewage services in their homes, or even homes at all -- every day there are more stories of people packing their belongings and moving on. It must be very difficult to spend such a long time not even knowing if the house can ever be repaired, or even if the land can be built on again if the house is demolished.

Our City O-Tautahi -- an old council building, propped up from all angles

There are many businesses that can't reopen yet because they are beside or underneath something that has been damaged to the point of being dangerous. Ordinarily those dangerous buildings could be pulled down (although that is a huge job in itself), but the difficulty lies in deciding what to do with the ones that are a valuable part of the city's heritage. It could take years to make those right, but what happens in the meantime to the people who are affected by the very presence of a tottering mass of bricks?

The old Civic Building, with smashed and boarded-up windows

Just about everybody has minor damage to report even if there aren't any structural problems. As well as the damage to our plasterboard at home, there's clear evidence of it at my workplace and in just about everywhere else I've been. Of course it's hard to tell what cracks were there before the earthquake! But I'm sure most of the damage to concrete and brickwork is only a month old.

Emotionally I'm doing okay but not great. Loud or sudden noises make me flinch, and a rumbling lorry going past gets my attention now where before I wouldn't even have noticed it. It's hard to keep my mind from going back to September 4th and reliving the terror and uncertainty of the hours after 4.35am, and I don't know if it would be better to let myself think about it or to try and shove it away. Cycling to work through the city centre (my route takes me past many broken buildings) brings me to the verge of tears almost every day -- I feel wound up like a clock that is almost but not quite wound too far. All it will take is one more turn of that key and I'll go BOINNNG!!! and it will all come out.

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: Still ongoing

You may think that the aftershocks would have died down three weeks after the 7.1 earthquake. You'd be wrong.

Within the space of 15 minutes tonight we had a 3.8, a 4.1, and a 4.0 -- within 5km of us. They were centred on Oxford Terrace which is smack bang in the city centre. I wonder if they did any more damage to the buildings in the CBD... They really rattled our house quite vigorously and made a couple of precariously perched items fall off their perches.

My day up until this point was extremely relaxing (an aftershock woke me up at half nine but other than that it was a fairly quiet time) and this has completely wrecked my peace. Adrenaline is still pumping more than half an hour later!

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: More than two weeks later

The earthquake was more than two weeks ago now -- 17 days, almost -- and at last I find myself thinking of other things for most of the day. We have yet to go long without detectable aftershocks, and we had a 4.6 magnitude less than 24 hours ago which left the whole house wobbling for at least 30 seconds afterwards, but they are definitely less frequent.

I am back to my normal job in my normal office building, although not at my own desk. The earthquake damaged important things like fire stairs so some areas of the building are still out of bounds. I'm currently sitting on the fourth floor mezzanine, with a huge concrete beam and cracked plasterboard directly above my head.

The city is no longer in a state of emergency, as things have been downgraded to a state of urgency. This is probably small comfort to the people who have been made homeless, or who still don't know if their house is safe enough to live in. In some cases they are hoping for a demolition order, which will at least allow them to take the insurance money and move on. The alternative is living in a damaged house on a street that nobody will ever want to buy on, but there will definitely be people stuck in that position too. Property values for houses that border on demolition zones are going to plummet, as with every subdivision built on land that we now know is prone to liquefaction. Who is going to want to buy a house there? Nobody who can afford to live elsewhere, that's for sure.

Walking around the city centre is surreal. Life is going on as normal almost everywhere, but then there are pockets where it's only a matter of time before the demolition equipment moves in. These buildings are just around the corner from my old office building (the one we only moved from a week before the earthquake). It's hard to see the damage in the second photo but up close the building is cracked and broken. There is a red placard on the door and little hope that it will be made safe for business anytime soon:

And here's my old office building itself. Poor old girl, she has seen better days, but she's still standing! I don't know what the future holds for this 1934 structure but I do hope it escapes demolition despite the current damage. It's a heritage building so worth saving if that's possible.

Although we are still getting aftershocks, the last fortnight is starting to feel like some crazy dream. It's not a dream that I ever want to experience again in my lifetime but it's starting to feel like this is almost over for me. I am one of the lucky ones, for sure.

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: Other people's stories

I didn't compile this but I did contribute to it. It makes interesting, and occasionally distressing, reading.

Earthquake Map

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: Civil Defence

I thought last week that I wouldn't be on Civil Defence duty much as I didn't see how I had any practical skills that would be useful, but I was wrong. As part of my normal job I spend a lot of time working with people from all parts of Christchurch City Council, and I (and the other people in the same role as me) knew many of the people working at the Emergency Operations Centre. This made me a natural choice for working on the front desk, acting as an  interface between the public and external organisations and the inner sanctum of the EOC. I've put in more hours there this week than I would put in at my normal job, but it's all to the good. I've been delighted to be able to help.

The first shift that I was there, I brought supplies of fruit, water, and muesli bars with me, but I quickly realised that wasn't necessary. We have proper catering! Staff at the EOC get a proper meal at lunch and dinner, and I've heard there's a proper breakfast as well but I have been doing shifts from 1pm onwards so missed that. The food has been excellent and is a vital part of the whole operation, keeping staff properly fuelled rather than relying on energy drinks and junk food.

The response from the public has been incredible, too. We have had all kinds of people coming by with offers to help, offers of free/discounted services, or heaped plates of goodies for the staff. Lots of people who don't know how else to help have been baking cakes and biscuits and scones and muffins and bringing in sweets for us. There was also a lovely lady going around giving us free shoulder and hand massages to ease the tension! It really does mean a lot to know that we are in their thoughts, and the generosity has been astounding. If I am ever on the other side in this type of situation I'll try to remember this.