Thanks, Joey, It has been an intense time here for me in Christchurch since the February 22nd quake. My high-rise apartment building is empty and awaiting final inspections to determine if it will be demolished or repaired. My girlfriend, Colette, has taken me in and we're giving living together a try (and it seems to be working well <smile>). My divorce from Sharon, which has been filed and open in the US since July 2009, is now scheduled to be completed in April when I'll be home in the US for a month. She'll get everything in the US and I'll get everything in NZ. It's sad but we could never agree on how to respond to events when I came down with Prostate Cancer and the US economy went into a major tailspin. I was for continuing with our plans to move to NZ (a good look at your own mortality makes you not want to put off the things that you want to do). But she was for staying on in the US and waiting for the US economy to improve again (which I had no faith in). So, she stayed in the US and continued to run our business, a 25 acre nursery, and I took off for NZ. That was in November 2009. As an aside, I had my Prostate out and I am, apparently, cancer free now. My work was in the 12 story BNZ building just beside the Christchurch Cathedral which collapsed and which you may have seen photos of. The BNZ building is still standing but it is in a no-go zone. So, the company is scattered over the city and surrounds. Most of us are working from home using on-line links over the Internet (I'm a computer programmer) and we're trying to scrape enough pieces together to continue to be a functioning company. I think it'll work but it's a confusing mess.
I wrote a long piece that I sent out recently that I'm going to attach here. My apologies if some of you are on dial up because it is long but it'll give you a good flavor of what the earthquake was like for me, personally. Your comments on any or all of it would be appreciated. I've omitted the photos I attached to the original E-Mail to hold the size down but you can find some really fine pictures of the earthquake damage here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/geoftheref/ Cheers from Christchurch - Shakytown, New Zealand, Dennis G. '85 & '86 CB700SC (my babies) ============== bgn EQ description =================== Dear friends, After an intense eight days, I managed to reconnect to the Internet and get my computer running. As many of you are aware, we had a major 6.3 earthquake here at mid-day on Tuesday, February 22nd. The epicenter was six miles/10K southeast of the city center and 3 miles/5k deep. That’s’ very close and very shallow and it was, to say the least, a major event for all the 300,000 people who live here. We expect the death toll to approach 240. Compared to some recent events like Haiti, that doesn’t sound like much. But the difference is, of course, building codes crafted for safety and followed when building. But, even so, we had two large buildings pancake entirely and the tallest building in town; a 26 story hotel, is leaning badly and will have to be destroyed. In the Central Business District , 30% or more of the buildings have been destroyed or will have to be taken down. The entire center of the city, called the Four Avenues area (several square miles), is entirely off-limits and cordoned off by military and police. 55,000 people are off work because of the cordon. At this time, they are still digging bodies out of the rubble. I was lucky to have taken the day of the earthquake off and I was riding my motorcycle when it happened. It shook so bad, I thought I had a flat tire and stopped – but it kept shaking. When it finally stopped, I rode onto my apartment building to see what had happened and everyone was outside. There didn’t seem to be much damage at first glance but closer inspection revealed several disquieting things. There were large and widespread liquefaction pools (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_liquefaction) in the park across the street. A walk down into the parking garage revealed water pouring up from the base of the support columns and that the concrete garage floor was serious bowed up from pressure beneath (see the attached pictures). Upstairs, at the base of the building I lived in, there was serious damage to the supporting concrete and its internal rebar was exposed. Everyone was standing out in the parking lot talking and waiting for the aftershocks. I concluded that the building was very likely fatally damaged and I went upstairs to gather what I could. Two bags of a minimal set of clothes, passport, checkbooks, coat, bathroom items and a few other essentials. My friend Colette had walked from her work at the courthouse a quarter mile away to see how I was. But I was upstairs and missed her. I came down with my bags and texted her and she text-replied that she was walking to her house now in Hoon Hay; about an hour’s walk away. I spend some time talking with folks in the parking lot and went down and got my second motorcycle from the parking garage below and brought it up. It had been thrown to the floor by the force of the quake and the handle bars were bent but still drivable. I took off then to go to her house to see what sort of shape it was in. It was an amazing ride. Destruction on all sides. Water and sand and silt filled many of the roads from liquefaction. Cars and anxious people were grid locked everywhere in their efforts to get home to their loved ones. The motorcycle made it easier to weave in and out of traffic but it was also dangerous - as people were very distracted. At one point, I fell in behind an ambulance which was slowly clearing a way through and I just followed in its wake. It took me nearly 45 minutes to make the 15 minute ride and Colette and I arrived at her place at about the same moment. Her radio said that the quake had measured as 6.3; Lighter than the September 4th event at 7.1. But, apparently, this one was a lot closer. The water and power were off but her place seemed to have suffered no damage. Her son, Jonanathan, came over and while we were all talking about the event, a major aftershock hit. It was big enough that I stood under a doorway and wondered if the house would stand it. I left then by foot to walk back to the apartment complex to recover my 2nd motorcycle and to begin to pull more stuff out of my apartment. I knew that if the building was fatally damaged, as I suspected, then the authorities would be by at some point to red-sticker it and then all access would be blocked – perhaps forever – until it was demolished. But, given that the disaster was city wide and serious, I estimated that I had hours and maybe even days before the restrictions were placed. Colette and I agreed that when I had a load of stuff taken out of my place and ready for transport, I’d text her and she’d drive over and we’d load it up to take to her place. There was no point in her trying to come over immediately, however, as the city’s streets were still in utter chaos. It took me an hour and ten minutes to walk back. It was amazing all the way. Some areas sustained no damage and there were others where a row of shop fronts were just tumbled down. Sirens, cars, anxious people, water and silt everywhere. By the time I was passing Hagley Park near my place, a helicopter landing area had been set up out in the open space for emergency transport. I also passed the hospital and I could see a lot of folks sitting out on the grassy areas around it. I assumed that some of the wards had been evacuated. Back at my apartment, many people were still standing about in the parking lot. Few were actively bringing things down from their units. My unit is in the B Block on level 5. New Zealanders call the ground floor 0 whereas in the US, we call the ground floor 1. So in Kiwi terms, I was on the fifth floor but in the US, we’d say I was on the 6th. Not an inconsequential distinction since I was now about to start climbing up and down the six flights over and over again. The elevators were off as well as all sources of power and water. The only thing that seemed to be functioning were high-pitched alarm warnings that were repeatedly squealing on every floor and within every unit – as if we still hadn’t noticed there was a problem. This began several hours of intense packing and carrying. I’m sure I made over 20 trips up and down. And, there was a lot of triage style decision making as I went along. I took the most important things first and then tried to work my way down. After two hours, I texted Colette to come over if she could, and then I pressed on. I never heard from her so I texted again in 15 minutes. And then repeatedly after that ever trip down. And still no reply. At that point, the phone systems and cellular systems were massively overloaded and very little was getting through. Sometimes partial messages came through four and five times in a row. I tried calling her land line and the system told me it didn’t recognize that number – which was an amazing response. I kept carrying and soon I had a lot of stuff gathered up in the parking lot in a pile next to my 2nd motorcycle. Finally, I called her land line one more time and it went through and she answered. She’d been texting me as well but with no response. She agreed head over and I then continued to carry things down. I was pretty sure that I had two car loads down there by now (she’s got a small hatchback). After 30 minutes, I began to watch for her as I continued to carry. I went up and down many times and my legs were aching. After an hour and a half, she still hadn’t arrived and I was getting worried about what had happened to her. And, it was verging onto rain and all my stuff was sitting exposed in the parking lot. Computers, clothes, and cardboard boxes full of my life. Then she arrive on foot. Without proof that she was a resident in the area, she’d been unable to get her car through the police cordons at nearly every corner as you got closer into the center of the city. We got on my 2nd motorcycle and rode back to her car, which was over 2 km away, and left the motorcycle and brought the car back in. Now, it was raining in earnest and I was deeply worried about my things. There was no worries about looting as I knew many of my neighbors who were milling about in the complex’s parking lot. We loaded up everything that we could and stashed the rest under a partial overhang for rain protection and took off for her place. Every trip through the city was an amazing experience. The city was like a bee hive that had been kicked. At this point, we had no idea of how bad the destruction had been more into the business core. At her place, we unloaded into the garage. In her house, there was still no water or power. After a few minutes, I suggested we should go back for the rest since there wasn’t much we could do there and she agreed. On each trip we met roadblocks and at each roadblock, what was allowed and not allowed changed according to who you were talking to at that moment. On one trip in the pouring rain we couldn’t go east on Harper Avenue because the bridge over the Avon was damaged and we’d fall in. So we had to take a complex detour into Papanui. An hour and a half later when we returned, the traffic was flowing both ways on Harper. This is not by way of complaint – it’s just that the level of confusion and misinformation was intense and everyone was trying to do their best in the midst of a huge city-wide disaster. We returned to the complex and most of the people in the parking lot had cleared away due to the rain. Some, like my friend Raj and his partner were still trying to decide if they should try to sleep there that night or not. The aftershocks were coming fairly regularly and some were big. With no water or power in the rain, the buildings were just large hulking masses. We loaded the remaining boxes and took off again for yet one more cross city drive. When we returned to Colette’s we found the power on which was unexpected and lovely. We could make tea to warm ourselves and something to eat. The water, however, was still off. That night, as we tried to sleep, we didn’t sleep much. Every 20 minutes or so, there’d be another aftershock. The violence of some of them worried you and you wondered how strong they’d get and if you’d have to seek shelter on the floor beside the bed. You could hear some coming from a distance like a train and others hit you suddenly , like a slap. Some were deep or distant and rumbled far away while others were shallow, You could feel the earth settling and resettling on a scale that was, and is, so hard to imagine. It makes one feel very small indeed. Colette’s talked about having survivor’s guilt over the fact that so many lost their homes - and yet she’s come through unscathed. The emotions for everyone are running high in something like this. Death, act of quiet heroism, anguish, fear and grief mixed with human compassion and caring in all proportions surround you amid the scenes of destruction. Watching how a ‘civil’ society responds to something like this is also an education. Yes, there are looters and con-artists out immediately but they are the tiny minority. The real picture is that it isn’t every man for himself but more that everyone is looking out for each other when they can. The emergency folks were out immediately and worked for days without rest while they had no idea of the state of their own homes and little of their loved ones. ‘Civil’ in that folks obeyed directions and pulled over to let the ambulances through. The search and rescue folks from the US and Japan and other countries who came in the days following the quake said that they had never encountered better civil disaster coordination organization. People have worked incessantly to get water and power back on as soon as humanly possible. Centers were set up and manned immediately for the homeless. The Mayor said over the radio, “Check on your neighbors and help them” and it wasn’t a cliché. The next morning, on Wednesday, we went back over and this time Colette came upstairs with me and we began to pack up more stuff for transport. Everything in my kitchen cabinets had been tossed out onto the hard floor and sugar was mixed with pills and glass shards as well as tools and silverware. It was a huge mess. My bookcases had also dumped their contents all the way across the room. She gathered up everything salvageable from the kitchen and from the drawers of my desk while I packed various other gear. Again, multiple trips up and down were made and then, in the mid-afternoon, it became obvious that the authorities were about to restrict entry. On my next to last trip I was told by a police officer that I couldn’t enter the building anymore. But Colette has talked to another officer and determined that what the law actually said was that until the building had been officially assigned a red ‘no-go’ sticker, that the authorities could only advise you not to enter for health reasons. This was an important distinction because I’d just realized that I’d failed in all my previous trips to get a box that was critical. It contained a lifetime of slides and all the family photographs that had been passed down to me by my family. I talked to yet another officer to make sure of my facts and then I went back to the gate where the officer wasn’t letting folks in anymore. I explained what was up there and that I needed to, I had to, go up one more time. And I explained that I was aware of what the law was in this case. He tried to bluff me and I told him that if he was going to stop me, he was going to have to arrest me. I was nice but firm. Finally he relented but said I had to be in and out as quickly as I could and I agreed. And thus, my family photos and many, many slides were saved as well. At Colette’s when we’d returned with the last of the stuff, the water had come back on with very low pressure – but it was on, so that was nice. We could have showers. The water however, if consumed, had to be boiled the authorities were saying. Pipes broken, sewage running loose, there was too much danger of cross over. Thursday dawned and we’d slept better. Maybe we were getting used to the aftershocks. After some rearranging of things (my stuff was everywhere), we went on a motorcycle ride so see what had become of our city and to revisit my apartment complex at Park Terrace. Security was still loose and we could still walk into the complex’s parking lot and into the parking lot of The George Hotel next door. A half dozen folks were still in the complex gathered at the two small isolated units at the front near the car gate. They were drinking beers and having a barbeque. They said they were guarding the place but I suspect some of them were there because they didn’t know where else to go and because the authorities hadn’t tightened the security cordon yet. The main part of the complex was definitely off-limits. In the coming days, we took numerous motorcycle rides through the parts of the city we could access and revisited Park Terrace repeatedly. With each visit, the security cordon grew tighter. The entire Four Avenues area, which is considered to the Central Business District (CBD) of Christchurch was cordoned off with police and military. It became common to see armored personnel carriers rolling down the street or parked across intersections. On Friday, the authorities decided that two of the towers (A & B) in the Park Terrace complex might fall down in a large aftershock so an additional restriction was placed around them and Park Terrace road from Bealey on the north to Armagh on the south was made an absolute no-go zone. A 6 PM to 6 AM curfew was imposed for the entire Four Avenues area with arrest on-sight orders. In the deeper interior of the CBD, near where the two buildings had pan-caked and surrounding the 26 story Grand Excelsior Hotel, which had acquired a highly visible lean during the initial quake, addition ‘no-go’ zones were imposed. By Saturday, no one was left in the Park Terrace complex. They may have been gone by Friday. With each ride, we saw different areas. Once, we went up Avondale to my friend Roy’s house to find him sweeping up. He thought his house would probably be condemned. All around the edges, the foundations had shattered. We tried to visit my friend, Dorien’s place but I wasn’t willing to take the motorcycle through the huge puddles blocking her street without knowing what was under them, so we rode on. We rode down through Ferrymead on the way to the beach communities. It reminded me of driving in third-world cities where road repair are often very badly neglected and everyone just drives where ever they must to avoid the holes and piles. In places, the remains of brick buildings would just lie in piles. Entire walls would be fallen away in other places. By now, crews of people, many of them part of volunteer student armies, just went where ever they were needed and began to shovel up all the liquefaction sand and silt up into piles on the sides of the roads. Everywhere, people had painted warnings on the roads of holes or dips or rises. Down by the beach, a Christchurch icon, Shag Rock, stood in the surf, shattered into fragments. Further along, the backs of houses were caved in by the rock and dirt slides that came down the cliffs behind them. A number of people died in these places. We stopped to see our friend, Steve, but he was out. His apartment looked fine though he told us later there was no water or power. He’d been involved in some of the early rescues when the cliffs had fallen onto the houses not far from his place. When we were there, I think he was still out doing volunteer work. It’s now 12 days since the quake. It took me 8 days before I got my DSL switched over to Colette’s (she’d had dial-up before) and before I got my computer connected up so I could get and send E-Mail. Prior to that, I sent a few things out on Facebook via dial-up and I had an E-Mail address I’d setup on my iPhone. A few of you will have communicated with me via those mediums. When I did open up my E-Mail, I had so many messages of concern – people asking how I was and what could they do. It was really quite a beautiful thing to see how many friends care about you. Many of you receiving this E-Mail are part of that group – thank you! So, indications are that my apartment will be demolished - though the issue hasn’t had a final decision made. I’ve filed claims with the Earthquake Commission (EQC) and with State Insurance who had my policy covering the things inside my apartment. It’ll take a good long time to see how the entire insurance picture unrolls. Years, perhaps. This was a big hit for a small country. We’ve yet to convene a meeting of the Body Corporate for Park Terrace (for US readers, that’s like a Condominium Association). The BC had the insurance policy that covered us all and, as you can imagine, everyone wants to know if we’re going to get 50 cents on the dollar or full value for our losses. The company I work for was in the high rise BNZ building just beside Cathedral Square. If you’ve seen pictures of Christchurch and the earthquake damage, you’ve likely seen the ruins of the Cathedral. Our building appears to be OK but it’ll likely be weeks, if not months, before that part of the city is opened again. In the mean time, those of us who’ve begun to return to work, have setup to work from home or from other employee’s homes or from small make-shift offices. Fortunately, most of the services we provide to customers are provided from server systems sitting in US based server farms – far from Christchurch. I’m staying now with my friend, Colette, and it looks like that may work out to be a long-term thing - and I’m happy about that. Most of my personal stuff has been saved. I’ve had a big loss but I’ve also been fortunate. If I’d been working that day, I might well have been sitting at lunch at one of the sidewalk cafes that were decimated by falling masonry – many were killed that way. So, I have a good place to stay and people around me that care about me. And it looks like my job will continue. It could have been far, far worse. Forgive me if I’ve sent you two or more copies of this. There are so many people I wanted to sent this to that I may have double-booked a few. ============== end EQ description =================== -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Joey Kelley Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 4:59 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Nighthawk Lovers] News from Christchurch Ressurecting a 5 day old thread (Also known as being fashionably late) Welcome Back Dennis! Could you give us a further update - back to work - hows things working out at the Girlfriend's place - did the handlebars get bent back? Again, great to know you're safe! -Joey -- -Joey Kelley JoeyKelley.com - My Life Online JoeyFixesComputers.com - Its What I Do! JoeyKelleyPhoto.com - Photographing Today, For Tomorrow -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers?hl=en.
