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
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