Rob's story from Christchurch

At another forum, Rob, a friend to Merc and I, posted of his experience of the earthquake in Christchurch and the aftermath. Rob works in video production and he is as good at that as he is a writing. With his permission I am re-posting his story.

Jeebus, party-time all round: only six kids sleeping in tents on the lawn tonight for the twins 10th (it was to have been 10 kids) but that seems enough. Fire and marshmallows and general insanity. It went ok though dynamics were tricky at times, and we didn't have much prepared. (That was ok- they played with the baby rabbits the twins have found, went to the beach and lifted rocks to bother crabs, etc.) Still left me feeling a bit tense. Psychologically, this quake has been a double whammy: the left jab in September, and now the right hook, the knock-out blow. Leaves you feeling a bit helpless, a little drained and fuzzy-headed. Many people are coping by throwing themselves into something: helping out, or getting ther lives re-organised. I did that last time: went in to work and worked long hours; lots of good footage- had started working on a doco about the recovery at the university. Well, that's a doco that won't make it. Shame, it could have been good. A good mate has been working on a beaut big doco about Chch on Sept 4- all premised on the remarkable fact that we had a 7.1 and no-one died. He'll be gutted too; in a strange and twisted way, losing a really good story like that can feel a bit tragic itself, even knowing a story isn't a person and it only ever existed in our heads (though he'd done a lot of work on it)- it's still a loss. This time is different for me: there's a slight sense of 'why bother'? It's not connected directly to any sense it will happen again- you can't think like that. It's just a 'here we go again'; been here; a deep ennui, eternal return, going through the same motions again- but this time also filled with a sense of being close to horror. Everyone has a story. The check-out woman at the supermarket laughed when I said this. The woman ahead of me hugged her, and said she should get psychologist's wages. She- from Gujarat, where she experienced a 6.7 earthquake ten years ago, the day before her wedding was planned- had heard a constant stream of them, for three days. I thought that would make a great film: the modern streaming and restlessness the backdrop to a supermaket-checkout version of canterbury tales. Some friends today had double stories of terror. Her kids were at Discovery, above the bus exchange. It was over two hours before she found them- crawling in traffic, blocked by police, who told her to 'go home, and we'll dig them out'; then over a twisted broken foot-bridge, and into hagley park. She found them there. The kids were ok, but had to walk out through Cashel Mall, with dropping masonry, hanging wires, many upset people, (rumbling, and a little quake as I type) and crushed bodies. Finally re-united; terrified, relieved, shocked. Meanwhile her husband, who'd been painting his mum's house in the east of the city, was driving for 4 and a half hours, looking for somewhere to take his mum- with a broken leg in three places, recently unwell, and roads blocked, traffic jams, impassable bridges. Finally got to the the Bealey Ave clinic, and medics and the army took over and flew her to Timaru. It's this sense of brushing up against horror- yet we were all fine. It was tedious, stuck in traffic, the twins listening to mp3 layers in the back seat, and fantastical too: the toppled fences, the amazing silt, the sudden bumps and buckles in the road, broken pipes gushing water. Then at one point, after we'd picked up O as well, and were jammed in traffic, I though someone had rammed into us. We all bounced around, two lines of stationary traffic, bouncing on rubber, the trees wobbling and rustling, the light-poles waving, in a big aftershock. One of the two middle-aged women in the car opposite, windows down, but pointed the other way, swore dreadfully, comically, and we all laughed, smiled ruefully, shook our heads. Straight after the initial shock (which showered me with books, dvds, while an 8mm projector landed nearby) I mostly felt irritation. I'd have to clean up the mess and was working on something and didn't want the interruption. I didn't think the mess would still be there, today, as I left it, the buildings still in lock-down; the green sticker clearing it in Sept still fluttering on the door, though I did take camera and laptop, and almost, but not quite, rushed off to record the chaos... And here we are, but where exactly? Strange days indeed.

Ted reports from Christchurch:

"At 12.51 on Tuesday we were at the bus station in Lichfield Street, central Christchurch, waiting for the bus to the airport. There was a loud thump, and it started raining bricks. Frances grabbed me and we huddled against the wall of the bus station. I thought we were gone because we could feel the wall heaving and bending, and all around us walls were collapsing and sending up clouds of orange dust. There were some secondary kids in the bus station itself, and when it stopped they rushed out into the street. We quickly joined them in the middle of the road, and looked up Lichfield Street towards High Street and the Twisted Hop. You couldn't see anything. There was a large pile of rubble on the corner but you couldn't see anything else through the dust. We made our way up Lichfield Street towards High Street, then along Manchester Street and down Cashel Street. It was while we were going down the middle of the street there was another shake and buildings literally started falling around us. It was just a scene of total devastation all around us. We simply took the decision we had to get out of the CBD fast and duly did. I had a vague idea where the airport was and we set out for there walking across Hagley Park, which was full of water in parts with sand and general liquefaction. Eventually, with a couple of lifts from people, we made our way to the airport, only to find it closed. Both of the people who gave us a lift had National Radio on in their cars, so we were able to find out just how bad everything was. Across the road was a hotel, where people were taking shelter. We walked in and spent the next 15 hours there first sitting at a table and then sleeping on the floor.They were quite brilliant. There were hundreds, if not 1000, people there and everyone was given a blanket and a pillow. A buffet meal was supplied, and breakfast next morning. At 6.30 am we took off over the road to the airport to discover Jetstar didn't have a plane on the ground and weren't likely to have one for some while. They suggested we make our way to Burnside High, which was running a welfare centre. From there we made contact with the Red Cross who got us on to the Air Force Boeing 757 that brought us to Wellington. When we got to Wellington they had arranged US and British consular representatives for the many foreigners, a bus to take people into town, and had found emergency accommodation for them.

"Apart from the horror in central Christchurch we were truly amazed by the attitude and kindness of everybody. People couldn't do enough for each other, particularly at the hotel and the welfare centres, where there were CD, Red Cross, St Johns and Salvation Army personnel. The Red Cross seemed to have the major coordination role. Many of the US and British people did not have their passports, because their luggage was back in their respective hotels or rental cars. But we feel so much for our friends in Christchurch and the people of that city. It has been a disaster but hope is still there."
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To put it another way,

neighbours are supposed to help other neighbours, not kill their zebras.

UPDATE: Bonus looting story:

"In a separate incident, a looter was caught red handed by police stealing a pearl drum set from a music store in Blenheim Road in the early hours of this morning.
"The thief had smashed the front window to gain entry. Police caught and arrested a man 15 metres from the store."

That’s the wonderful thing about New Zealand. No matter how extreme the tragedy, no matter how vast the physical destruction, and no matter how terrible the carnage and despair and grief, there’s always some bogan who sees it all as an opportunity to score a really kick-ass drum-set.

One of Daryl's commenters adds:

This picture to me sums up the uncrushable optimism and civic spirit of New Zealanders:
Even when faced by the most terrible disaster, someone remembered to put the road cone out.