Busytown: The shakes
489 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 3 4 5 6 7 … 20 Newer→ Last
-
For you Russell...
Have just cycled to Whiskey Galore - 2 blocks away.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31541937&l=5ce4dcd3a6&id=1021937984
and
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31541938&l=ae066968de&id=1021937984
Hope you can see these.
-
Cheers, Rachel, that's a ridiculously soothing sight.
And you got out again before curfew...
-
Thank you, Rachel!
That's good news.
-
After looking at a bit more on the box.......6pm news etc
You guys didn't dodge a bullet. You dodged a bomb.
It's staggeringly incredible mind boggling amazing no one is dead.
So so lucky that it was the deadest time of the night.
But still the humour emerges. The guy with the fault through his farm.....will now be advertising it as rolling hill country.
Good on ya mate.
And the Big 12-hour-old Plasma Screen for the lad who got dumped on by the wall of bricks!!
Bugger.
-
The whiskey is safe! Huzzah! (can't stand the bloody stuff, but happy for those who love it.)
-
Rachel - that is bloody brillant! Thank you so much!
-
Lucy, I haven't read right through this thread, but to quickly answer your question .. UC is closed for a week.
-
Think the taxi driver is ok, the serious injuries were a guy hit by a falling chimney and another hit by glass...
I know the guy whose family lives next door and pulled him out from under his chimney and got him to the ambulance. Also lost their new truck from another chimney falling on it. Hell of a morning for them.
-
if there were a civil emergency here
Well the Newmarket Viaduct is closed this weekend remember, which seems to be the apocalypse.
-
Actually the curfew area is smaller than you think.
I cycled down Kilmore St - the northern boundary, and then turned north onto Colombo where Whiskey Galore is.
The boundary is Madras/Kilmore/Montreal/St Asaph. (The one way system)
We're 2 houses down from the Madras/Kilmore intersection, so can move about at will... subject to bumpy roads.
-
There are some awful experiences in Canterbury, and buildings down but let me also mention other experiences which don't make One Network News.
-Our lovely neighbours knocked on the door to check we were OK - as did many other people's.
-Lots of people were walking around talking to their neighbours, chatting and smiling - it was a peaceful pleasant scene in many ways - old fashioned neighbourliness.
- Most houses have minor damage because our building codes now are so strong.
- Most commercial buildings in the centre are also built to code and apart from the brick ones which fell down, most stayed standing.
- Most of the town has power back already.
- - It has been a beautiful sunny, clear spring day and many people have already removed and tarpaulined over chimneys and the "number 8 wire" mentality isn't completely dead.
- Our Council workers have been great - they were on street putting out cones outside our house where the road had subsided.
- We have a well-organised and rehearsed Civil Defence team have got information out so we know not to flush our loos.
- I cycled over from my home in Edgeware to my parents in Cambridge Terrace and their neighbour had a houseful of people for coffee (one person bought cake), and people have been chatting on the streets in a very friendly way.It's not an ideal situation, and we may find a lot more sewerage issues. However, although some people may be feeling trauma (in my experience - only ones I've seen on TV, not ones I've met on the streets) there has also been a lot of neighbourliness and goodwill and support.
-
3410,
Best wishes to everyone affected. Glad to hear that casualties have been so remarkably minimal and hope that the things get sorted quickly for everyone. Thoughts are with you.
A few random thoughts on the media coverage:One News: 7/10
Their "rolling coverage" (get it?) as been running non-stop for at least the last 11 hours. Pretty good coverage, overall. Not too much repetition, considering the mammoth size of the broadcast and the complete lack of warning. Fairly decent collection of interviews; could have had a bit more focus on Civil Defence info for locals. Didn't have any chopper footage till noon but, overall, a fairly good job.
Reporter Joy Reid was a wee bit breathless (I would have been too!) but for a young reporter did a good job as One News' main on-the-spot person throughout a very long and unusual shift.
Points off for moronic One News reporters taking people back inside their half-demolished homes (via a gaping hole in the wall) without so much as a helmet, and for interviewing residents two or three metres from their wrecked two-storey abode (again, sans helmet) during aftershocks. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Another point off for being advised by Vodaphone to refrain from soliciting amateur photos and video due to the strain on the phone system, and yet not mentioning this to viewers even once in the many hours that I watched.
Half a point off for Miriama Kamo saying "more pictures just in..." about every ten minutes between 2 & 3pm whilst continuing to show exactly the same clips we'd been seeing for at least the previous two hours. And Simon Dallow could really dial back the "utter devastation" a notch.
3 News: DNQWTF, 3? No coverage until 6pm, except for a brief update at 11-ish (and probably something at 12 too, but I was out then). Weak. (A decent job from Campbell with short interviews during the news @ 6, but too little too late).
That is all.
[Insert tasteless joke about the frequency of multi-billion-dollar bailouts for Canterbury]. -
Lucy- as regards the Christchurch School of Medicine
"All University of Otago - Christchurch buildings will be closed until further notice due to the loss of water and waste water services caused by the earthquake this morning.
The situation will be reviewed Sunday evening."
-
Nothing has really happened in the interim?
Or, too much has? -
Plane crash in Fox- 9 dead. Strange circumstances surrounding crash.
Well, that kind of finishes off the day.May this coming day be nourishing, reassuring, reinvigorating & especially helpful for all in Otautahi - and us all- cheers
-
Christchurch is my new favourite "other city" and it broke my heart to learn of the disaster.
I'm so glad that all my Christchurch posse and their whanau are fine, though dealing with lack of power and/or water, and all the clean-up issue can't be pleasant to deal with.
I've had plans to visit Christchurch again early next year. I can't wait to see what new bold city will emerge.
-
Well, it wont be built with brick Robyn Gallagher!
When I arrived on the Coast in 1970, relatively fresh from the Inangahua earthquake v. few years before (which I spent wondering whether my tobacco-picker's bach in Motueka was going to slide, glissade, or just foldupndie-), I asked my boss at Greymouth Central Post Office what we should do if there was an earthquake?
"Not if sweetheart - when."
So, I've lived life on the Coast like that, ever since-
-
our suburb (Somerfield) escaped the road-rupturing damage seen elsewhere but our house suffered a bit... the double-brick wall has partially collapsed and separated slightly from the wooden part of the house, and there's a whole lot of new cracks... the floor leans in a slightly different way too.
On the upside, the bathroom door now shuts better! Old villas, eh?!life has been better since the power came back on but I must admit I'm getting a bit weary of the quite frequent aftershocks. At least they only last for a fraction of the time we spent rockn&rollin this morning...
-
3 News: DNQ
WTF, 3? No coverage until 6pm, except for a brief update at 11-ish (and probably something at 12 too, but I was out then). Weak.
Wasn't the whole of "The Nation" devoted to it? Not that I watched it all, but it recorded and skipping through it it certainly seemed that way.
-
Certainly Is rather an odd experience being across the world when something like this happens. I was walking along the south bank of the Thames after visiting the Brunel Museum when we heard the news, then there were some anxious moments as family checked in over the next Hour or so
-
That in spades Ben
I am in Grenoble, I first thought it must be April 1 when I red the lines on my french computer
Was able to ring and speak to one sister living in the epicentre area
They are ok, their house survived and fortunatly my car although it has moved was ok
Actually I had not thought about the personal connection of my car rather the survival of people. Good news all round on survival of people
It did sound as if there has been alot of building damage out in that area as well as in town
I do wonder though I have only been out of the country for three weeks and the place seems to have gone tits up
SCF then this
From 45 North -
then there were some anxious moments as family checked in over the next Hour or so
Here's something I thought of. Yesterday, I managed to find out that all my Canterbury friends and rellies were OK in a matter of hours.
Atfer the Edgecumbe Quake in 1987, it was five days before I was able to talk to my parents.
-
Woken by a jiggy aftershock around 6am. Outside now at 7am its grey, overcast, very still. Last night I got a bit of a shock at the 6pm news singling out Avonside as worst affected. My son and his friend had come home and said the footbridges were screwed but I didn't stop to think about it until I saw the tv pix. Later I cycled 500m up Kerrs Rd towards the river and got a clear idea of how far the power is out. I was heading to friends on Wainoni Rd, one of whom lives on a hill - the only noticeable hill around here - near Porritt Park. He'd been around earlier and had no power either but was right about it being so dark made excellent weather for amateur stargazing.
For years people have assumed the sandy hill along there, from Bickerton St back towards Kerrs Reach, was a remnant of sand dunes , because eons ago its known the beach used to be as close to town as Fitzgerald Ave. Anyway, more recently that hill has been reconsidered, to be far more likely the result of an ancient tsunami. Seems its not just sand when you dig right down into it. Now theres a thought!
On the way back my other friend who lives alone had rigged up her bbq and lit the woodburner. Looks like anyone in a later-model brick home a few blocks back from the river is sitting pretty sweet in terms of visible structural damage. Her neighbours are due back from Melbourne today. They own a lovely historic villa on the Kerrs/Wainoni corner, and the news isn't goregeous. Hopefully today's weather won't be as unpleasant as forecast. Its now starting to get rather windy outside. Time to check out the supermarket I think.
-
From the sublime to the ridiculous, I'd strongly recommend catching the repeat of Mediawatch on Nat Radio at 10pm tonight. Very nice take down of the frankly hysterical and stupid tone of far too much of the media coverage.
And as far as my hometown newspaper is concerned, I can only say "THIS" to this tweet from our host:
**Dear Herald on Sunday. Shut up. Just shut up. **
I'll go a little further: The HoS has veered from the deepest melodramatic purple to the actively misleading and potentially dangerous. Way to go, fuck-knuckles.
(Sidebar: Looking like the Auckland 'Motorway Chaos' the Weekend Herald was hysterically predicting yesterday... just isn't happening. Guess Dorklanders were paying attention to the weeks of extensive publicity about the Newmarket Viaduct closure, and are acting sensibly. Could our only daily newspaper try doing the same?)
-
The FIRST WORD of the FIRST STORY of the Herald on Sunday's quake coverage today is LOOTING.
I expect there'll be ZOMBIES soon.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.