Hard News: Christchurch: Square Two
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Meanwhile, GNS has upgraded yesterday's 6.0 to a 6.3.
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Yeah, there seem to be increased opinions being voiced of "Why are you still living in Christchurch, it's be better to bowl the whole place and start again, it's going to be too expensive to fix"
Just how much MORE expensive would it be to relocate and rebuild, not to mention what do you do with everything and everyone while you're doing that? The next person who says "Why are people still living in Christchurch" needs to turn it round and think about what they'd do in the same situation. You have friends, family, a job, kids in school - you can't just uproot all of that and just go somewhere else......
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Hebe,
Life will never be the new normal. It is irretrievably different, on the physical, mental, and emotional planes. Bugger rebuilding, let's talk about building a city anew; probably in the same place but in a head-space sense. I loved some things about Chch but other bits like the insularity drove me crazy and drove me away for years.
Today my concern is: am I scarring my children, two 13 year olds, but staying here? Is it going to do more harm than good to stay or leave? I don't know, will staying teach them resilience? Or will going Somewhere Else relieve us all? I know that after Sept 4 I left with the children for 3 weeks, but I took the trauma with me, still didn't sleep, hyper-alert etc etc. And where is safe anyway?
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Lilith __, in reply to
Meanwhile, GNS has upgraded yesterday's 6.0 to a 6.3.
They have? (your link seems to go to a map only)
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Russell Brown, in reply to
They have? (your link seems to go to a map only)
If you click on the dot, the info box that comes up says 6.3. Their main page either hasn't been updated or is cached for speed.
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Lilith __, in reply to
will going Somewhere Else relieve us all?
I'm afraid that I'll leave in a fit of exasperation and fetch up in another town or city, find myself without all my local family and friends and routines (such as they still are), and think...why did I do that?
If you click on the dot, the info box that comes up says 6.3
Huh. So it does.
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JLM,
I just went to the geonet recent earthquakes page and the 2:20 quake wasn't even on it. There have been at least 30 quakes since then. Bloody hell!
I feel bad for being excited that I actually felt this one down near Dunedin, when the February quake passed me by.
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Emma Hart, in reply to
The next person who says "Why are people still living in Christchurch" needs to turn it round and think about what they'd do in the same situation. You have friends, family, a job, kids in school - you can't just uproot all of that and just go somewhere else......
Stuff has a "what are you going to do?" poll up today. "I want to leave but I can't because of property or a job" is running around 25%.
So yeah, this is not to say "Don't offer help and beds and stuff", but if your comment includes the phrase "You should just", it's time to stop talking.
Also... the students? Are in the middle of exams. They'll not be digging us out in a hurry this time round. And dear gods, how TIRED they must be. This is the time when we need outside help coming in.
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Lara,
I've found that Vicki Anderson's pieces in The Press have nicely captured how I've been feeling.
I have discovered (again) that 'cope' buttons only work if there is a decent interval between each use. I wish life would stop happening so that I could catch up.
I cannot imagine what it is like to be closer to the epicentre. And I'm not sure how I'd deal with it if I could.
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Hebe,
See the Stuff front page for the upgrade, also the 5.5 now a 5.7
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Got the electricity back and just now the Internets. It was a *hell* of a shake yesterday (certainly worse than Sept) but very vertical here, and as a result *much* less damage to the neighbourhood than in either of the previous two biggies.
One has to accept that NZ is prone to natural hazards from tornados to volcanos to tsunamis to floods to forest fires to earthquakes. But that's why we have engineering -- to minimize the danger of these natural hazards. And it's working in CHCH; no-one was killed yesterday (or in Sept) in a situation that even in other first-world countries would have left scores dead.
Anyway, fuck leaving, I say... they won't get me out of here except in handcuffs.
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Hebe,
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Personally I always found the one on the last row, that dropped you back to near the start, to be the most annoying. But quakes and ladders sounds like a sh*t game :/
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Robert Urquhart, in reply to
Also... the students? Are in the middle of exams. They'll not be digging us out in a hurry this time round. And dear gods, how TIRED they must be.
Are either swearing or cheering as their exam schedules/assessment hand in dates go up in smoke, depending on how hard they've been studying. This entire semester has been hard on them, there's been precious little certainty and an oversupply of confusion about even when/where your next lecture is going to be.
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
Also… the students? Are in the middle of exams. They’ll not be digging us out in a hurry this time round. And dear gods, how TIRED they must be.
One quote suggested the James Hight library has suffered yet another mass de-shelving, after fully opening last week. For the second time. I can't even.
I am, selfishly, desperate for people not to leave the city. I can deal with the place I left sinking slowly into the dust, in its physical form. If all the people leave as well - that's it, really, it's gone. Cities are people. The physical bits are just the framing. As long as the people stay, the city stays.
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Lilith __, in reply to
See the Stuff front page for the upgrade, also the 5.5 now a 5.7
I wish we could be upgraded to first class, with the champagne and little snacks.
fuck leaving, I say… they won’t get me out of here except in handcuffs.
Thank you David! True grit. :-D
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I am, selfishly, desperate for people not to leave the city. I can deal with the place I left sinking slowly into the dust, in its physical form. If all the people leave as well – that’s it, really, it’s gone. Cities are people. The physical bits are just the framing. As long as the people stay, the city stays.
As I wrote at the time, it became clear to me that what happens on the "good" side of the fence is as important -- or in some ways more important -- than what happens in the red zone itself. If people clear out, the area dies. It's not hard to extrapolate that to the city itself.
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Seriously, how can we help? Something to look forward to? Champagne and snacks?
Russell, you briefly mentioned a Great Blend plan that was fostering before yesterday. Is there some opportunity for us to contribute and make it bigger or brighter?
We can't walk in your shoes, but perhaps in a small way we could offer to tie your laces so you can keep your head up.
Or should we send gumboots?
Arohanui.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Russell, you briefly mentioned a Great Blend plan that was fostering before yesterday. Is there some opportunity for us to contribute and make it bigger or brighter?
Stay tuned. At the least, a koha at the door.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Yeah, there seem to be increased opinions being voiced of “Why are you still living in Christchurch, it’s be better to bowl the whole place and start again, it’s going to be too expensive to fix”
And every time I hear that from people, my opinion is that until we figure out how to move New Zealand away from the circum-Pacific seismic belt a round of STFU-a-chinos might be in order. My whanau/friends in Christchurch know the spare room will always be there if they need it, but "get out" is about as useful as a dick in a dyke bar on date night.
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
And every time I hear that from people, my opinion is that until we figure out how to move New Zealand away from the circum-Pacific seismic belt a round of STFU-a-chinos might be in order.
Hah. I was congratulating myself on having moved to somewhere immune from really dangerous natural disasters (blizzards being more annoying than anything else) and then, last week? Tornado! You want real safety from natural disaster, start investing in a space programme. (See also here.)
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Herald's "Your Views" participants today are particularly enervating.
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recordari, in reply to
Stay tuned. At the least, a koha at the door.
Cool. It was either that or send Emma a slush fund for folks down there.
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Bizarrely, my Auckland-based coworker has been holidaying in Christchurch during both of the last two big quakes. He's managed to predict both by his presence within a 2-3 day window. (He was due to fly out from Christchurch on Sunday night this time, but his flight was cancelled due to volcanic ash.)
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Emma Hart, in reply to
Cool. It was either that or send Emma a slush fund for folks down there.
Heh, this morning I had texts asking for drinkies and gaming at our house tonight. That seems to be the stress response in our social group.
So yes, it'd be a "slush fund" alright.
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