Posts by Hebe
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Right with you on the need for emergency services and back-up plans. i hope they don't go ahead with the risky idea of a combo essential services HQ. Seems a time for decentralisation rather than the opposite.
RE Sumner/Redcliffs : yes the red-sticker saga has been told, but the current chapter in the saga has not. Briefly: the rockfall threat to main access roads for the port is being dealt with. The geotech-ers have formulated a plan to deal with the threat to less strategically important roads. The work is awaiting the decision about who will pay. Most of the land belongs to the city council and some to private landowners. Debris I don't know about; the roads out towards that way are clear now (I go there at least once a week), but there must be a lot of rock in backyards.
As for earthquake science: it's a young discipline. There is so much still to know.
A fact from the make-safe builder this week: 30,000 chimneys have fallen or need to be removed. Should solve the smog problem.
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Hard News: Three months after, in reply to recordari,
Which is why Cera absolutely needed the powers it has been given in law if anything is to happen in this city (all the city, not just the CBD).
The rest of the info about the seismic lie of the land can be translated from geologist-filtered-through-polly-speak: buggered if we know but there'll probably be another big one in the next couple of years, maybe on the same faults, maybe on another fault we don't know about. So maybe the insurers and reinsurers are right; why bother doing anything other than rough-as-guts make-safe work for a least a couple of years, more like five? I hear that permanent remedial work on the roads, sewers, power network etc won't be started for at least a year after the last 5-or-over.
Meanwhile hundreds of other households are unable to go home because of rockfall risks around the hills while the powers-that-be squabble over who will pay for the rock blasting needed to make hillsides safe. Another untold story.
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Hard News: Three months after, in reply to Russell Brown,
Have a look at this, just posted by Chch councillor Sue Wells: straight up stuff that the city needs to know: http://suewellsnz.wordpress.com/2011/05/28/what-the-minister-told-the-councillors-about-land-retreat-eqnz-chch/
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Clarke said: I had this vision in my head that the earthquake would result in this huge outpouring of construction effort and energy to rebuild the city and people’s lives, like some Bob The Builder episode turned up to 11.
But Clarke, it's not a TV show here. It's not a movie. It's real, everyday details like does the water come out of the tap when I turn it on? And when the water comes, what colour is it? Is it ok to wash with? Drinkable? And even then can you stand the smell and taste of heavy chlorination? And do you itch all over after a quick shower because of the chemicals? My first post and I already want to swear about the impatience of the Play Station generation. Christchurch. Is. Fucked. Except the parts that aren't; they are over-full of people and traffic, and in many cases full of ghosts.
We're looking at a new city, rebuilt in ways we cannot even comprehend, and hopefully in 20 years some of the scars will have faded enough for us to be comfortable and secure just being on our land again. But building new buildings and tidying up the rough edges is only part of task. We who regard this place as our turangawaewae, with its web of forebears, shared histories, special places and everyday familiarities are in a collective grief for what we have lost in our daily lives, the sense of safety and familiar routines. No-one can force that healing; it will happen eventually but it will not be able to be faked by a quick spit and polish for the Central City businesses' benefit.
Russell Brown's anonymous friend's thoughts are just like anyone in Christchurch's medium to bad day. A good day in the head is exciting; the possibilities of rebuild are endless and wondrous. A bad day can leave me almost frozen, subconsciously waiting for the next shudder of the Bad Neighbour - we live 2.5km from the Feb 22 epicentre.
When our heavy 8-seater table leapt from waist height to shoulder height with no warning rumble or shake on Feb 22, I entered a place in my being I never wished to visit or even knew was there. But I've rebuilt my adult life a couple of times now, so maybe the process of coming to terms with it all is easier for me. I see my comfortably-off, usually in-control-of-their-lives friends very much affected mentally. maybe mass therapy is a good idea.
I don't support the idea that Cera and, the govt is doing nothing here; look to the insurance companies (EQC has nothing to do with most of the central city as it is commercial premises) and the under-insured (if at all) property owners for the log jam in the CBD.
As to the suburbs, our area has had major works by the Heathcote River already, along with untold other infrastructure patch-ups in the few blocks either side of our house. The bridges have been mostly repaired. The roads are rough but mostly driveable. We have water. We have electricity. Fletchers took down our increasingly dangerous and difficult to deal with chimney this week. We get a woodburner soon. The library is open. All progress so much beyond where we were on Feb 23, and all hard-won.
We are so grateful for all of that. And for the Iroquois thudding overhead within a couple of hours of the big shake (the heavy military and police presence was hugely reassuring -- we knew we were not alone).