September 4th 2010

For as long as I live, I don’t think I will ever forget my experiences of September 4^th 2010 and February 22^nd 2011. As I write this it is only two days until the two year anniversary of the September event. It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long since it happened. Other major events that have happened over the years around the world, I’ve often marvelled at how quickly the anniversaries roll around. However, when you are the one directly affected by it, it seems to take place at an even faster pace, a pace that fills me with disbelief. The flashbacks I have in my head from both of these events feel so fresh, as if they have only just taken place. The emotion associated with these vivid memories are still so raw when I remember, that I still feel the fear in my gut and devastation in my heart as if I’m back in that moment.

One of the biggest emotions represented on those days were shock. It is here that I feel the need to elaborate further in order for people to understand this completely. I am a proud Cantabrian born and bred, out of thirty four years I have spent twenty two of them living in Christchurch. In those twenty two years I can count on one hand the amount of earthquakes I’ve felt there. We were never the ones to experience the next big one; we didn’t even know there were major fault lines running under our region. It was supposed to be Wellington, not us. Even with the second quake on the 22^nd of February, which claimed one hundred and eighty one lives, there was absolute shock. When September happened the experts said it was a once in a lifetime event to experience a quake of that size. Everything they’d seen before in previous earthquakes of this level said that these events always follow a pattern. What happened in Christchurch is unprecedented according to the experts, so they had no idea what was going to unfold after September.

As I sit here writing this I close my eyes and allow myself to go back to those moments so I can live them and feel them all over again. I remember literally being shaken awake and in that first instant I thought it was just your stock standard earthquake. That was until my eyes focused a moment later and I could see the wall above my sliding door to the balcony violently jerking back and forth at least half a metre each way. It was then that I knew this wasn’t anything I’d experienced before. I screamed out “EARTHQUAKE” at the top of my lungs to wake James who was asleep beside me. At that time my mum and little brother, who was almost 10 years old, were staying with us, so my immediate first thought as I tried to make it to the doorway was them. I remember attempting to run at least to the door as I was flung backwards and forwards. I only just made it past our old and very heavy 29 inch TV before it came down crashing and smashing onto the floor. It was so close I could feel the swoosh of air as it fell. I realised then that I couldn’t make it any further through the house than the door way, and it was there that I clung to it like it was some sort of safety raft. I will never forget the sound of the quake as it filled my ears, an angry continuous rumble accompanied by the sound of the house and everything in it being smashed about.

James had managed to stumble to the door way and was standing there more annoyed that he had been woken from his precious sleep. I thought this quake was never going to end as it just went on and on becoming more and more violent. Attached to the doorway all I could do was look directly across the landing to my mum and brother who were under the opposite doorway, looking equally terrified at what was taking place. I remember hearing my mother praying loudly “Please God, please God keep us safe. PLEASE GOD.” We were all convinced that the top storey we were in was going to fall to the first floor if this violent rocking and jerking got any worse. I can’t even begin to explain to you how excruciatingly terrifying it is to stand only metres from your family and watch in horror as you think you might possibly watch them die in front of your eyes. That’s not over dramatics or an attempt to make this sound worse than it was that’s how it felt in that moment. Until you have experienced something of this size you can never fully understand. I know those of you reading this who are fellow Cantabs though know exactly what I mean. And so all I could do was chime in with my own prayers “Please God, not yet. I’m not ready yet. Please God not yet!” It’s incredible that in times where you feel your life is in danger that you either “find” God or “reconnect” with him pretty damn fast.

This terror we had become caught up in lasted for almost a minute. Now if you sit there and watch the clock for a full minute before it ticks over you begin to get a sense how long a minute can feel like when you are aware of it. Even in those moments when the house finally stopped swaying so violently, you still felt like you were moving and then there was little reprieve before the aftershocks began to roll in. Suddenly there was eerie silence directly surrounding us, with sirens wailing in the distance from cars and houses. My instinct was to reach for the light switch, as for me everything seems far more scary when it’s in the dark. But to my horror I discovered there was no power, frantically I pushed the switch up and down, willing it to work before I gave into the fact that we were stuck in the darkness. By this stage I had gone into panic mode, all I could think about was my animals. I had three cats and my beautiful dog then and they are my babies so I was instantly terrified for them. It’s not like I could gather them all up in my arms and hold them tight to protect them like I could with real children. I started crying and saying over and over “the animals, the animals what about the animals.” I’m so proud of my mum at this exact moment where she fell into the role of super mother, despite the fact that she was just as terrified as the rest of us she straightened herself up and took over the situation. She said to not worry that she will make sure they were safe but that we needed to get out of the house until we could tell how much damage there was and that it was safe to re-enter. I don’t even remember who went and let them out because my next worry was finding my pants to put on. Remember its 4:35 in the morning and I’d been thrown out of bed in a panic, thank god I wasn’t sleeping naked that night and had a night gown on, but I wanted my damn pants and that set me off crying again.

Someone managed to get my pants and get them on me as another aftershock started, which only added further to the hysterics. Dressed and with shoes only a couple of minutes after the initial quake had hit the animals were outside where it was safer for them in our eyes. What I failed to point out was that at the time we lived in a block of five town houses, so as I rushed down the stairs and out the front door of our house sobbing with fear, every other person in our block was doing the same. They were calling to one another up and down the driveway to make sure everyone was ok and I can assure you there were a lot of choice words being thrown around by everyone. We all gathered in the middle of our shared driveway to check how everyone was, when suddenly we realised the old lady directly next door to us was nowhere to be seen. Quickly myself and another neighbour rushed to her front door and began pounding on it and calling her name. We were starting to panic as we hadn’t got a response from her and had been standing at the door for about a minute when this small voice from inside answered. She informed us she was hiding under the dining room table and that she was ok. We knew it would only be a matter of a few minutes before her daughter would probably show up to check on her mother.

Again, I’m going to use the word shock to sum up the atmosphere of ourselves and our neighbours as we stood in the middle of the driveway. Waves of aftershocks continued to roll beneath the ground with the added sound of the large trees nearby shaking with every movement. Everybody just looked at one another with stunned expressions, several of us lit up cigarettes sucking on them like they were atomisers full of valium. We all sort of spoke over one another as we tried to get our own personal experiences and feelings out. Some of the neighbours decided to wander back inside, realising there wasn’t much that could be done out here. I was eyeing up my house like it was something evil intent on destroying me, I really didn’t want to go back inside, but I knew that it wouldn’t be long before I was alone out there and that was almost worse. I have discovered in moments like this you literally want to cling to those people you love that are around you. As if they are your life raft through this entire experience, as if they will make everything all better just by them being nearby.

Throughout all of this there had been panicked usage of our cell phones as we tried to contact our family and friends that were also in Christchurch. We knew how bad it had been here, but we had no idea how the rest of the city had fared. Ringing people’s landlines wasn’t an option as many lines had been damaged during the quake. Thankfully for us, those that we were worried about the most were able to contact us back and let us know they were ok. It was about this time that James decided he was going to go back to bed, grumbling about not enough sleep. It seemed as if most people were going to attempt the same, so I begrudgingly followed suit. I also remembered that I had a radio on my cell phone that I could use if I could find the hands free earpiece that went with it, which meant spending a few moments in the lounge downstairs rummaging for it. The entire time I was in there I was terrified that another massive quake was going to hit and the entire second story would fall down and crush me. If I had to be inside and choose the lesser of two evils it was to be upstairs, at least that way if the second story did go I’d fall with it rather than it fall on me. Once I’d found the hands free ear piece I made a mad dash up the stairs to the second floor landing where my mum and brother were waiting for me. My mum asked me if she could drag the mattress from their bedroom into our bedroom and sleep on the floor at the end of our bed. Of course that was alright, I could understand how they wanted to be close to us. Like I’d said earlier you feel the need to cling to your loved ones in a moment like this. In the darkness, as the house continued to tremble every few moments, we listened to talk back radio. It was then that we learned just how big this quake had been and the early affects it was having all over the city. That was the first time we ever heard the term “liquefaction (1),” something that would be widely discussed and loathed in time to come. We marvelled in whispers at how lucky it was that this had taken place in the middle of the night. Lucky may be an ironic choice of words given the circumstance we found ourselves in the middle of, but had it been day time we knew it would be so much worse; a theory that would be confirmed in just over 5 months time.

James had managed to go back to sleep quickly an ability I am envious of. I lay in the dark clinging to him as I waited for every roll and shake to come, almost crying with fear every time. I waited with baited breath for the sun to come up because all I wanted to do was get out of that house. When I looked around all I could see were potential hazards and objects that could ultimately fall on me. I felt like I was stuck in a death trap and I wanted to get out. As soon as it started to become light I was up and getting dressed choosing to face this outside where there was plenty of open space. My little brother scurried out following quickly behind me; he was unable to sleep too. I was forced to put on a brave face for his sake as we stood at the end of the driveway and surveyed the street, hugging each other tightly as we spoke in muted tones about what was happening. I tried my best to reassure him that everything was going to be alright, even though deep inside I was completely terrified and wanted to get in the car and flee the city.

It wasn’t long before my mum had decided it was worthless trying to get more sleep and joined us outside. We were still without power and as it was morning I was craving my morning coffee. I cursed the fact that we’d never gone through with buying a gas powered portable stove top. We decided that we should go for a walk to the local dairy where I was sure I’d be able to find some sort of drink packed full of caffeine. We were also curious to survey any damage that had happened locally, but I don’t even think we were prepared for the damage we were going to see over the next few days. Only five houses down from us did we discover the first proof of the power of the quake. There is a beautiful old historic villa there that has been lovingly restored and I’d often admired it when passing by. However on this day, the entire left brick wall had fallen out still in perfect formation of the wall leaving only the wooden frame for that side of the house. We could see right into the privacy of their lounge and bedrooms. We stopped for about 10 minutes and talked with the owner of this home making sure he was ok and seeing if he needed anything. We were almost rooted to our spot in shock at what we were witnessing before our very eyes. It was a combination of sick fascination and horror. This didn’t happen to cities in New Zealand, let alone our very own Christchurch. This was the sort of stuff that took place in some far away land were accommodation was often substandard or extremely old.

We continued on our walk towards the dairy noticing various other cracks and chips missing from buildings that had been intact until a couple of hours earlier. Among them was the local church that had lost a lot of its facade which now lay in a crumpled heap on the ground below. A house damaged is sad enough because that is someone’s home and heart but when a place like a church, which is the epitome of peace and tranquillity, is damaged it really upsets me. But what upset me even more on that day was witnessing dairy owners who were charging exorbitant prices for basics like water which we could no longer get from our own taps due to possible contamination. It saddens me that people used a terrifying and shocking time to turn into vultures to extort money from people. It really does say something about the humanity of some people. However for every story that emerged about some arsehole, there were ten times as many to replace it with stories of kindness among both neighbours and strangers who reached out to one another and offered help in an abundance of ways. It was during those moments that I was proud to be part of such a community and culture of people who while in their own suffering reached out to help others.

In those days, weeks and months that followed people got on with cleaning up after the earthquake, and tried to cope as best as they could with the aftershocks that now plagued us and were in all honesty scary as hell. We moved house because I could no longer cope with living in a two story house. I’d been so terrified by the event that I hadn’t slept for the first 72 hours after it and ended up melting down and having to go on medication to keep me calm. According to my doctor most patients they saw directly after the quake were in need of the same sort of treatment. This quake had shaken our community to the core, but we knew we were strong and we would come back from this. We thought that the worst was over. We were wrong.