Totally unprepared
When the earthquake hit at 4.35am I thought it was a dream. That's how unreal it was. It seemed like something out of a dream, surreal and unimaginable.
It was real - but it felt like something out of a video game. And when the whole house shook violently, waking us up, I knew it was an earthquake. A big one. I have to admit that once I'd realised what it was I didn't rush to a door frame for protection, which I probably should have done. I sort of just lay in the bed, numb about what was going on, unable to move.
After checking that my wife was OK, I went to check on the kids. Our son, Master Game Junkie, who's 11, was petrified. There was no power so he called out in the dark for me to come to him, which I did, then I took him back to our room, where he snuggled up to his mother.
After checking that our daughter was OK - she was - the next step was to find torches and see if anything had been damaged. I'm sad to say that I was totally unprepared for the earthquake: I had real trouble finding a torch and batteries and suddenly realised I had a cycle light in my backpack in my wardrobe. Switching it on, I ventured down to the other end of the house to see if anything was damaged. I also had no batteries for my battery-powered radio so had no idea what the rest of the city was going through. I switched on the car and we listened to the reports of widespread damage across the city.
Surveying the family room, kitchen and lounge with my torch, I was surprised to see disarray but nothing broken. Cupboard drawers were flung open, contents in the fridge had been flung into other compartments, food and crockery in the pantry had been flung to the pantry floor, but nothing was broken. One of my wife's vases had fallen but landed on the cat's bean bag.
The cat wasn't there, though. About 4am he had meowed to go out, so I let him out. Had he sensed something was about to happen?
A TV in the family room had been shunted back off its table about two inches.
I switched on my mobile phone - finding I had only two power bars of battery power left - and called my parents, who live in Kaiapoi. They were shaken but fine. My wife's sister rang to check we were OK. Later that morning more family members rang or texted to check if we were OK.
We came off surprisingly lucky, unlike many other familes across the city, and when dawn came I opened our front door and looked out on the street. You wouldn't have known an earthquake had hit, but just around the corner, down a road a bit, people were starting to cart out wheelbarrow loads of silt, the result of burst water pipes in their homes and backyards.
When Master Game Junkie finally came out he plonked himself under our hardwood dining table, changing out of his pajamas and vowing not to leave the protection of the wooden structure.
About 8.30am I saw one of our elderly neighbours across the street come out of their home. We went to talk to them. They were both terrified about what had happened and they had both sat in their outdoor patio area until it got light, too terrified to go back into the house.
Later that morning we went to visit friends down the street and like us they had no damage. We surveyed the cul de sac across from their driveway, the piles of silt mounting up as people dumped the watery sand on the roadside. We still had no power. Someone drove past telling us that a supermarket in Hornby was opened; we decided to head there and stock up on food and batteries. We were supposed to be going to a friend's place for dinner: would we still go?
Our house wasn't damaged at all, but my wife's brother, his partner and their seven-month-old daughter decided to leave their old house, after an outside brick chimney collapsed and large cracks appeared in a lounge ceiling. They returned later in the day.
I had to lift the garage open by hand and we drove to the supermarket, the road to the suburb undulating with bumps and dips. Hornby seemed unscathed by the earthquake and a shop assistant said they'd had power since they opened. The supermarket, as you'd expect, was busy, with people stocking up on essential items: batteries, tinned food, alcohol.
Driving home, we noticed more roads with large cracks in them; orange road cones indicated a problem. I needed petrol and several stations were closed, staff advising drivers that they weren't selling petrol or LPG. I got petrol later that night at one of the stations nearby that was open. As you'd expect, it was busy. Aftershocks continued to rock the city, many of them sizable.
We went to dinner - we decided we wanted to bring a bit of normalcy to the day - but much of the talk was about the earthquake. We were home by 10.30pm and one couple couldn't make it as they were stopped by a police cordon in Hornby and told to return home. Master Game Junkie came with us and our daughter went to a friend's place nearby. Aftershocks punctuated the evening.
It's now day three and the aftershocks have subsided. I haven't felt one since 12.20am, while I was up playing Mafia 2 - the windows rattled and the house shook, but while I'm typing this from the comfort of my home, elsewhere many families and people are without homes, power or water. I feel for them. I really do.
The kids aren't going to school today. Schools in the city are closed until Wednesday and thankfully it's a beautiful day today. That will help lift the spirits and make the cleanup easier. Thank goodness we didn't get battered by strong winds last night too much - at least I don't think we did.
The cordon is still on in the central city so I'm not sure whether I should be going into work or not. The Press building is open but I'm not sure I'd be much use, really, seeing as I'm not a general news reporter, but just a feature department writer. UPDATE: I'm not going into work today, I'm going to work from home.
As you can imagine, the only gaming I got done over the weekend was a little bit last night, when I was playing through Mafia 2. I joked with my brother via text that with all my video game experience playing Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising, I'll be all set if the zombie hordes arrive in the aftermath of the quake!
Saturday's earthquake isn't something I'll forget in a hurry. Nobody in Christchurch or Canterbury will, but now it's time for the city to rebuild. It's nice and warm today, but windy. I hope the wind doesn't cause too many problems for people.
For today, I'm going to do some writing and play some more Mafia 2.
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Glad to hear you & the family are unscathed, was thinking about you this morning when checking the Stuff Technology page.
My partner's family and most of our friends are in Chch, thankfully they are all ok too - one couple live in Burwood, apparently the liquifaction there is pretty bad with judder bars on the street that didn't exist prior to the earthquake, & they have to walk uphill onto the deck outside but the house seems alright.
Scary watching the news & seeing so many places we know damaged. At least gaming can keep your mind off it a bit! & thank goodness for the sunny weather.
Good to hear everything is relatively OK, Gerard. It's incredibly lucky that it hit at that time of the morning when most people were safely at home, rather than in peak hour on a workday. Must have been a pretty freaky experience though and devastating for many.
You can never be too prepared for zombies !! :)
LOL @ the zombie comment, while i was working on early saturday morning with the rest of the local CD boys, trying to clear some of the roads of rubble, we made the very same comment after seeing the shock people, in blankets staggering around outside their hotels.
Did the cat come home?
@Kat, yes, Diesel, our cat, wandered up the driveway around 10.30am on Saturday morning. He looked none the worse for wear. He's been very non-plussed ever since. Still getting heaps of aftershocks today.
wow just wow i didnt feel a thing and i'm glad i've been woken by a magnitude 5.6 before that was fun but a 7+ mabye not as fun .
Hope the city gets back up on it's feet .Let me know if you need water i'll send you and the fam some.
oh yeah i'm so moving out of my brick house now too
My children have appreciated the playstation today as a distraction from the earthquake aftershocks. Stay safe everyone.
I do hope the cat is okay. During things like this I always feel for the animals (as well as the humans of course).
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Very glad to hear that you and the family are OK, Gerard (and Master Game Junkie's goldfish too :-)). I know how scary earthquakes can be, as I was living in Whakatane when the EBOP quake struck back in '87. I was at school when it hit, and initially our English teacher tried to keep teaching, until she noticed that all the students in nearby classrooms had dived under our desks. It was only then that we were allowed to do the same.
I think I found the uncertainty of the severity of aftershocks to be one of the most scary aspects, and I'm glad to hear that things seem to be settling down there for you fellas.