flat: earthquake stories after 22 Feb #4

8 March 2011

It is great receiving responses from different people as different ones of us in Christchurch share our experiences.  I particularly appreciate Geoff King’s contributions as they contrast with mine as he participates in what is happening from a different angle.  I hope people don’t get bored by our writings – I think there is value in sharing things for the sake of the many who clearly feel deeply for what has happened and is happening, and there is a degree of therapy in writing about it as well.  Please tell me when to give it a rest if I rant on for too long!

Anne and I managed to scramble two nights away – it took forever to get to our friends 3 hours south – prising ourselves out of Christchurch and then catching up with family who were keen to touch the wounds and see for themselves that we were still alive.  I have been encouraging colleagues to attend to getting some rest and figured that I needed to heed my own advice.  We had a great time away – no aftershocks, no jobs to do – we were spoilt, but at this stage I feel ambivalent about whether it was worthwhile.  Neither of us slept well, the boys were still up here, and the challenges of what is ahead came to visit me both nights from 3am until dawn.

I feel kind of flat now – the first time that some despair has entered into the frame.  We have heard that people very dear to us are seriously contemplating moving away to Australia – their going will have a major impact on us.  I can hardly blame them if they take up that option – they are scared and struggling.  It has crossed my mind several times after this second earthquake that many of those who have chosen to hang on and tough it out will not handle another one.  One more big one and I hate to think what will happen.

It is still early days, but the combination of stuff here is a very heavy load to bear… here are just a few things that are a weight for me

the names of the dead being released at the rate of three a day,

parts of the CBD being closed for 6 months,

one third of the CBD buildings being trashed,

some 70,000 people having left the city (and not all of them intending to return),

3500 jobs lost (so far),

up to 100,000 of the 140,000 home in Christchurch suffering damage

around 10,000 homes to be demolished,

and the perpetual threat of more aftershocks

And this one – I struggle to see how some of our churches will keep going.  Our weakest ones have been hit the hardest and there isn’t a lot in reserve in the rest of us to carry them for very long – not many of us are all that strong.  A lot of what we were doing in the city was quite precarious before the two earthquakes… it is a real worry!

There is a lot in this city that is operating on survival mode.  It is kind of right that the churches are part of this – our rightful place is suffering alongside everyone else whose business and livelihoods are in jeopardy, weeping with those who have lost loved ones, and asking serious questions about the future.  A lot has been flattened here… so we will feel flat from time to time.

Many here are only able to take things day by day – maybe that is all that the church can do for now.  I recall Jesus having something to say about that.

One of our small parishes is New Brighton Union.  Darryl Tempero has been in contact over there and taken them some food parcels as well as spending time alongside the makeshift Parish Council and their minister Mark.  Darryl has just sent the following report of what they shared: “Many elderly, some in rest homes, have been relocated.  A number of members in places like Bexley have suffered significant damage to their homes..  Many have left town, and there was some discussion around caring for people as they return.  They felt like their ‘flock was scattered.’  There will be issues around shock as people see their houses again after being away…  They gathered on the beach on the first Sunday, and on the boulevard on the second (70 attending), with a number of people joining them that don’t usually attend church.  They have said: “we have to go back to the beginning and figure out what church is like without a building.”

dust: earthquake stories after 22 Feb #3

5 March 2011

I ventured across town today to the sea-side suburb of Redcliffs to help a woman load up stuff on a trailer – she is moving with her children to Queenstown – I had conducted her husband’s funeral late last year – the load for her is horrendous.  We have been told to avoid travelling unnecessarily and we have heeded that.  But heading over there was a real eye-opener.  The scenes of devastation across the city are one thing on TV and quite another thing seeing it with my own eyes.  What a mess and what dust!  The piles of sand/dirt on the streets become normal, as does damage to every second or third building.  I am surprised to find myself seeing these things and not reacting – it is as if this is has become normal.  It is all abnormal, but the all-consuming nature of it numbs me. Someone sent me the attached photo of the dust at the point of the earthquake – it is frightful.

The trip over was at 9am and I got there much faster than I anticipated in 20 minutes.  Heading home at 11.30am was a different story, it took an hour and a half!  The main arterial routes are all damaged.

Rev Dugald Wilson and I have been working for the last five months on earthquake matters for the Presbytery.  We met with the assessors manager working for the Presbyterians on Friday.  He was quite cut up by what he has seen and heard – he is a fine guy and because of this earthquake he will be bumped up the chain and not as available to us as he has been.  He along with the insurers manager and engineer firm manager that we have been working with are all church-goers – it has really helped – we feel that the peculiarities of our ways of working are understood.  Our assessor friend told us that this event along with September is the largest insurance event in the history of world insurance (recognising also that we are a high-level insured society).  It is also the worst earthquake to hit an urban area in the world – not in magnitude but in the nature of the forces caused by the shallowness of the quake and its proximity to a city.  With that knowledge, it is remarkable that there weren’t more fatalities.  Every day or two the police reduce the projected number of fatalities, and the news today about there being no bodies in the Anglican Cathedral reminds us again that we have escaped the kinds of horror that many other cities and regions in the world have suffered.

The 600 food boxes from the Wellington Presbyterian churches have been delivered and the team have made their way back home.

logistics: earthquake stories after 22 Feb #2

3 March 2011

One of the challenges in Christchurch has been organising ourselves in an attempt to be able to offer something useful in the city as churches together. A few things are in the pipeline:

parish twining – linking west wide churches with the east side harder hit ones;

having one of our ministers circulating among the eastside churches – offering support and being a conduit between need and help;

linking offers of accommodation with people who need it;

having a link person with support who can connect in with the inter-church group who have significant people and skill resources able to be directed to need;

attending to the processes of building inspections by structural engineers, making buildings safe and organising demolitions with assessors and insurers where necessary;

checking on the wellbeing of those who have responsibility for pastoral care;

working on projects that have been offered from around the country;

and exploring some options for more people offering skilled spiritual care on the ground.

The wonderful thing is the way that various people are picking up responsibilities in these areas – we are developing a robust and energetic team in the Presbytery and I appreciate the willingness of people to take on a task when asked.  These responsibilities are in addition to the load people are already carrying in their parishes and in their families, and almost all of us are still having to boil water and use other facilities sparingly.

Looking back, we have come a long way since September, we made some mistakes back then, we were stunned and somewhat slow to get off the mark… this time we have been faster off the mark and we feel we are playing our part in the elaborate and quite wonderful collective response in the city despite tiredness and aftershocks. 

From what we can tell from the street the Knox Centre hasn’t sustained too much damage and might be able to be opened for the congregation’s use in the near future.  The roof line of the church is also in quite robust condition – the wooden trusses did their job.  We will wait and see what is possible or sensible there.

running: earthquake stories after 22 Feb #1

I wrote up some of my experiences after the 22 February quake – this from 3 March 2011

It has been a busy day… Anne and I attended a funeral, a 40yr old mother of four young children dropped dead most unexpectedly late last week – a sad sad end to the life of a serenely lovely woman who was a key participant in our Thursday pre-school music & play group.  She won’t be listed as an earthquake casualty but we consider she is.

Our national Moderator Peter Cheyne, and Executive Secretary Martin Baker, came to Christchurch to be alongside a group of 25 Presbyterian ministers as we shared and prayed and planned.  The support in our church family is much appreciated.

We are creating networks to handle various aspects of the earthquake aftermath – the east side of the city has been very hard hit and we do not have many people on the ground there.  The two Wellington Presbytery trucks with 600 food parcels arrived at 6pm – I happened to catch up with them briefly before they headed in the eastern suburbs – what a mission!  The effort of the Wellington pressies that has gone into this is quite wonderful, it is a story worth sharing.

St Georges in Linwood was demolished yesterday.  Sheena, the minister, spoke of how caring and sensitive the work was carried out with the guy in charge offering a prayer and his workers coming to her seeking absolution before they started the engines of the machines!

Another church will be bulldozed in the next couple of days with some others also on the schedule.  In the scheme of things with lives having been lost we know that they are only buildings, but they have been significant houses of worship for many generations of people and it is all quite shocking.