Sometimes a day will go by without an aftershock and being lulled into the delusion of security is easily possible. Then a series of shakes will take me back to the fear that struck in September and in February. In February there was darkness and no power or phone, but there was water, sewerage, the comfort of the radio and my own knowledge of geology. I could offer comfort based on what I knew and we could pick things up and carry on. Even leaving the house when it was yellow stickered wasn't too bad; we were with friends and the infrastructure was still in place. What remained with many people after September was the noise and the terror of things shaking, falling and cracking in the darkness. Our daughter trapped in her room by fallen furniture. My friend flung across the room and slammed against the wall by the force, breaking bones and putting him in hospital. Despite the mayor and the prime monster assuring everyone that no one died in September, they didn't say that they had decided what was an earthquake death and what wasn't, so that the most seriously injured survivor could be touted as a hero, even though he himself had done little other than rest up and heal in hospital. The scores of people who had died from stress-induced cardiac arrests are not listed on any role of honour and their friends and family grieve privately.
My son and I went to Wellington to celebrate his brilliant academic year. While in Te Papa we went into the earthquake simulator. After exiting in fits of laughter at how mild it was compared to what we'd been through we both recalled the noise, accurately, if a little quietly reproduced in the exhibit. It made us both recall our experiences and sobered us somewhat.
Then came February. I watched agog at the car-sized boulders bouncing erratically down the sides of the valley I live in. Fearfully I wondered how one could avoid one of those stone behemoths and resolved to get out as quickly as possible. It was the stuff of food-poisoned dreams. A stunned road worker was waving people away from the Ferrymead Bridge. I slowed down and grasped his hand. It was shaking. Crowds of people wrapped in blankets sitting on camp chairs outside their wrecked houses, dozens of them. I finally had to double back and pass by outcrops of columnar basalt, cracked and cracking. The container park, with its stacks of shipping containers six high were tipping drunkenly off their centres, looking like a giant's game of Jenga. My arrival at school was celebrated like a return from danger. I guess it was. There I heard the tales of parents running from the central city, some with blood running down their faces, terrified their children were suffering the fate of many they saw.
We didn't stick around. We left for Greenpark and a week later Auckland. That trip through the North Island was emotional to say the least. Every small town we passed through had signs in windows supporting Christchurch, red and black streamers and balloons abounded. In the middle of nowhere a huge sign reading 'Kia Kaha Christchurch' was carved into the hillside. We all shed grateful tears. Everywhere we went in Auckland people were raising funds, having sausage sizzles, busking. We got massive discounts on clothes we had to buy, places we went to visit. Furniture appeared from the most obscure connections as we set up residence in my wife's sister's garage.
Even all the hospitality from all the wonderful Northerners who gave us so much couldn't forestall the inevitable return to responsibility and uncertainty. It was a heavy homecoming. After the insulation of Northland bach holidays and friendly Aucklanders the shock was deep. Streets are frozen wave forms of the earth moving. Conical features, left over from bubbling liquefaction put CV joints and suspension at risk. The character of the February aftershocks is different to September's. Our house, so close to the epicentre is still rocked and shaken and the big ones, above 3, start us all wondering 'is this going to build? Is there worse to come?' People everywhere looked tense and drawn. Sleep deprived. A conversation at, say the garage, becoming an emotional sharing of stories of loss. and everywhere, the rubble, the broken streets, the listing houses, on sunny days the dust, on wet days the sludge. A trip across town becoming a mission amongst the demo sites and army cordons, routes changed, landmarks missed. All the time knowing that where there aren't chemical toilets and port-a-loos, there are broken sewer pipes and raw sewage flowing into our rivers and estuary.
Battered. I feel battered. And better off than many. So lucky.
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