The Big Quake continued...

The story continues.....

That night was bad. The aftershocks never seemed to let up, we had no toilet, no water, no power. Son and I ate a sandwich for tea, but I wasn't hungry. He ate some crisps.

We spent the night on the sofa, in the sunroom extension part of the house. The roof was light tin, and we were near the door. Son had his cellphone in one hand and his wind-up torch in the other, I had a wind-up radio/torch hubby had brought me for Christmas. We played the radio all night. We wanted to know we were not alone, that other people knew what had happened, that help would come. All night the announcer said people were coming, help was on its way, just hang on, help was coming. I knew people were still trapped. I would have cried, but I think I was too shocked.

Our street was strange, one neighbour had only just been reunited with her 5 year old son. He had been officially a missing person for 9 hours. She was fine while he was missing, making calls, comforting her 3 year old, updating her husband in who was working in Australia. Once he was found she lost it. Neighbours and friends rallied round and got her and the children a flight out to join her husband the next day.
Many people were not there, having already left the city, and most of those who spent the first night left the next day.

Son and I were stranded without any transport, and waiting for hubby to get back. We dug a deeper hole in the garden for the necessary, we put blankets over the freezer to try and keep it from defrosting, we did a food and water stock take.

Water! Ever since the first quake I had been paranoid about water. I had over 100 litres saved and stored in a number of different places. It was by no means enough, as we were without water for over a month, but it got us through those first few awful days, and by then tankers and help was arriving.

Hubby got back late that night, having restored the children to their parents. The next day he managed to retrieve our car. It took 19 days for the power to be restored, thanks to the herculean efforts of the power people, the army set up a desalination plant at the beach for water, a food distribution point was set up, and neighbours and friends rallied around.

I am not going to describe this time, we had no power, no way of knowing what was going on in the city except by radio. Our lives shrank to the round of finding water, boiling water, and distributing it to neighbours who did not have gas. Keeping clean and disease free was my prime concern. With no sanitation, disease was my biggest worry.

I want to say thank you to the friends who invited us to their house for showers, food, water and internet connections. I want to say thank you to everyone who sent food and fed us during those first few awful days. I want to say thank you to the friends who helped the girls get to Dunedin. I want to say thank you to the USAR teams who came from all over the world to help us, to those who sent money, workers or just their love. Thank you, all of you.

My diet went to pot.