September 4, 2010: Four Years On From The Initial Canterbury Earthquake
Today is the fourth anniversary of the 7.1 earthquake on September 4, 2010 that initiated what I mentally term the “Year of Awful” for Christchurch and surrounding area’s: from that first earthquake through the major events of Boxing Day 2010, February 22nd, June 13, and December 21, 2011—and over 10,000 lesser events.
Although September 4 was the beginning, to date I have tended to focus my reflections on February 22nd, which was the event that resulted in loss of life (185 dead) and major injury, as well as almost complete destruction of the city centre. Nonetheless, on Tuesday night—during a leaders’ debate in the current election campaign—Prime Minister John Key assured us that, four years on, Christchurch is “booming.”
So it seemed timely to examine that conclusion: is Christchurch booming, or is recovery and lack thereof more a “tale of several cities”?
To give you an idea, here’s some of the earthquake after-effects that have characterized the past four years: ongoing demolition and disruption; Red Zoning of whole suburbs and compulsory relocation; widespread flooding; chronic accommodation shortages, soaring house prices and rental costs, with many people living in damaged and unhealthy homes and resultant homelessness for those at the bottom of the market.
In addition, concern at the pace and adequacy of response from both the government Earthquake Commission (EQC: charged with all residential repairs under $100,000) and insurance companies (repairs over $100,000, aka “over cap”) has been a constant throughout the past four years. If anything, rather than diminishing, concern is increasing over:
- consistent government failure to acknowledge homelessness and the magnitude of the accommodation crisis in Christchurch and surrounding areas
- the quality and competence of repairs being undertaken, with the most recent being last weekend’s The Press article: “Canterbury’s Creaky Homes Crisis”
I believe these two areas in particular constitute a huge failure of leadership, hand in hand with a substantive failure of the Christchurch/Canterbury community.
With respect to the Prime Minister’s observation that Christchurch is “booming” I also note that the ‘blueprint’ for rebuild of the city centre has yet to begin in any substantive way. The Press’s Saturday 30 lead article noted ongoing delays with commercial building consents. I believe this would not equate with “boom” in most people’s lexicon…
So what’s good? I still think SKIRT’s doing a pretty good job with the vital infrastructure rebuild, despite a lot of disruption, mainly traffic and congestion that goes with it—but that’s largely unavoidable given most infrastructure is in the roads.
It’s “around the edges” stuff when set against the core concerns of home and business repair and rebuild, but organisations like Gapfiller have done good stuff with “greening the gaps” projects—and we’re starting to see a few new buildings where you think: “hey, that’s interesting…”
I also feel it is worth noting that Christchurch is “a tale of several cities” because there are residential areas, particularly in the west of the city, that are relatively unaffected by the repair/rebuild woes.
But as Giovanni Tiso noted on “The Pantograph Punch” site, having visited Christchurch for the last weekend’s WORDChristchurch Readers and Writers’ Festival:
“…I returned to find a city still broken…Witnessing the continuing, raw extent of the destruction in and around the former red zone, which no still picture or televised report can quite convey, was very confronting…”
I believe this is a more accurate reflection of Christchurch reality than a central city that is largely filled up and booming (to paraphrase the PM’s reported words)—and there are still buildings like the Holiday Inn on Oxford Terrace that remain cordoned off, derelict and abandoned.
In my view, however, even if the city centre was rebuilt and bustling—which it isn’t—a city which still has significant people living in not only damaged but substandard homes, while others have been forced into garages and cars, and there are serious questions emerging about the viability of the repairs being undertaken—on a citywide scale—is far from “recovered.”
Realistically, I would not expect it to be either, four years after such a major series of disastrous events. But I do expect a commitment to putting the people of the city first and getting the rebuild work right—but four years on, that’s starting to look like the largest empty gap of all.
So far away from us, if not for people like you, Helen, I’d not know anything about how reconstruction has gone, or not gone.
The description of the holiday Inn kind of reminds me of the devastation that Katrina still has wrought on New Orleans.
Paul, I think the whole situation has many overlaps to Katrina, from what I know of what happened there.
This piece brought up a lot of emotions for me. I have always tried hard not to “wear my heart out with anger”, but I am angry about the lack of humanity that characterizes the way in which the response to this crisis has been led. After four years we still have bureaucracies that do everything in their power to remove any humanity from their day to day dealings with people who have been kept at arms length for four years now. As a consequence we get idots who should know better talking about a booming city with a vibrant center. Booming for whom?
I think it will be booming for some, but I share John Stuart Mill’s view that one cannot measure an institution by its best examples, but by its worst—and when I look at the city as a whole there are just too many people falling between the cracks. And when one reads Moata Tamaira’s post today, The Truth About Earthquake Repairs, it’s hard to see that there is any sense of service, let alone public service, found in her experience of the EQC/EQR response—and yet it is all being paid for by “our”, ie public money.
“He aha te mea nui? He tangata. He tangata. He tangata. What is the most important thing? It is people, it is people, it is people.” That’s not exactly coming through either.
Sorry to hear this, Helen… people should always come first. Always. Alas that is not generally the case.
No, I think money pretty much always comes first. :-\
Trying for ‘balance’ here, I think the Christchurch earthquakes 2010-11 were a really major disaster and the response was always going to be a challenge and imperfect. That being said, I think the EQC/EQR approach has been shown to be extremely wanting, especially in terms of that aforementioned service/public service ethic, as well as such old fashioned values as responsiveness and respect—the dreaded “R” word! Instead they seem to have locked themselves in (or down) to what I would describe as “bunker mode.”
And accounts like this “Twilight Zone” article in yesterday’s The Press are just inexcusable: http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch-earthquake-2011/10457263/EQC-battle-felt-like-the-twilight-zone
Sigh… 🙁
How’s your personal situation going? Your home’s still not fixed yet, right?
Sorry for the delay in replying, Steve–somehow I missed your comment, mea culpa! But no, we’re still not fixed although with book deadlines et al, I have not exactly been pushing either. Am currently waiting on a structural engineering report, so will see what transpires after that. But can still live in the house, however damaged, which puts me well ahead of the Christchurch post-earthquake curve.