21 February, 2012

The Day After




I woke up after a very shaky evening and headed to Burnside high, where they'd set up a Civil Defence post. I spent most of the time keeping people away from an immunocompromised kid who had been moved there after they'd shut down the hospital. I spent the time talking to a guy from the coast guard who'd been working Triage at Latimer Square, who told me what it was like cleaning up around there. Nasty stuff.

The Thursday was the first day out with the SVA. I got talking to another digger on the walk in who had a couple of friends killed, his work had fallen down, his house had fallen down, and hit ex girlfriend was up about 3 people ahead of us walking with the guy she'd left him for.

Aside from that, it was digging, digging, digging. You made friends. You discovered what the different types of silt were like. You learnt how to make a wheely bin into a silt mover, and then you learnt quickly how to tell the difference between a good and a bad wheelbarrow.

Watching the SVA work into a bigger and bigger organisation was interesting as well. What started off as a table in front of the UCSA building to a large tent, full of food and whatever supplies were needed.

The reaction of everyone blew me away. The amount of baking we were given has got me to the point where I'm still a little over it (but driven to distraction to try and find the recipe for a couple of the things made for us). The lunches made by the Otago students, the notes slipped into them from people I'd never heard of. The cards and the emails and other messages which had been sent in and stuck on the walls. The amount of other food donated to us like the chips from bluebird (I still can't eat the sunday roast flavour), the V, the water, the wheelbarrows, the spades.

The look on the people's faces were similarly moving. I can still remember the looks of gratitude on their faces. When working with the street teams helping out with the Civil Defence teams meant getting to meet a lot of people and the outpouring of gratitude from people was amazing. Once they heard you were with the SVA any barrier or scepticism they had was instantly gone.

I got called up to assist at the central police station working their refreshment station. The walk in had me going the full length down Riccarton Road. Just before I got into the four avenues I walked past where a building had collapsed onto a truck. All the notes and flowers left there was the first interaction I'd had with the "actually killed someone" earthquake, and on the walk back home the morning after seeing all the chalkings from his family on the ground was the closest I'd come to crying the whole time.

The police station gave me an insight to what was happening in town. Patrolling around the red zone, finding the looters, and meeting the lovely coffee ladies who I met again when at one of the RWC matches.

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