Carlos and the quake

It was the morning of Tuesday 22 February and we were in lockdown. Cyclone Carlos was heading down the coast towards Karratha and we’d been on Red Alert for seven hours.

I’d spent the night at the radio station where I work. Once Red Alert is called, where you are is where you have to stay. I’d said I’d be available to work during the cyclone, so on Monday evening I’d packed a bag, grabbed an inflatable mattress and some bedding, and left a flu-ridden Dreamboat at home.

On Tuesday morning we went to rolling cyclone coverage. My program was going to start an hour earlier than usual. Ninety seconds before I was due to go on air, I had a call from the Dreamboat. He was crying.

“There’s been a huge earthquake in Christchurch. It’s bad… really bad and I can’t reach anyone on the phone.”

It took a few seconds to sink in. All of my family live in Christchurch.

“Stop that! Stop crying!” I snapped at him. Some primitive part of my brain had the notion that he’d jinx things with his tears. What I hadn’t yet realised (and he had) was that at that time of day, everyone in my family — mother, sister and two brothers — would’ve been in or near the Christchurch CBD.

That three-hour broadcast I did was the longest of my life. Every news break, I’d ring the Dreamboat and ask if he’d managed to contact anyone. The answer was always no. He sat, like many other people stuck at home during the Red Alert, and watched the horror unfolding on the TV — shattered buildings, broken and bewildered people, sirens and dust and blood.

Everyone in my family made it. We were so lucky not to lose anyone; during the quake, all of them were in buildings that suffered damage. It was a miracle my mother wasn’t killed. She’d just been to Mass at the Holy Cross Chapel in Cathedral Square (completely destroyed) and had made her way to the Bus Exchange in Lichfield Street to catch a bus home. She was there when the quake struck. It threw her against a wall, injuring her shoulder. Part of the building collapsed and killed a woman and her child.

Only minutes afterwards, a guy living in a CBD apartment took a camera outside and started filming what he saw. He took some footage of people making their way down the middle of Lichfield St. My Mum, the Dowager Empress was one of them. You can see her coming into the shot at 1:50 — a little, white-haired old lady, utterly dazed and frightened by what she’s witnessing. It’s here:

My sister told me about this footage. It had been picked up by one of the TV channels and screened on the News. She had no idea what was coming. I had prior warning but I still found it very distressing.

You can read my youngest brother’s story here.

Like every other ex-pat Christchurch native, the first thing I wanted to do was jump on a plane and get over there. Then I thought about it and realised I’d be just one more person using up precious resources. I briefly considered going to our farm, buying food and inviting my family up there to be cooked for and fussed over and cosseted. There was talk of my youngest brother taking up the offer with his family and the Dowager Empress but at the point, they couldn’t bear to leave. Everyone’s still in Christchurch and although I can understand why, I wish to hell they weren’t.

So, back to Carlos… well, Carlos was a bit of a fizzer, really. He came and went. At 6pm, we were taken off Red Alert. I packed up my bedding and headed home to the Dreamboat. We watched the rolling TV earthquake coverage and cried.

We’re flying over at the end of the month. We were always planning to do that anyway because the Dowager Empress is celebrating a Significant Birthday on 2 April, but we’ve changed the flights so we’ll arrive a few days earier than originally planned. This will give us more time to spend with everyone before we head up to the farm for a week. We’ll be taking anyone who wants to go with us.

It can’t come soon enough.

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