Ōtautahi Christchurch
Aotearoa New Zealand
©2025 Tim J. Veling
Catherine Allen’s house during asbestos removal and demolition.
Vestiges
Selected photographs from Vestiges, 2013-ongoing.
View Thx 4 the Memories, 2011-13 gallery further down this page.
Former location of Mongrel Mob gang pad.
Former location of Mongrel Mob gang pad.
Exposed aquifer adjoining former site of Mongrel Mob gang pad.
Facing North
Autumn
During North-West wind, spring.
Land subsidence, lateral spread and temporary stop bank.
Facing South.
Facing South.
Facing East.
Facing East during ‘Super Moon’.
New top soil for levelling of cleared residential land.
Heritage ti kouka planting, facing North-West.
Heritage ti kouka planting, facing North-West.
Non-indigenous plants and domestic greenery cleared from Residential Red Zone.
Facing East.
Cordoned off playground, towards Sullivan Park.
Facing South.
Facing South.
From Swanns Road bridge, winter.
From Swanns Road bridge, autumn.
From Swanns Road bridge, winter.
From Swanns Road bridge, summer.
Facing North-West.
Community beehive.
Tennis court behind cleared estate.
Tennis court behind cleared estate.
Tennis court behind cleared estate.
Tennis court behind cleared estate.
The following text was written to accompany the 2018 ‘dummy’ publication, Vestiges, which I produced two copies of. As of 2025, Avonside as well as the broader residential red zoned areas across Ōtautahi have remained largely in stasis. As a consequence, the information below mostly still stands.
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At 4:35am on September 4th 2010, Christchurch, New Zealand was hit by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake. Miraculously, despite it and thousands of aftershocks causing widespread damage to buildings and infrastructure across the city, there was no loss of life.
Avonside–a suburb measuring 1.3 square kilometers and home to over 3200 people–suffered large-scale damage, particularly as a result of flooding, land subsidence and liquefaction. Entire streets were covered in silt and raw sewerage and the area was without power or clean, running water. Testament to the spirit of the community that called Avonside home, neighbors’ banded together and helped each other get their lives back on track. Unfortunately, no sooner than the last wheelbarrow of silt had been carried off to landfill, Christchurch shook again.
It was 12:51pm, February 22nd 2011. Over 400,000 tons of liquefaction spurted up from cracks in the ground; buildings collapsed, and 185 lives were tragically lost in what is now regarded as New Zealand’s largest peacetime disaster. On an international level, the total insured losses as a result of the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes (February 22nd and the June 13th aftershock combined,) have been estimated as second only in history to the Japanese, Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011[1]. According to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the total cost of the Christchurch rebuild is projected to be in excess of forty billion New Zealand dollars, with construction and associated recovery activities expected to extend well beyond the year 2020[2].
The days and months following the February earthquake dragged on forever. Disputes with insurance companies became all consuming, especially after residents of Christchurch’s badly affected eastern suburbs began hearing the words “Red Zone”. In staggered media releases, land constituting much of Christchurch was officially deemed unsuitable for rebuilding on without extensive remediation work and, considering continuing seismic activity, the infrastructure sustaining the community too difficult and uneconomical to repair. Over the years since, removal vans have parked in then pulled out of a little more than eight thousand suburban driveways, making way for the demolition trucks to roll slowly in.
Residential areas red-zoned extended along the Avon River corridor, Southshore, Brooklands and the Waimakariri areas of Kaiapoi, Pines Beach and Kairaki. For property owners in these areas, the government came up with a buyout offer[3]. The sum of the offer equaled the 2007/8 Government Rating Valuation[4] for each property, which in most cases did not reflect market values immediately prior to the earthquakes or always take into account betterment to land or buildings in the time after the valuation had been determined. In addition to this, with a housing and land shortage brought on by such a large amount of residential land being written off, the inevitable consequence of this process was a great many people who accepted the government offer suffered significant financial loss, not to mention a profound sense of grief. For those not eligible for the government offer–mostly due to lack of private insurance–or who refused to accept the terms, they were left at the mercy of the Christchurch City Council and Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Authority[5], who were under no obligation to maintain or fix critical infrastructure and services on red-zoned land post the deemed settlement offer deadline.
The images contained within this book form a representative selection from my ongoing body of work, Vestiges. Following on from the project Thx 4 the Memories (2011–2013,) this short run publication marks an approximate halfway point in what has become a long-term obsession to document change in the red-zoned suburb of Avonside, tracking a relatively densely populated, suburban neighborhood to pseudo-park and beyond. At the time of writing, there is debate as to what use, if any, the land that constitutes Avonside–or any residential, red-zoned land–will eventually be put to, and how the government will want to recoup the $1.5 billion it spent acquiring it. It is speculated that there may be announcements of intention during the early part of 2017[6], but with a national election looming, most predict any meaningful information will be withheld until a later, less politically charged date.
Thx 4 the Memories was a project undertaken by myself, Glenn Busch and Bridgit Anderson as part of Place in Time: The Christchurch Documentary Project. At the invitation of Lawrence Roberts, Gail Ross and The CowPats–an Avonside residents group, their name an amalgamation of Cowlishaw and Patten Streets–we were initially asked to document, in photographs and within oral history texts, the close knit community that existed on two adjoining streets during a time of great unrest.
At the time of our first meeting with the CowPats, Cowlishaw Street and most of Patten Street were designated Orange Zone, meaning decisions regarding the fate of the area were yet to be made by the government, pending the results of extensive geotechnical and infrastructural remediation reports[7]. Neighboring properties on Retreat Road had already been designated Red Zone, but the Ministry of Education had invested significantly in fixing buildings at Avonside Girls High School, located on the south side of Cowlishaw Street. Some members of the CowPats, particularly those who lived on the same side of the road as the school, saw this as a sign their properties would “go green”, while more skeptical members speculated about a government sanctioned land grab in order to expand the school’s grounds. What all the CowPats did agree on, however, was that it was painful watching their community slowly dissipate; seeing many of their Retreat Road neighbors and friends pack up and leave, while they had no choice but to grin and bear it. With each passing day and no news from the government either way, even the most optimistic of them couldn’t help but start to feel resentful. Eventually all of Cowlishaw Street was red-zoned, while the majority of Patten Street green-zoned. The CowPats were forced to go their separate ways.
It was during this initial meeting that Glenn, Bridgit and I realized that while a potent project detailing aspects of community and post-quake life could be undertaken by documenting Cowlishaw and Patten Streets alone, we needed to expand our efforts to look at the wider suburb of Avonside. Our rationale was clear, in that we wanted to include and give voice to as broad a spectrum of experience, thoughts and feelings as possible. Our hope was by documenting an entire suburb we might create a comprehensive record, indicative of what people in other red-zoned suburbs had been and were still going through. Avonside encapsulated a relatively wide spectrum of social demographics, but beyond recording the social-political predicament that was playing out, a project of such expanded scope would also give a chance to make visible, over the course of many years, the built and natural landscape of a large patch of land as it slowly changed; its future long to be determined, but ghosts of the past lingering ever present.
Thx 4 the Memories formed a major part of the 2013 Christchurch Arts Festival. It took the form of a large, outdoor exhibition extending down Worcester Boulevard from the Arts Centre’s market square, past the Christchurch City Council building towards Cathedral Square. The exhibition was comprised of my photographs, oral history texts written by Glenn Busch and accompanying portraits of Avonside residents by Bridgit Anderson.
Vestiges is an independent project that continues from where Thx 4 the Memories left off. Within Vestiges I am primarily concerned with trying to unpick concepts of time, proximity and memory. By photographing space as it opens, and returning to certain sites and re-photographing them, over time my hope is to convey something of the psychology and history remaining within the land.
To this end, photographing in Avonside over the past five years has been a very disconcerting experience. Early on, one day a street would be full of life and most houses occupied. On such a day one might have been forgiven for thinking all was normal in this sleepy suburb. The next week, dust would hang in the air as machines demolished well-loved homes. Much of what was left of the well-established gardens was then thrown through woodchippers; graders scraped and levelled the earth and new grass was sown. Council workers now keep the grass from growing too long and periodically prune the remaining trees. With most of the clearance work now finished, the area now feels unbearably quiet. Streets scarred with cavernous potholes and cracks remain, but effectively they lead to nowhere. Roadblocks have been erected, and fluorescent orange signs warn of access for authorized personal only. If you ignore the signs and take the time to stand in the landscape beyond them, cock your head and turn left then right, you can sense the ghostly shapes of buildings as they once stood. Avonside remains one of the oldest suburbs of Christchurch[8], but if you don’t look, you’ll miss it.
When looking at the photographs contained within this book, I hope people are reminded of what has gone before, but more importantly are prompted to consider a narrative yet to be written. As natural forces and governmental decisions have dictated the recent history of Christchurch city, now that the Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Authority has wound up and Regenerate Christchurch has been established in its place, people must re-inhabit and lay claim to this patch of land as a place for all to use and enjoy. For while the vast majority of people who once lived in the Residential Red Zone
no longer own the earth they once called home, it is their collective spirit and story we need to honor as we move forward, together.
[1] Swiss Re Group, global reinsurer, released figures in 2012 that estimated economic losses due to the Christchurch earthquakes in 2011 as far behind Japan’s Tohoku earthquake and tsunami and flooding in Thailand, both of which occurred during the same year. However, the only higher earthquake-related insurance losses over the last 50 years resulted from Japan’s Tohoku earthquake and tsunami and the Northridge, California (USA) earthquake of 1994. Christchurch’s February 22nd and June 13th 2011 earthquakes combined resulted in insurance losses of approximately USD 17.2bn, which is more than double the initial (risk model based) estimates. See ‘Small quakes, big impact: lessons learned from Christchurch,’ http://www.swissre.com.
[2] Reserve Bank of New Zealand ‘Bulletin’, Vol. 79, No. 3, February 2016. Page 3. The Canterbury rebuild five years on from the Christchurch Earthquake, by Amy Wood, Ilan Noy and Miles Parker.
[3] The offer and its terms are outlined in detail within the Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Authority document, ‘Purchase offer supporting information for: Insured Residential Properties in the Residential Red Zone,’ which is archived at http://cera.govt.nz. Properties eligible for the buyout needed to have been insured at the time of the earthquake, with policies maintained until the time of government purchase. Within the offer, the government offered insured property owners two options to help enable them to choose how to proceed, based on their individual circumstances. For the first option, the offer was for the government to purchase the entire property at current rating value, less any built property insurance payments already received, and assumed all the insurance claims other than contents. The second offer was the purchase of the land only, where homeowners were able to continue to deal with their own insurer about their homes. For an excellent breakdown of this process–where much of the information here is heavily referenced–visit http://www.rebuildchristchurch.co.nz/blog/2011/6/frequently-asked-questions-about-christchurh-land-decision.
[4] Government Rating Valuations of properties are undertaken on behalf of the City Council on or around every three years and are predominantly used to apportion rates charges in each area. Rates are used to maintain essential city infrastructure and services.
[5] The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) was established as a government department on 29th March 2011 to lead and coordinate the government’s response and recovery efforts following the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. CERA was dissolved in 2016 and replaced with Regenerate Christchurch, signalling a shift from disaster management and recovery to regeneration, focusing on the development of visions for the rebuilt city in consultation with community and stakeholders. See http://www.regeneratechristchurch.nz.
[6] Proposals for future land use have already been put forward to Regenerate Christchurch from public interest and lobby groups, including East Lake Trust, who have lobbied for the building of a watercourse to host international rowing and sports events along the Avon River corridor, and Ki Uta Ki Tai, who have proposed a Christchurch version of Cornwall, UK’s acclaimed Eden Project. Masterminded by Sir Tim Smit, The Eden Project is an environmental and educational centre created in the place of an abandoned quarry. Ki Uta Ki Tai’s proposal would see the creation of an urban farm and nature reserve within the Avonside, Avon River loop to “showcase New Zealand’s unique environment and demonstrate our community’s commitment to regeneration and sustainability.” See http://www.waterforlife.org.nz.
[7] Following the February earthquakes, extensive geotechnical and infrastructural investigations were carried out to determine future risk and feasibility of remediation to land and infrastructure. As the results of these investigations trickled back, land was zoned green (the repair and rebuild process could begin,) orange (required further assessment and all rebuilding and repair work was to remain on hold,) at red (where remediation and repair would be prolonged and most likely uneconomic.) While in most cases if a property was zoned green or red landowners were forced to accept the outcome, there were some cases when green-zoned properties were subsequently rezoned to red, and visa versa. Suffice to say the entire zoning process, particularly the extended period of time it took for announcements to be made, caused a huge amount of anxiety within affected communities.
[8] The suburb was named after Holy Trinity Avonside church, which was built beside the Avon River in 1855. The boundaries of the original Anglican parish of Avonside were fixed in 1859 and covered suburbs of Aranui, Burwood, Linwood, Marshland, New Brighton, North New Brighton, Parklands and part of Phillipstown (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avonside.)
Thx 4 the Memories
Selected photographs from THX 4 the Memories, 2011-13.
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As the devastating series of earthquakes that destroyed and subsequently closed off much of Christchurch city continued, residents in large areas of the badly affected eastern suburbs began for the first time to hear the words, Red Zone. Much of their land, they were finally told, could no longer sustain the homes that stood upon it. At various stages the Government determined that a prodigious number of homes in suburbs across the city were to totally disappear. The lives of the people who lived in them were to be suddenly and irrevocably changed.
In response to these events, Lawrence Roberts – his own home in the suburb of Avonside seriously damaged – began writing the avonsideblog. It was an impressive undertaking that kept his friends and neighbours as informed, knowledgeable and up to date as possible amid the sweeping changes taking place in their community. Later Lawrence approached the Christchurch documentary project, Place in Time, asking us to record the experiences of those in his community, all of whom had been severely affected by what was now the largest peacetime disaster in the history of our country.
While the project was an collaboration between Tim J. Veling, Glenn Busch and Bridgit Anderson, the images shown here are drawn from a large amount of work collected by Veling between 2011 and June of 2013. Many of these images were made before the final outcome for many Avonside residents was known. Today (2013), all but a very few of the people Place in Time talked with have been told their homes will disappear. Half a hundred people – a few more – one small collective voice among many that deserve to be heard; their stories are of no lesser value for that. Sadly such anecdotes abound in Christchurch. As Cathy Allen reminded Glenn Busch, ‘Everyone has a story and the need to tell those stories is going to be with us for a very long time.’
Through such telling we come to understand not only the devastation visited upon the lives of those affected, but also the immense amount of bravery, generosity and determination the people of Christchurch – along with those who came to help us – have shown in the wake of such terrible odds. Pay attention, their stories are full of the collective wisdom only those who are actually living an experience can offer. Others, charged with dealing to the enormous task of recovery, would do well to listen carefully.
The images presented in this gallery formed part of THX 4 the Memories a Place in Time exhibition mounted for the Christchurch Arts Festival, 2013. They were accompanied by oral histories written by Glenn Busch and portraits by Bridgit Anderson, and are dedicated to all the people who were kind enough to share their experiences and their feelings with us. It is a generous gift for which we are truly grateful.
To read the oral history texts written by Glenn Busch, and see the portraits of Avonside residents by Bridgit Anderson, that made up the larger THX 4 the Memories project, please follow this link to the Place in Time website. To read the long-form oral histories from Avonside, plus many others by Glenn Busch, please follow this link.
Vestiges of Democracy
Dr. Bronwyn Hayward
Written on occasion of the exhibition, Vestiges, Centre of Contemporary Art, Ōtautahi Christchurch, 2018.
A recent article in the journal Nature surveyed the impact of “recovery projects” in the aftermath of disasters. Most recovery efforts, the author concluded “do produce net benefits. But many boost social inequality and environmental damage.” [1] Canterbury was included in this global survey of disaster recovery, as a case study, but not one that we can be proud of. It’s worth quoting the brief case note as it appears in this historical overview, in full:
“A century later, in New Zealand, the Canterbury quakes of 2010 and 2011 consolidated national political power at the expense of local groups. Here, disaster recovery interfered with due process and procedural justice. Community officials and residents were excluded from decision-making processes over the status of their homes when a central-government authority was granted power to acquire and dispose of property and suspend laws and regulations.” [2]
Official New Zealand records, describe the aftermath of Canterbury earthquake recovery differently. The NZ Statistics Year Book (2012) offers a colour coded official statement of reassurance:
“Soon after the February 2011 earthquake, the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) mapped the Christchurch land into four zones – red, orange, green, and white. Land was marked red if it was so badly damaged by the earthquakes it was likely it would take a prolonged period of time before it could be rebuilt on again; or it was affected by cliff collapse or rock roll where there would be an immediate or unacceptable risk to life; or where other engineering solutions were not practicable. In total, 7,857 properties were deemed red. By 31 December 2012, all residential property owners knew whether their property was zoned red or green, and if the government would offer to buy their house and land. The Residential Red Zone offer was crucial to Canterbury’s recovery. It gave red zone property owners the chance to move on with one part of their lives and find a new, secure, and safe home.” [3]
The struggle to make meaning from years of national planning, regional turmoil, local protest, and comunity and personal loss, can’t be captured adequately in academic assessments or government review.But it matters that we take time to reflect. In the coming years of distruptive climate, how we manage through disasters, listen, give dignity, follow due process, will be crucial as we collectively retreat from areas facing new risks of flooding, storm surges, sea level rise,and drought. But as philosopher Bonnie Honig reminds us, we can’t keep suspending democracy every time we face increasingly common, “emergencies” [4]. We need to find ways to maintain democracy. Begining to understand what places mean for people, documenting loss, hope, and regrowth, as we learn to live within a landscape, not as an anthropocence we can control but a local landscape we inhibit with humilty, is our first and perhaps most important step
in learning how to live in hope and uncertainty.
Dr. Bronwyn Hayward
Professor Political Science, University of Canterbury.
[1] Sovacool, B.K (2017) “Don’t let disaster recovery perpetuate injustice” Nature 549, 433 (28 September 2017) doi:10.1038/549433a
[2] Sovacool. B.K (2017) Ibid
[3] CERA (2012) “Canterbury’s earthquake recovery progresses” Statistics NZ Offical Yearbook 2012 [http://archive.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/snapshots-of-nz/yearbook/people/region/cera.aspx] accessed 25/5/2018
[4] Honnig, B (2009) Emergency Politics Paradox, Law, Democracy. Princeton University Press
Photograph by Bridgit Anderson / Place in Time: The Christchurch Documentary Project
The following text is part of a large body of work by Glenn Busch, written after a series of interviews he did in 2012 with over people who lived at the time in the suburb of Avonside.
Following an initial introduction, he found himself passed on one to the other, an aunty around the corner, a friend across the road, a kind and decent man a couple of streets away. Each of them badly affected by what had quickly become one of the largest peacetime disasters in the history of our country. The views they expressed were heartfelt. They contained elements of anger, sadness and grief but also of courage, hope, optimism—and kindness. They told of their experiences at a time when much of what would happen to their lives was still unknown—before any final outcome had been arrived at. Today, the homes of all but one or two of the people he met with have disappeared and for some, their livelihood as well.
To read all of the extended oral history text from Avonside authored by Glenn Busch, please follow this link.
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Catherine Allen
One Ordinary Little Rock
The first thing to say is that there’s a strong sense of loss… and straight away… just having said those words, there are things that come bubbling up to the surface once more. Things that I haven’t thought about for a while now. Things that I’ve battled with in my head. All these emotions… stuff you think you’ve come to terms with only to find it’s all still smoldering away in there. I suppose it will for years to come.
Not very long ago I went back to what had once been our home; I was looking for a rock. Just something I’d picked up years ago and placed in our garden. It had been important to me that garden, and there was still stuff there that I wanted to keep. Memories. Just memories. But as I walked around behind the house everything had become so mangled, so overgrown, I couldn’t find it. I couldn’t find one ordinary little rock and it really upset me. I thought goodness, a simple thing like that. Why am I so affected? I didn’t see it as a sign of weakness, but it did astonish me a little. The fact that it was gone, that I couldn’t find it. I mean it was just a rock, but I suppose it was really all about goodbye. That final time, the moment when the clock ticks over and all that’s gone before gets left behind.
It was my father who first came to this place. He’d came over from Scotland looking for the new. He was a lot older than my mum whom he found in Clarence Bridge—out of Kaikoura a-ways. Somebody had said to him and his mate, ‘Why don’t you come on up to the farm,’ and they did. My mother, who was from Waimate, happened to be staying there at the time and that was it. One of those quick romances.
Being a country person mum found it hard at first to live in the city, but dad bought a couple of homes out here on the banks of the Avon and in those days that meant she didn’t have houses all around her. He brought his parents out from the old country to live in one house and the other became our family home. Many years later two of my own children bought a home here as well, just down the road. For them it was an investment, and they spent a lot of hard-earned money re-instating the house to its former glory, but it was also a place where they could be close to family and friends and the things they knew. My father was a man who built a life for himself and his family in this area and that is what has been destroyed, everything he worked hard to make happen. That is my own sadness, that great sense of loss… I’m glad my parents were no longer here to know it. But it’s my children—all young people really—I feel the saddest for. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make all this stop. Make it go back to the way it was. Let us regain our lives and not be ruled by what has happened to us.
There’s a lot of grief about right now and sometimes with grief you also get anger. As with all difficult times people get to squabbling over things. I know this has pulled a lot of people apart but really, it’s such a waste of emotion. You do feel angry, at times you do, but what I think, what I feel most of all, is that I’m not in control, not in control of my whole life. It leaves you feeling insecure, like you’re just a nomad with nowhere to go and you don’t know what is going to happen next.
You get a lot of different reactions I suppose. People I’ve known, people I’ve been friendly with, have drawn away while others become closer. Personally, I’ve found myself becoming closer to folk, I wouldn’t want it to be the other way round. I like to talk—we have to talk to each other—it keeps us sane. Where we are living temporarily there’s a shop just a little ways down the road and people are always passing by. I find if I’m in the front yard people will always stop for a natter. ‘Hello, how have you fared?’ sort of thing. Every one of them has a story and it’s so interesting to hear them. Very therapeutic and let’s face it, the need to tell those stories is going to be with us for a very long time.
There can be days when you are feeling very brave, you think you’re sort of over it, but you’re not. Not really. It’s changed our history hasn’t it. Changed all our lives; perhaps some more than others. I find it hard sometimes when I talk to friends on the other side of the city and they are still doing their normal thing. They’re still going to the shops, they’re still going dancing, they’re going swimming, they’re doing all the normal things people do and it’s only just across the city. I mean all over the world people are doing normal things, I know that, and I don’t want to begrudge them. I don’t want to feel like that, but when you are wearing nothing but gumboots for what seems like forever and the thought of actually going out socially is the last thing on your mind, it’s hard not to look over the fence and wonder about chance and luck and the way our lives pan out.
I can’t really complain. I don’t want to complain. Let’s just put it down to bad luck. And to be fair we’ve been very well looked after. Especially after the first one in September, people came from everywhere to help. Of course, as the earthquakes have gone on, more and more people have been affected and so we have received less and less help. But that first one, there were people around knocking on your door all the time, seeing you were okay. The armed forces, the Police, everybody, it really was incredible. The army brought in these North Island boys, older soldiers and quite different from the younger ones who never quite knew what to say to you. I suppose they must have spent about an hour with me, just talking about things. Just so lovely they were; they’d been all over the world and I was interested to hear their tales. Yeah, it was good to have that contact and know they were there. The New Zealand Army even presented us with a wee army loo—that was before they finally got the chemical loos out around the streets. We, like most people, had a dugout by then in the backyard but we didn’t have a Portaloo. Well, I must have mentioned it while we were talking and sometime later one of the guys jogged back to us. I heard this voice calling out, ‘Cathy, I’ve found you a loo.’ Ha! Just a simple wee thing but it meant a lot. Oh yeah, they were wonderful those guys. Wonderful.
We all needed some wonderful after that earthquake, it’s not the sort of thing anyone wants to wake up to. We’d actually had quite a late night and so we’d only been in bed for something like three hours when it came. Our house was two-story and I have this memory of my husband, Chris, yelling out, ‘Cath, get out, get out, this is the big one, quick, get out.’ We did manage to get out of bed and went for the doorway but not much further. We were getting shaken around all over the place. At one point I got hit quite badly by a bookcase coming down. In the end Chris was hanging onto the doorway with me hanging on to him. We just stood it out upstairs, there wasn’t much else we could do. I believe it was the longest one of them all and it was terrifying. Listening to the noise all around us, everything smashing and banging about. Everything was down. Nothing seemed to be left standing. It was so… so unreal. Like at that moment we were living someone else’s life.
Chris went downstairs, we didn’t have a torch upstairs and so he had to go downstairs to get one. We had no shoes on, and I can remember screaming out, ‘For God’s sake, watch your feet.’ And then Chris came back with the torch and switched it on. Looking down from the stairs I could see nothing but absolute devastation. I think that’s when it kicked in. Whatever it was down there, it wasn’t my home anymore.
The next thing I was grabbing the duvet and heading downstairs where already Chris was starting to clean up. Then I heard a yell outside and it was my son, Richard, who’d come from just down the road, he was worried that the house might have collapsed on us. He’s screaming out, ‘Are you all right? Are you all right?’ By then we were in the living room, so we pulled the curtains back and looked out and it was the most bizarre thing I’d ever seen. The river had emptied and the water was moving along the road, and then everything just filled up again and now all we could see was water all over. At first it disappeared and then it came back again until we were totally flooded. Water right up to the steps, and everywhere else in abundance.
Richard helped a bit with the cleaning up and seemed concerned somewhat with getting me off to his place because it was on higher ground. He was thinking of his mum I guess but I said we’d come around a bit later when we’d done what we needed to here, checked on the neighbors and so on. That was one of the marvelous things that came out of this, the way people looked out for each other. The way you met neighbors you hadn’t even talked to before. My biggest concern was the young woman next to us who was on her own with two children. Anyway, we got what we could sorted out and then went off to Richard and Jacqui’s place for the night. The worry for us was with the safety of our upstairs, the way it was sagging—and the flooding. That’s what bothered us. It was an old wooden house that had been the family home all those years, from the time of my dad, but look, she was still standing. We’ve learnt a lot about what stands up to earthquakes in the last year or so.
We came back the next day because the Rapid Response people were coming to check on things. It wasn’t easy to look at it again, pretty mind-blowing really. You’re staring at all this devastation and it can take the breath right out of you. I know they are only belongings, but they are your belongings, and everything’s broken.
Chris just said ‘Right, we’re going to stay. We can’t be upstairs, that’s not so good but we can live down here. We can sleep in the dining room,’ and that’s what we did. Got stuck in and cleaned the place up and the dining room became our bedroom. We simply made ourselves a little bed on the floor and tried to get on with our lives.
I was home baking a few months later when the second one came. I don’t think anyone thought it was going to happen again. Perhaps, we said, we’d get a few wee tremors, but no, not something as horrific as that again. Not again. When it stops the first thing you want to do is phone your family. I’ve got a very special family, and I needed to know they were all right. As it turned out that took quite a while. But then I heard someone calling out to me from across the fence. It was the girl next door, the daughter, she was at home on her own. I didn’t even know she was there. The water was rising again by this stage, and she yelled out to me she was hurt. Her mum worked over the river at a day-care centre and the boy, her brother, was at St Bedes on the other side of town. I’m a bit vague about why she was at home but I’ve a feeling it was a day off for some schools. Some sort of teacher’s day, you know, no kids at school. Whatever it was she was home and I ran out and as I did some workmen nearby said to me, ‘Are you all right?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m fine, but there’s a wee girl yelled out next door that she’s hurt.’ So, these guys kindly came in with me. We had to be careful because the lines were down again. As it turned out she was okay, it was superficial—she just panicked.
Well she’s only fourteen or fifteen, and anyway she came over to me and we just stayed there together, hugging each other every time there was another shake. They were pretty nasty and that’s the way we stayed until one by one everybody started congregating at my place. My youngest, James, came round, so I knew he was all right. We couldn’t get hold of his partner, my soon to be daughter-in-law, or Chris. I was worried about him because he works in an old building and of course, like the first one, you couldn’t get through on the phones. He didn’t arrive home until sometime later after he’d been to check on mum over in Shirley. He was worried about her because she lives alone. She’s a very brave wee lady and the good news was she was all right. Actually, it all became quite chaotic as time went on. People, cars and so on were becoming stuck in the water around us and Chris spent a lot of time helping to pull them out or ferrying them home. There was one chap who was so desperate to get to his child over at Banks Avenue School that he swam across the river to get his wee boy, and somebody loaned him a canoe to get back. We’d set up our barbecue by then and were boiling water to make coffee in the backyard. Somehow giving people hot drinks at times like that seems to be a big help.
In the midst of all this, the most terrible thing, the worst news, was my daughter Jacqui—she was trapped. She was in Clarendon Towers where she worked and the stairways had collapsed. She’d been in her office, which I think was on the seventeenth floor, and they managed to get down about as far as the tenth before they could go no further. I’m not sure how many people there were altogether, maybe a hundred—a lot of people anyway. Thank God Richard managed to get in phone contact with her. I was going round and round in circles after I found out. I think I wore a hole in the lawn. Always now after those earthquakes arrive, the first thing you want to know is that your family is safe. To find out she was trapped there was gut wrenching. I had to keep busy— I know I was blocking it out—it was the only way I could survive it. Richard got down to just texting with her because they didn’t want to use the batteries up, then at some point he had to go back to his place and I lost that connection. He’d got a call that a couple with a baby were in his driveway and needed help, needed a place to stay. Also, around here the water was still rising and more and more people seemed to go into panic mode, there were cars stuck all around us here. Chris kept on a pace, doing what he could for everyone, and I kept handing out coffee. Then at last we heard the brilliant news that she was out, that the firemen had managed to get into the building somehow and get them all out. I was so thankful. I’m still not able to stop thinking about it, even now. It haunts me still.
On the surface Jacqui appeared to deal with it quite well. She said herself she was fine, and she has done really well to cope with everything that came after, but no one goes through that sort of stress without some consequence. I think she’s incredibly brave. Three hours she was trapped in there and I’m sure it was the longest three hours for her. It certainly was for me.
I think we finally left our place about 9.30 that night and went down the road to stay in the kids’ house. It was absolutely full by then, even the wee baby was still with us. I’d baked the day before it all kicked off and luckily I had managed to salvage most of it. I’d been doing it for my youngest who was getting married, and the tins were full. It was something to offer people and seemed to be just what they wanted. Coffee with something sweet and comforting.
The assessment of our home when it came was green, yeah, they didn’t even go inside but the quick assessment was green. It was deemed that we were allowed to stay in the house. Pretty soon after that though we had the EQC men around and they said don’t go upstairs, that it was unstable. Well, you could see the dip when you got down the hall, the dip in the ceiling, sagging away there and in the end we had to have a lot of stuff inside holding everything up. It looked like a construction site, but we continued to live there, we lived there until it became totally unbearable.
Things got worse in June. That was horrific, yeah, that was a bad, bad day. We were both at home then and Jacqui also arrived after the first quake. She had been working down at Ferrymead with her new job but by that time, anything over a five and you were sent home. She’d come straight over here, and we were out on the lawn together. Chris had actually come home because there was something wrong with the car and ever since the quakes he liked the car filled to the brim and in perfect working order. So, he was actually lying under the car in the driveway. Jacqui was understandably a bit freaked out, it just brought everything back, the terrible time she’d had in February. I think it started flooding again too. The floods come up very quickly round here now because the land has sunk. What was once the walkway around the river is now called the dam. The area where the road used to be—that’s how badly it’s sunk.
Immediately after you have one of these big quakes you start to think of all the usual problems. The water, the power, the toilet problems, they all blend into one after a while. Summertime you cope, I mean we’re campers, we’re used to that. Initially we would go out to the Waimak River, take our water tanks out there and fill them. The boys would go for a swim, have a wash. But when it started to get cold, when it became winter, it got harder. The cold got to me to be honest and constantly having to take anything you washed outside because none of our pipes worked; you’d be amazed how many buckets you have to empty. You also start to realise how many times you go to the toilet every night, which seems to be constantly. I remember coming in one night and I had my anorak on, a big scarf and I’m holding my little torch, and I said to Chris—I must have been crying—because I said, ‘I don’t want to be doing this. I’m too old to be doing this.’ I mean it takes a toll on your nerves doesn’t it, which, if anything, seems to make you go more often. Later Chris dug yet another hole in the backyard so we didn’t have to go up the road at night and my son who is an electrician bought me one of those headlamps—like a miners lamp—and we all had a good laugh about it.
What do they say, if you don’t laugh you’ll cry. It’s a bit like that with all the stress these things bring. Chris runs his own business, he’s a panel-beater and painter and he’s an incredibly hard worker but with the recession things have been hard over the last two or three years. Not that he’s ever been a man to give in, he works and works and works and we’ve always lived in hope but this whole thing has been like a kick in the teeth. His workshop was in Barbadoes Street, right in the city and he was shut out for ten weeks, which affected our business hugely and put him under a heap of stress. He’s like a workaholic and not being able to get into his business was just horrific for him. He spent a lot of time going round to his customers trying to keep it all going but it was incredibly difficult. People stop doing things, don’t they, when something like this happens. So many others had lost their jobs and we found it grim. At times it was hard just to make ends meet. It’s the old story when you work for yourself—no work, no money. I really admire his strength through that time, I always have, but no one is unaffected by these events and when he’s affected it affects me too. Living on a shoestring along with every other thing that’s happening is something lots of people in this city are dealing with. We’re not the only ones so I try to think something good will happen, I try to be positive, because surely things can’t get any worse. Eventually they’ve got to get better.
By the time the second one arrived that day though, I’d had enough. The house stood up to it—which is to say the house stayed upright—but inside it was all but demolished once more and that was really it for me. I mean things don’t usually mean much to me. The family, people, relationships are much more important. But that day we couldn’t even get in the back door. Our belongings had been thrown from one end of the place to the other and I just thought, it’s left me with nothing. Nothing at all. I guess we picked it all up again and continued to stay on for a time, but I was never happy there again. That really was it for me. Chris, on the other hand, still had to come to terms with it. And you can’t just… I could have left there and then… but that’s not what you do. So, until he came to terms with it we stayed.
Winter was coming on by then and we had no heating. We weren’t allowed heating because we’d had walls taken out and our fireplaces removed so it was intensely cold. We had beams everywhere inside holding the place up. Actually, we did have a little fan heater and we had a sort of gas heater but at the same time we had to use the dehumidifier constantly. You needed a torch to get anywhere and when you touched the walls, they were wet. We had that black mould growing everywhere. I remember having a couple of neighbors in and they said, ‘Your lounge is sopping wet!’ Everything was wet, our clothes were getting covered in mould as well and that’s not good to live with, not when your husband’s an asthmatic. I was very nervous whenever I was actually in the house, I didn’t feel it was safe and finally I couldn’t live like that any longer. It had become unbearable.
In the end an old neighbor rang me up and said I’ve seen two places advertised in this area and gave me the chap’s number. When I rang, he wasn’t at home but I left my number and address and a while later he turned up at our place. He was a lovely chap and he would only rent to people who had properties in the red zone; in fact he himself is just down the road there, also in the red zone. Dave Gorrie, one of the good guys. And so we took this place and it was just a palace compared to what we were used to now. He kindly put in a heat pump in for us and two days later we had snow again. Imagine how I felt, it was brilliant. Just brilliant. It was still handy too, just around the corner really so yeah, good for work which was picking up a bit, and Chris, I think, was happy to move. He’s been better for it—we both have.
Then again, it’s hard to tell with Chris, he’s like a lot of men; he doesn’t perhaps talk as much as I do. I hear him talk more to his brothers in Australia—of how he feels about it all—than he says to me. I know it’s one of the worst things he’s ever been through and that’s true for both of us. For myself, it also gave me this fear—you carry in you this fear—that it could happen again. That anything can happen, but you are never going to know when. And so it is, every single time you feel it, it comes as another shock. Especially at Christmas. At a time when we all want to feel good about things, it made me sick to my stomach. To feel it all move again with so much violence, that really unnerved me.
There were four of them that day, all of them big ones. As always, I went outside because it felt safer. The neighbors were all checking on each other and then my daughter arrived, she was very upset by it too, we all were. I grabbed the water bottle and set up a table and some chairs on the lawn. I had a friend who had come for lunch. Pretty soon there were quite a few people here and more seemed to keep coming. We all sat there drinking cold lemonade and just being together which I find is the best way to cope. I went and checked on my wee neighbor next door too, asked her if she wanted to come over but she had someone with her so that was okay. She said she was fine. But it surely puts you off celebrations. I’d been really looking forward to Christmas with all the family, so this one came as a real downer. I can’t say I’m getting used to them. Every time they come it turns my brain to cottonwool.
In the end of course I had to pull myself together. We had a meal to make for the family and so Chris and I did the dinner together. He really helped, he was brilliant. And having all the kids here and my grandson for the first time, that was so good. Having the family around you seemed like the one certain thing. I mean love is the one certain thing isn’t it. But all this that has happened, it makes you reflect on things and realize just how fragile we all are. Chris and I know something of this from when our son was very ill. Nothing is more important than your children and he was deadly ill. It put us down that did, Chris and I.
The professor, when he told us—gave us the diagnosis—he said this will either bring you together or it will blow you apart. And he was right. Sitting at the bedside of any sick child is a stressful time but you work hard together for your children, and it did bring us together more than ever. Lots of people worked hard for our boy, they were brilliant, and he was a real fighter. He came through it and today has a beautiful son of his own. The thing is, when everything is okay again, you put that stuff behind you. You think life will go on again, happily, day after day until you suddenly you get another reminder of how vulnerable we all are, how breakable it all is. That nothing is really safe. Which is why it’s so important to live with all we have, every day.
In a little while our life will change again. We will have to move from this area. The Government will buy the land and the insurance pay out on the house. Of course it’s not just a house to us, it was our home, a place where families have grown. A place where all those little things that make a family what it is have happened. There have been many tears, certainly from me. We’ve had our farewell family dinner there and perhaps I will go from time to time and pick a flower from the garden but, yes, I do find it hard to go back there. I’ve said my goodbyes, but not Chris, not yet. He goes down every other day, feeds the birds, pulls the drapes, mows the front lawn, and if you could see what the house looks like now, I don’t know why he bothers. But he does, he still has this real commitment. You wouldn’t believe it, we actually got a beautifying certificate last week because of the way the place has been kept so tidy. It’s not just for us though; we do that for our neighbour too. She’s there on her own and we know what that feels like. It’s not very nice if people just up and leave and everything goes to rack and ruin, that can be pretty sad for the people that are left there.
As for us, there’s nothing we can do now but move on. If the land is not safe there’s not much we can do about it. Initially we’d hoped we might be able to rebuild, but then they told us we were going to lose, not only our home, but the land also. That was a huge disappointment. I think I had a bit of a blank there for a while—I didn’t really know and I think Chris was the same—we didn’t really know how, or even if, we wanted to move forward. We focused mostly on the business and just got more stressed about that. Well, we had to have money, you have to survive but now I think we are seeing a way forward. We have been looking out Rolleston way. We’re not totally happy but that’s what life’s like at times. I am a bit more pushy than Chris is about getting somewhere. I suppose it’s my nesting instincts, but I do want to have a home. It will be a long way from what we had with the river and all but sometimes you just have to be practical. Pick up and get on with it.
I said before that talking about yourself is not easy and it’s not. A while ago I went to a reunion with the girls from Avonside Girls High. Much to my mother’s horror I left and got myself a job as a hairdresser before I had even sat the School Certificate. The headmistress seemed to feel the same way. She had me in her office off and on for two weeks trying to get me to change my mind. I was in the A stream and it seemed she thought I could do better with my life. Actually, I think I’ve done pretty well, certainly I’m a happy person and happy with the way my life has worked out. Anyway, they all stood up these girls and spouted about what their achievements had been, and rightly so, but I’m a bit reserved. It’s not something I like to do. I find it difficult to say I’ve done this, I’ve done that, it’s just not me. I suppose I’m a reserved sort of person—and, yes, a little bit crazy at times. I am. It’s what my kids will say anyway—mum’s a bit crazy—and I am really. Chris and I have a lot of fun, a lot of laughter between us, and I think in many ways it’s what keeps us together. Keeps us going. You know, we can have a bitch like everyone else but at the end of the day we can laugh about it. We do laugh about it. Without it, without that sense of fun, well you’d be feeling a bit helpless wouldn’t you. A bit of humour, it’s what you need to survive right now. Anyway, it certainly helps. Plus, I’m an optimist. Did I say that? Well, you have to be don’t you. Otherwise, goodness me, you might as well start digging the hole right now.
Catherine Allen’s property after demolition.
Online book (concept pitch) of initial THX 4 the Memories collaborative project.
To read all of the extended oral history texts from Avonside authored by Glenn Busch, please follow this link.