Up Front: Floodland
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Hebe, in reply to
"Christchurch Is Pumping": class.
We could rebrand ourselves the Venice of the Southern Hemisphere.
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I've always kinda thought this, but these sorts of situations prove that insurance companies are basically the devil.
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The awful thought is that now every time it starts to rain anxiety will set in. And if anyone in your family happens to be sick or the car has a flattish battery or the rain forecast is ambivalent or it is very cold, then the anxiety would multiply. The courage to stay calm is to be admired.
Thanks for the insight. -
Sacha, in reply to
The question is: who pays? EQC says not; insurers say not.
and this government says "not our problem". Clowns like Brownlee actually 'negotiate' with the world insurance industry to smooth *their* way through the mess at the expense of the citizens he supposedly answers to. Vote these feckers out.
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Love will terrace apart...
An 'It-Coulda-Been-Me' levy/fund
might be attractive to the wider community,
country and social partners at the moment...
(which is pretty much what I thought the
EQC levies were perceived to be all about)If the 'Flockton Basin' needs to become either
'Transylvania Waters' , 'The Basin Reservoir'
or even 'Amy Ponds' The Dr Who waterpark,
the greater city/catchment need to recompense the dispossessed
properly for their sacrifice - hopefully that Red Zone scam
should not work as easily again...Dudley Creek's capacity could be increased to 'industrial strength/width'
- Dudley More Creek perhaps? - It is a joke now... -
Hebe, in reply to
Love Will Terrace Apart ....'Transylvania Waters'
Very clever! Siltia Waters?
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Signal boost: http://sciblogs.co.nz/waiology/2014/03/07/calling-for-christchurch-flood-photos/
If you took any photos at or near peak water levels anywhere in Christchurch during Wednesday morning or early afternoon, please send them to NIWA (niwafloodphoto AT gmail.com; NIWA email malfunctioning at the moment sorry) with the street address and time, and with the subject “Flood”.
We will use the images to help identify how high the waters rose across the city. This will help us improve our models so we can provide better flood risk maps in the future.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
The rest of NZ should be concerned: this is a precedent-setting situation that will be applied to every homeowner’s land insurance. It effectively renders land insurance near non-existent and building insurance full of get-outs.Banks will now start to lobby I would imagine: people will walk away from their properties. Resolving this must be a primary election issue. Fuck resilience.
Yes this.
In investigating our own insurance, It is certainly not worth considering insurance any more any time soon. Just as the Govt and Council up here dealt with Aucklands leaky buildings. Permits mean nothing. Houses devalued The get outs are phenomenal.Keep up the good investigative work guys. Keep bringing it out in the open. Force change. I know that years ago Papanui had sinking parts and only due to perseverence was a relatives home raised . That would have been at least 200mil and they had installed one of those concrete stormwater drains right beside it.
Good luck. -
Hebe,
Another instalment on the flood risk/land changes etc. As Rob Stowell says, it's mind-bendingly complex.
A piece I read recently online said that in the due-out-this-month draft District Plan the 50-year-flood FMA had been changed to include the 200-year-flood transition zone.
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Labour selects Tony Milne for Chchch Central
He looks like he could be the real deal to me.
He knows local issues and has good ideas
and he volunteered at 198 Youth Health Centre while studying at Canterbury, anyone who spends any time around Dr Sue Bagshaw, usually comes out of it with their social priorities in good order and fighting fit...
and he has stayed in the social-help sector...Gives me a sense of hope at last for the electorate's representation.
We should get our taxes back for Miss Inaction, Nicky Wagner's, time.
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Stephen Judd, in reply to
Gives me a sense of hope at last for the electorate’s representation.
Glad to hear it. He certainly knows how to organise an effective camapaign.
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Isabel Hitchings, in reply to
With the proposed electoral boundary changes, pretty much all of the Flockton Basin is set to become part of the Christchurch East electorate. I don't know what, if any, practical effect that might have but we really can't wait until after the election to have our issues addressed.
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Hebe,
Been doing a bit of neighbourhood de-gunging. Neighbour's two trailerloads to the dump (all the free skips are overflowing): $215. Thanks CCC. Not.
Wanker on a sit-up bike comes past: eight people working to fill the trailers -- sewage-infested mud through the pile of stinking soaked memories. "You can't throw those doors away: they are recycleable." Fortunately for prat with beard sitting on his 800-buck bike, beloved, property owner and I were working with a group of lovely young churchy people from the other side of town who had given up their Sunday afternoon. Or else we would have pushed him in the river while he lectured us.
I hear reports of a group of people around the river in Opawa who have lost everything: they have piled the lot up on the riverbank and set a bonfire. That's awful that they are so desperate and at the end of their tether.
I feel blessed, sad and angry. Blessed for the help and support given to us.
Angry at the spin-and-grin appearances of the PM who was able to spend 30 minutes on sweeping in front of cameras before he swanned off to a good-news presser.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
..we really can’t wait until after the election to have our issues addressed.
True,
Sorry Isabel (and Hebe)
I was thinking big picture.What do you and those around you need immediately and most?
Be it cash, goods, time, support - list it out here
there must be some of it the PA community can help with...I'm in a neighbouring suburb,
Chchch ain't that big... -
Stephen Judd, in reply to
Yep I’m in for a PAS working bee etc too.
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Hebe, in reply to
Thanks Ian; this house is sorted.
Isabel: if there's anything we can help with: let me know. Transport?
We're going to wade through the past today: the remaining task is sorting the 20 boxes of books that were stored in the garage and have been dumped inside. They are the best Greg and I have collected over our adult lives; the ones we wanted our kids to be able to read.
When the September quake happened we were about to put up shelving in three rooms right around above the head-height panelling and up to the ceiling as a space saver. Open bookshelves up high became less attractive during the aftershocks: belted with Berlin? Thumped by Thesiger? Pelted by Pilger?
Some casualties so far -- mostly the best of the fiction that I kept for when the boys were this age and up; all the NZ classics.I don't want in any way to minimise others' disasters, but it has been good to bin things I have a strong attachment to without looking back. On Friday Greg and I were by ourselves emptying the vile garage flood. We dealt with it in our Irish disputes resolution manner: a bellowing scrap. Building from a disagreement about the sorting sequence into a roaring swearing hurling: "I've always fucking hated this" Biff. "Why the fuck is this still here?" Hurl.
Three years of behaving well broke, and we had a good clean war for three or four hours, taking out all our anger and frustration about the way life has really been hard, the grief, the everything about living in this buggered city. Feels great; lighter.
Jane Bowron is going back to Welly: I'm envious, sort of: another wave of people is leaving now: #overit. -
Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
We dealt with it in our Irish disputes resolution manner: a bellowing scrap. Building from a disagreement about the sorting sequence into a roaring swearing hurling: “I’ve always fucking hated this” Biff. “Why the fuck is this still here?” Hurl. Three years of behaving well broke, and we had a good clean war for three or four hours, taking out all our anger and frustration about the way life has really been hard, the grief, the everything about living in this buggered city.
Oh Hebe,
That is fantastic that you let loose. To be honest and to not try to piss others off, I'm amazed we never hear of this sort of "Irish disputes" behaviour on here, Everyone seems so strong. I would have been there oh so 3.5 years ago.
I've had a stink start to my year with death and op and building and selling which is nothing like the Chch debacle but the raw nerves are all twisted and knotted and at least I know the building is nearly finished and that Mum's in a place she would consider better. I will be fixed and our house down here will sell. I really don't think I could have made it down there. It's the "going back for more " be it Govt ignoring you all, the Council avoiding you all, The weather curtailing you all, and the sadness that the land has a long way to go to settle if it ever will. I would go bananas and your stoicism/ fortitude (?) amazes me.
Purging is good eh? makes you definitely feel lighter and brighter.another wave of people is leaving now:
That makes complete sense though. It's almost like the water is washing everthing away.Powerful stuff is water.
Hope you have a great day today Hebe. You are strong. -
Hebe, in reply to
Sofie you have had four out of the five top life-stress events concurrently. What a serve. One foot in front of the other, and a comfortable bed to hide in is my current recipe. Hugs.
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Hebe,
Reading Ian's and Stephen's offers of help has put me in mind of "what the vicar told me" yesterday. The Woolston-Opawa-St Martins river loop properties have have been hit hard. Because the properties are more spread out and individually affected than the wholesale inundation of the Flockton Basin, the free skips are few and the clean-up volunteers many fewer.
Households in Woolston have lost everything. The vicar reports people piling up the debris and setting huge bonfires to get rid of it all. No contents insurance means huge dump fees -- and that's if a car and a trailer or a skip are obtainable.
People are getting on with it; quietly despairing, knowing Civil Defence is at the end of its tether as everyone else.Support from the authorities is minimal, but mostly not present.
While I'm at it, the council's claims of the flooding being to fast to call are crap: I walked to the river on Tuesday night at 9.30pm at high tide -- and it had well broken its banks. The rain had only been going a few hours. Sandbagging could and should have started early afternoon on Tuesday. The weather forecast and rain radars were clear and unambiguous. The appalling disconnect between the council apparatchiks and systems is still very evident.
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Sounds heart-breaking, Hebe. Hoping for better times ahead.
(Any books you especially miss? I can keep an eye open - will be going through a lot in the next few weeks.) -
I just logged on so I could post something after I read someone's comment about 'resilient' (I have loathed that word for the last 2 years), and now I can't think of anything to say. I'm feeling so sad, fighting unhelpful guilt because I live in Opawa, just around the corner from the river and the bridge. Guilt because, as with the quakes, my house is OK. I am OK. I had no idea about the flooding until I ventured out on Wednesday afternoon to post a parcel and was told about the canoe in the flood just down the road. And yes I know the guilt is irrational, but when I read Isobel, Hebe, and Ian and others I feel...helpless.
I'm off for a walk to the church by the bridge to see what I can do.
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Thanks for your offers of help. It is unbelievably reassuring to know that I have troops I can call in if need be.
We don't really need a great deal at the moment. We have a warm, dry place to stay for the next few weeks and we've gotten a goodly amount of clothes and personal items out of the house. We're letting things lie for a bit while insurance assesses the damage ( which, according to today's initial inspection is major) and we gather information and assess our options.
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Hebe, in reply to
(Any books you especially miss? I can keep an eye open - will be going through a lot in the next few weeks.)
Not really heartbreaking Rob: it would be if I thought about it so I'm not.
Thank you indeed for the kind offer. I haven't really taken note of any yet (maybe it's the no-thinks or maybe I'm over them). -
Hebe,
It's me, Jeremiah, again: CDEM and the CCC are meeting this afternoon about this weekend's forecast storm for Chchch.
Met Service: "...Given the saturated soil [in Canterbury], residents will want to keep an eye on this storm as it draws closer because periods of heavy, persistent rain could certainly bring the risk for local flooding." -
The MetVUW forecast chart for 1pm Sunday. Shit. Please stay safe, my friends.
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