A whole lot of shaking going on
Wow, that earthquake in Christchurch at the weekend sounded pretty scary. Friends who live there told us it felt like they were being thrown out of bed. Another couple we know had access cut off from their two young children, but once they were able to get to them they discovered them fast asleep. Probably just as well, because there are some terrified little nippers down there at the moment, particularly with all the aftershocks.
I’ve experienced a few earthquakes but nothing like that. My first one was in Italy in 1989 while on a school trip. We had just walked across an enclosed motorway overbridge when we felt the earth move under our feet. I certainly wouldn’t like to be in one of those in a big quake.
The second one I felt was in Rotorua in the early 1990s. I was lying on the couch at home with a hangover. I had to check with my flatmate that it was actually an earthquake and not just my head spinning.
The last one was in Christchurch in 1996. I was working in the dispense bar at the Grand Café restaurant in the casino when the glasses started tinkling followed by the big chandelier in the dining room starting to sway. It was short and sweet but my co-worker had the presence of mind to pull me into the doorway away from the large beer fridges. It was quite funny watching diners helping themselves to the buffet. They couldn’t decide whether to ditch their dinner and duck for cover, or wait it out.
Nothing funny about the earthquake this time, however. Luckily it happened in the early hours of the morning and there were few people about otherwise there could have been a steep death toll.
It’s made me start thinking about our ‘disaster plan’ again. After the tsunami in Samoa last year I got proactive and filled up lots of empty 3L juice containers with water, stocked up on emergency food and batteries, and checked first aid supplies. I’m going to go through it all again and make sure there is nothing missing. You just never know, do you?
My husband thought I was mad storing all this water in the garage but I did have need of it a few months ago when the water supply was turned off for a few hours for maintenance.
One thing I do have plenty of is medicine. My GP is a lovely guy but he does tend to over prescribe. Why have one tube or bottle when you can have three seems to be his thinking. If you’re ever short of painkillers, anti-inflammatory drugs, or anti-histamine come and see me.
I picked up a great little transistor radio at a garage sale a few months ago that I thought would be perfect for my emergency kit. Unfortunately I killed it by plugging a 9V battery into it to see if it worked. Overload! Back to the drawing board on that one.
To anyone reading this in Christchurch, I wish you a speedy recovery back to a shake-free life.
