Earthquake Post

Well I thought I should do an earthquake post.

So if you missed it - there was a BIG earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand on September 4th 2010 - 7.1 magnitude followed by a few hundred aftershocks (literally). So here's how it went down at my house.

Well I woke up to shaking (doh). I sat bolt upright and woke instantly (I'm one of those sleep -> alert people in a second) though my brain wasn't thinking earthquake. I've been in earthquakes before - quite a few - earthquakes in my past experience didn't feel like this this felt like someone had picked up my house and was shaking it! I actually thought someone was bulldozing our house! That thought only lasted for a second then next thought was "Joshua!". Darren was by now sitting too but he was still waking up.

I jumped out of bed and made it to Joshua's room. It wasn't easy going but I will admit it is all a bit blurry. Going round my head were horrible thoughts - we have a framed picture above Joshua's bed and I was so worried it would have fallen and hit him on the head. He was fine - I don't even know if he was awake I ripped him from his bed so quickly. Darren caught up and we sort of had a "where to now?" moment before I decided to stay under Joshua's doorway. I think we all hugged each other.

A minute later the quake stopped. I actually have no memory of how long it lasted - I know it lasted just under a minute from reports I've since read. I said to Darren get the pictures off Joshua's wall - so he took all the pictures down. Then we went back into our bedroom and Darren realised the power was off. What to do now. It was cold. Joshua and I got back into bed. Darren produced a torch from somewhere and hung it from the light fixture. I told him to turn it off to save the batteries. I can't remember what else we said to each other. Interestingly we didn't go and check out the rest of the house.

I thought about putting Joshua back in bed - for about half a second. I remember being concerned that he'd be scared because his night light wasn't going. Then I realised without his heater on he'd be too cold. BINGO justification for keeping him right next to me snuggled in bed. So then we lay there in bed together, snuggled under than blanket. I had the bright idea to turn my cellphone ringer on and my parents called and a few texts were exchanged with Darren's family too. I kept feeding Joshua to try and keep him happy and hopefully get him back to sleep - in the darkness he had bad aim so I got lots of bruises.

Eventually Darren went to sleep, and Joshua went to sleep. I didn't. I'm not sure if it was the Earthquake or my fear of squashing him in our sleep or just because I wanted to watch him sleep. He looks so perfect when he's asleep, so peaceful. So I lay there watching him sleep. He woke crying around 6.30. Our whole house was cold and Joshua wasn't interested in lying still in bed. So up and dressed for us, then we decided to go round the corner to my parents with their log burner.

First we inspected the damage. An ornament we'd bought in Rome had broken (drat), a glass in the sink had broken, spring flowers out of the vase and on the floor, cans out of our cupboards, TV toppled over. Lots of things had fallen but not broken which was great - Darren was convinced our TV would be broken but due to lack of power we couldn't test (it turned out to be fine).

Outside on the street it was now light and neighbours had started gathering. I felt a bit bad driving away past them but gave them a quick wave as we went past. The car radio was our first contact with the outside world. 7.4 they were saying at that time. Don't drive unless you have to (whoops). At Mum and Dads things started to feel more normal again. They had the gas cooker out and were making toast mmmm. Hehe I remember remarking to Claire that it would be hilarious for all the people who had hooked up on the Friday night and were now stuck at their one night stand's house! (I still think this is funny). I was obviously feeling ok again!

That's all for now :-)