Provided
Some supplies that Jean Gorman is storing in his garden shed in preparation for the next big earthquake.
Jean Gorman is a writer based in the Tasman District.
OPINION: I’ve been hoarding tin cans in the garden shed (aka Shelob’s Lair) forever.
In a fit of enthusiasm, I decided to brave the spiders, clean the shed, and count exactly what we were going to eat after the house fell. The answer: canned tomatoes. OK, there was plenty of rice, pasta, and oats in the bins, but it still didn’t seem like a very good diet.
Plans are one thing, details are another.
Geological studies have shown that an earthquake of magnitude 8 occurs on the Alpine fault at regular intervals and that it is due. The whole of New Zealand will be affected to some degree.
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Julian Thomson / Stuff
Geologists inspect a section of the Kekerengu fault rupture on the Marlborough coast in November 2016. Of the faults that ruptured in the Kaikōura earthquake, it produced the largest horizontal shift of 12m.
At a civil defense conference in Nelson, one speaker commented: “When you wake up just after midnight, after half an hour’s sleep, you need an A4 sheet of what to do when the shaking stops. Knowing what to do is all very well, but the detail of how to do it requires planning and practice.
Personally, being awakened by the Kaikōura earthquake, I examined the beautiful image swinging above the bed and pulled it out at the next shock. I’ve discovered that there’s a difference between “this picture may drop one day” and “this picture is going to freak me out in the next half hour”.
Iain McGregor / Stuff
Tony Guthrie was injured in 2016 and flown to Christchurch but wanted to return to Kaikōura and see his family.
All sorts of priorities come to mind at different times: the elderly neighbours, the farm’s diesel tank on its tower, the water supply. Every farm water tank in Kaikōura was torn in half by the 2016 earthquake because the pipes were anchored in the ground. What to do and in what order are not decisions until the house has been shaken and the contents stirred.
In the scenario where New Zealand suffers an alpine fault from Milford Sound to Lake Kaniere near Hokitika, Nelson is thought to suffer from M7 (difficulty standing, flying bookcases and some structural damage). However, further south things will be worse and many electricity pylons will fall. All passes will experience landslides and roads will be blocked for perhaps weeks.
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It is recommended that families have supplies to last up to 14 days, if possible.
After the recent weather, it looks all too familiar.
Previously, the earthquake advice was three days – forget it! Each family will be dependent on its own resources for at least fifteen days. Your discomfort will depend on your level of planning. It will be six months before things return to a new normal.
Cell towers will be down, there will be no internet. There will be no ATMs or eftpos until power is restored. Keep some cash handy. Department stores may have diesel generators, but diesel generators need fuel, garage fuel pumps run on electricity, and underground tanks may very well be ruptured.
UNIVERSITY OF CANTERBURY/QUAKECore/STUFF
A simulation shows how the Kaikōura earthquake moved across the country before shaking offices in Wellington, including a call center in the Hutt Valley, captured by CCTV.
Supermarket shelves will quickly empty. More food and fuel cannot be delivered if harbor facilities are damaged in Nelson. Wellington could also be affected.
It is hard to imagine living without electricity. However, it takes two days to repair a pylon and there are hundreds of them between the hydroelectric dams and the southern summit. No pylon can be fixed until there is road access. Solar garden lights are a wonderful thing, as is a gas barbecue.
Grilled oats and tomato stew again. Oh good!
