Highs and lows

The clean-ups continue today and with it come more and more stories of devastation, near-misses, mud-slides, lives in turmoil, strandings and helpfulness . . .

I feel blessed to have come away so lightly.

I had the opportunity today to view things from above - it was supposed to have been a fun helicopter flight over our beautiful city but it was hard to assimilate what we saw into 'fun'. Sure the helicopter bit was fun (if you enjoy your stomach defying gravity and trying to make an escape from your body through your mouth!) but it was incredibly sobering to witness so many landslides and so much dirt and destruction - and from up on high the slips become incredibly clear.

Nature has no favourites - those who live at the top of hills to enjoy the views risk sliding down the hills whilst those who live on the safer, lower land risk being deluged by the slides, as these 2 images show.

And like Christchurch, there's some irony in this disaster. Houses that have been the victims of slides are covered by the EQC (Earthquake Commission) whilst those affected by flood water will be covered by their own insurance. The issue now though - is there any money left in any of those coffers to help these people?

In happier days, the wee cottage near the front right of the image has been blipped before.

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