February 22... - earthquake in 2011

... this will always be a significant date for me and my family, and many, many others. At 12.51pm, Christchurch, New Zealand, was rocked and devastated by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake. I will absolutely never forget those 45 seconds; the noise, the fear, the darkness, my thought processes, my reactions, my breathing, my children's reactions, my escape. I was in New World, a grocery shop, in Redcliffs, Christchurch. I thought I was dreaming and having a nightmare; it went dark, there was violent shaking, the food was coming off the shelves like projectiles (there was a door open further down the aisle and light was coming through) and then I realised I wasn't dreaming, and it wasn't a sleep nightmare - it was a real nightmare! I sudden realised that we were in a mega earthquake. I remember wondering if it was two storey (thinking about collapse), I thought about getting into a doorway (too far away), under a table (none), triangle of life but the reality was it was almost impossible to voluntarily move any distance. The fridge in front of me had a solid side so nothing was falling out. I got my two kids, age 3 and 2, to put their heads down in the turtle position (well practiced in school earthquake drills) by the side of the fridge and I covered them with my head and body. The shaking stopped. There was stuff all around us on the floor, it was dark, just some daylight coming through some distant windows and the door that had come open. One direction seemed to have less stuff on the floor than the other, but I was blocked in by a fridge. Someone called 'are you ok?' I shouted 'yes, there are three of us here we just need to get out'. She couldn't move the fridge, then a man came and asked the same, I replied the same. He moved the fridge, I had my two boys in my arms, one either side. One screaming, one silent. I side stepped over the broken bottles and squeezed past the fridge, past the counters, and to the outside. A staff member was in hysterics. I put my kids down and we hugged. There was an eerie silence, dappled with sirens and dust. I said to one of the staff, 'that was a massive earthquake, the epicentre must have been right under us'. (It was within 1km). Then another aftershock, and the water started to come around us as the drains erupted and overflowed. I walked back round to my car which was surrounded by water, but decided that it would be too risky to drive home along the cliffs. I had heard a lot of them had come down. I went to the kindergarten where I had just picked up my son from. Kids were crying, in shock, well, the reality was - we all were. We attempted to sing and be positive for the children; we moved to a higher area as the water flooded the playground. Parents arrived white faced to get their kids. We got updates from around the city. More and more aftershocks; we saw nearby cliffs fall down. It was scary, surreal and unending. Fast forward an hour or so, my husband and other son, and neighbour with her big dog, came to the kindy. Hugs galore to say the least. All safe - wasn't that just the only thing of importance. Then we heard talk of a tsunami... I knew the tide that day and knew it was going out so I wasn't so panicked but we drove to higher ground, in fact we pretty much drove up on top of the fault line!! I have memories of looking over Christchurch to the CBD/City and seeing all the dust, hearing all the sirens, seeing smoke and wondering 'what the hell next?'. I remember vividly the smell of my neighbours dog in the car with us as I was six weeks pregnant at the time (unfortunately, I miscarried him at 14wks). On the way up to there I will never forgot those images in my head, windows out of houses, people/families sitting on lawns wrapped in rugs with their 'munted' (NZ phrase) destroyed houses behind them. I had no camera with me, but that image is so strong I could paint it. We did finally get back to our home, stuff all over the floor, even an adult tantrum couldn't cause that much chaos! Broken windows, cracks everywhere, furniture and pictures fallen over. My pot of home made apricot jam and some wine had survived!! We grabbed stuff of importance, in between aftershocks dashing out of the house every few minutes not knowing how stable our house was, or if we would ever get back to it. [We never slept in it again, but it was stable.] We finally left, and drove 5 hours south to friends in Dunedin. Our cellphone had run out of battery in the middle of the afternoon, so when we plugged it in, there were a load of messages from friends and family concerned for us and especially our lack of contact. What we left Christchurch with that day - our family - was what is truly important in life. It's so easy to 'need' all the materialistic stuff... but really we don't. We share a HUGE connection with everyone that experienced the Christchurch earthquake, lots of people moved, friendships changed, communities changed, we moved to Timaru (2 hours south). It was hard to settle, we moved every 9 months around short term rentals until we bought - 4 moves, and another back to Northern Ireland last year. We are definitely quite sensitive to faint vibrations now and detect 'earthquake' type sounds easily, and that's even here in Ireland! One of the boys had nightmares for months afterwards, and reacted badly to earthquake drills at his new kindy. We add it to life's experiences and it has made us stronger. Christchurch is an evolving city, a city of great change; push on a decade or two and it will be a phenomenal city. I hope we can return someday to experience the new Christchurch, but it will remain forever in our hearts. Kia kaha/Stay strong.