Hi guys,
I'm alive - one of the beauties of having been at work when it hit! Unfortunately immediately after the 'Quake i couldn't contact pre-school where my wife worked, raise her on the mobile, and the same was the case for my mum and dad. Work generously let me leave, so at 1:30pm I jumped in the car home (a trip that would normally take 45 mins max). I took what I considered a quick way home, had a few traffic diversions, and at one point missed a turn off cos no one would let me in. That meant I had to do a huge detour/ sightseeing trip through Woolston/Opawa/Ferrymead (google it) - the exact route was east bound alone Broughtham Street onto some street starting with P and eventually onto Dyers Road. Long story short on the way I drove through flood waters everywhere, over a bridge with a 1 inch crack down the length of it, saw multiple cars which shouldn't be called TOYOTA but rather FORD (cos they were found on roadside DEAD), and even saw a car embedded in the road (on a 45* angle upended with the bonnet submerged in liquidfaction). To add to this, the flloding was made worse by submerged potholes the likes of which mirror images of a war ravaged city.
I get home (at 7.02pm)to find two vehicles on my lawn, neither of which is my wife's. Neighbour rushes over as she sees me start to despair, let's me know she's gone to mum and dad's. So i enter the house, see everything trashed, everything of value thrown to the ground and smashed asundar. The greatest miracle of all? The 12yo scotch which feel from the top shelve (2 or 3 m up) directly to the ground survived without any cracks - a very welcome relief. Computer is fruczored, as is everything else. Have had to abandon the house as the back has a mix of liquifaction and sewage morphed into a yellow sticky conglomerate about 30cm thick at its shallow point. No water, no power, no sewerage or phone, severe flooding and liquifaction every fucking where.
So gathered food and bottled water, clothes etc. Set the nieghbours up with our BBQ and frozen food, called work took leave, left neghbours with catfood etc for us, placed feed out for chickens etc, jumped in the car, and drove to mum/dad's.
On way I had to cross a bridge which the Fulton Hogan guys said was, "At your own risk". passed it fine, headed down Queen Elizabeth drive, passed Mairehau high school, down Innes Road, turned down forfar street - rooted the Cefiro's Underbonnet guard on a frickin submerged pothole (was under 2 feet of water), saw steam come from bonnet - went ffs, and reversed out the best part of 200m underwater - ripped the underguard off, did a 3 point turn (in the middle of the flooded sewerage on the road.) and headed out to innes, back to cranford, down warrington into Barbadoes, down as far as Edward ave (parets street), saw the flooding was worse and cars were FORD in the middle of the street. Drove to Edgeware road, turned left, then left into Geraldine st, down to Ed ave, saw the flooding was stillas bad there, turned around, and decided to drive on the footpath - SLAM into a pothole that would have made the grand canyon look small! Stuck as stuck could be. Lucky a man and his 2 teenage sons were driving past, they gave me a hand, and i drove back to Edgeware, down to hill road and into Edward Ave - made it there. Took me 2 hours to do a trip that usually would tak 15 minutes.
Then there was the panic of keeping the kids close as the aftershocks hit that night - we decided early mornign to get wifey's dad to pick us up as we figured roading would only egt worse. We are now safely in the southern most city on the planet - Invercargill.
Will be here for next 2 or 3 weeks. National state of emergency - this is definately the worse state Chch has ever been in in the 29 years i've called her home. Gunna move for sure now.
So gaming wise - i did take my headset from Home to M&D's but left it there with our 3 vehicles. Our kids are alive and uninjured but Wife and middle daughter are traumatised. Computer and net where we are wouldn't be able to handle anything so, play on everything that we had going WITHOUT me. I will not be home home until at least Friday 4 March. At that's the Eaaaaaaaarliest, so play on. And if the allies lose its all ZARD and Geo's fault ;-p .
In terms of helping, if anyone in the paradox world does want to help, the best and only real way to help is send money to the relief fund (RED CROSS), oh and thanks for the USAR teams from Aussie and UK/JAPAN - extremely helpful - along with the 500 odd singaporian soldiers here on exercise.
As someone who was in both the 7.1 and 6.3 EQ's the 6.3 had been way more devastating to infra - puts the TACs Infra bombing in HOI3 to shame - and well that says a lot!
PS: If mods read this I have been liberal with language in places - sorry but given what's happened i really don't give a fuck.