Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: In the red zone

James Littlewood*

Thu, 04 Sept 2014 12:11:05 +1200

One year on (and I suspect in another 20) these continue to move.

Is it true that we have nothing to crow about besides an oblique and threatening reference to an advertorial in the Press? The world waits ...

Lilith __

Thu, 05 Sept 2013 13:17:51 +1200

A very nice piece on cycle touring in Chch .

Steve Barnes

Thu, 05 Sept 2013 12:05:44 +1200

As jokes go, this one is really not funny. I wish you’d show some respect for the rest of us here.

I was not joking and I fail to see where you get the idea that I have little or no respect for "the rest of us" as you put…

Lilith __

Wed, 04 Sept 2013 13:44:19 +1200

“Oh Noes, its Lianne the Red and her hideously deformed cousin Ian’

As jokes go, this one is really not funny. I wish you'd show some respect for the rest of us here.

Steve Barnes

Wed, 04 Sept 2013 11:48:31 +1200

wow an urban photographers dream and if it could be made safe a wonderful movie set!

Or the background for a TV series "Life in the Red Zone" or "Big Brother – Christchurch Red Zone" (what a neat way of getting all those stories out in the open without letting…

Lilith __

Sun, 01 Sept 2013 16:19:19 +1200

There’s a really nice initiative to recycle every part of a red-zoned house in Brighton. Press article:

A New Brighton bungalow destined for demolition and landfilling has been saved by a community group that will turn the entire building – all of the timber and electrical wire, all of the…

Hebe

Sat, 31 Aug 2013 20:13:08 +1200

The end of the Brighton Spit has moved hundreds of metres over the 150 years humans have been photographing it. There are houses built on “land” which was sea-bed as recently as 1970. Basically, development should never have been allowed on the last km or two.
So Mermaid Place is…

Hebe

Sat, 31 Aug 2013 19:36:12 +1200

Here's the council link, which will give you other links to get an understanding of what they have done:
http://www.ccc.govt.nz/thecouncil/newsmedia/mediareleases/2012/201210102.aspx

The Cera map of the flood zones:
http://maps.cera.govt.nz/arcgis/rest/services/CERA/CERA_CCC_Flood_Data/MapServer

Here's the very good analysis from John McCrone in The Press: http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch-earthquake-2011/8744573/Quake-hit-residents-now-face-flood-risk

An interesting thing happened with all that: EQC and insurers…

Richard Grevers

Sat, 31 Aug 2013 13:56:27 +1200

I see Red Zoning as a positive response in broad terms to the Earth Quakes and wonder if Sea Level rise should not be factored into the rebuild? It has been mentioned before and if we’re going to address it, now is the time to do so.

Back in the…

Richard Grevers

Sat, 31 Aug 2013 13:42:06 +1200

making massive decisions like whether to repair the Town Hall

And most of the people who used to use the James Hay Theatre (as technicians and performers) say that it shouldn't be repaired as it was a pig of a place to work. It was the one Chch theatre I…

Just thinking

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 14:54:17 +1200

That would be interesting. I'm assuming the allowing of parts of South Shore etc to go Green is a hospital pass by Brownlee as infrastructure won't necessarily be repaired.

Hebe

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 12:08:10 +1200

Sea level rise is taken accout of in the CCC’s flood management area and its fringe which takes in the 200-year flood risk. I will post a link when I have time to dig it up: it’s a huge issue with all sorts of repercussions re ongoing insurance, repairs, rebuilds,…

Just thinking

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 10:07:48 +1200

From the photos you can see how the nefariously minded think nothing of recycling hot water cylinders.

Just thinking

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 10:02:06 +1200

I see Red Zoning as a positive response in broad terms to the Earth Quakes and wonder if Sea Level rise should not be factored into the rebuild? It has been mentioned before and if we're going to address it, now is the time to do so.

Raw sewage is…

Gregor Ronald

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 05:57:38 +1200

Your first River Rd photo is next to our house, demolished 11 months ago. The last neighbors in the block left a few weeks ago, after months of night time prowlers and looters, and the fear of arson. We were lucky being zapped by the first quake, we were sorted…

Hebe

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 18:47:13 +1200

I think Gerry has in mind: “Christchurch: yo mah li’l puppy dawg now!”

Fits with the pick-up truck-driving man ambience….which leads me to…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2PQf60Q2go
Maybe it should be in the other thread... surely it must be Shane Jones' campaign song.

nzlemming

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 17:26:55 +1200

“Christchurch: Done Over and Dusted’ to replace the Garden City slogan?

I think Gerry has in mind: "Christchurch: yo mah li'l puppy dawg now!"

Hebe

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 16:09:08 +1200

One laughs in order not to cry, Lilith. We are all Christchurch now, as far as post-democracy goes. You were the pilot site.

“Christchurch: Done Over and Dusted’ to replace the Garden City slogan?

Chris H

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 14:10:40 +1200

I do remember them, every day. I remember that they have the opportunity to repair or rebuild and live in their badly damaged homes, while we are denied the privilege of living in our undamaged home because the government decided to ring zone the area and call it the red…

Lilith __

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 13:59:14 +1200

I can understand that. I realised a diversion had taken me around the place where David and Jen’s place used to be and thought about going back, but I figured it would make me sad looking at the empty space.

As I noted, most of my Christchurch friends don’t go…

Lilith __

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 13:47:28 +1200

One laughs in order not to cry, Lilith

OK. With you on that.

nzlemming

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 13:43:50 +1200

I understand you think this is ridiculous. But in post-quake, post-democracy Chch, it’s really not funny.

One laughs in order not to cry, Lilith. We are all Christchurch now, as far as post-democracy goes. You were the pilot site.

Lilith __

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 13:39:34 +1200

I was speaking broadly. They serve the people of New Zealand.

In that case I return to pointing and laughing.

I understand you think this is ridiculous. But in post-quake, post-democracy Chch, it’s really not funny.

Geoff Lealand

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 12:41:11 +1200

There is a proposal to fence off areas of downtown, residential Detroit and return it to the state of a living, urban jungle.

Kebabette

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 11:59:12 +1200

I appreciate the way you've written this Russell. I am one of those who pass through Red Zone (on way to visit rellies and friends in New Brighton mostly). It makes shudder I feel each time I go by. A sad ache for family places. It is an utterly different…

Ian Dalziel

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 11:47:46 +1200

and other gorgeous Harrisongs...
then this is the question
Yay, verily....

Hebe

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 11:38:30 +1200

I cannot exude
at your altitude
the dizzy heights
of satiric lights.

If Curtis is the answer
then this is the question

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XFfUt7HQWM

Ian Dalziel

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 11:08:43 +1200

Key's Tone Cops...
Keep on Key-pinging on...
...I'll have no truck with
these Crumbs you're tossing...
;- )

But you're right!
Curtis has the answer...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-l91O9VxN0

Tim Michie

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 10:28:37 +1200

Yep. Pretty much my thought too. Thankfully richter not geiger counters required.

Hebe

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 09:43:39 +1200

Keep on Key-pinging on Ian.

Russell Brown

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 09:24:16 +1200

A little reminiscent of scenes from around Chernobyl. But so much closer to home.

I was actually thinking more like parts of Detroit. That's one place where neighbourhoods are going back to the wild.

Ian Dalziel

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 09:19:56 +1200

Blow Key!
Joh Key?
Don Key haughty,
blokey, smiley and wily
– with his on song,
A Key, Bray Key heart

aha!
meet the all-time new Low Key
– our Trickster Prime Minister
son of Odium...

Hebe

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 09:00:56 +1200

Key’s latest spout-out is reflecting his increasing transition from “smile & wave” to “don’t you worry about that!”

Joh Key?

Joe Wylie

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 05:44:05 +1200

After nearly three years at the sharp end the Avonside Blog signs off.

David Haywood

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 03:16:06 +1200

I was friendly with the family who lived in the vandalized house.

The husband and wife were great enthusiasts for living beside the river. Like us, they could hardly believe that it was still so affordable to live in such a beautiful spot.

They used to feel quite aggrieved about…

Kumara Republic

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 01:44:59 +1200

Key's latest spout-out is reflecting his increasing transition from "smile & wave" to "don't you worry about that!"

Hebe

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 00:23:47 +1200

They did say the suspension had taken a hammering on rut, hole and bump-filled roads.

I'm sick of buying tyres. We have a win: the road cones have disappeared on the block from the St Martins roundabout to the supermarket. First time since February 2011 that the road is not…

Hebe

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 00:15:31 +1200

From Greg: No. I am a commisar, not a style guide ... I could just smell trouble with that term and it was the Romney gaffe that was bunting at the verges of me memory banks.Be warned young man: here be dragons.

nzlemming

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 00:05:23 +1200

I was speaking broadly. They serve the people of New Zealand.

In that case I return to pointing and laughing.

Rob Stowell

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 23:15:50 +1200

Great photos. Definitely a film-makers dream-set. A little reminiscent of scenes from around Chernobyl. But so much closer to home.
I think we may have bought our car from a lovely English couple who lived in the right-hand of the brick semis at the end of the cul-de-sac photo. They…

Russell Brown

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 22:41:45 +1200

Words commissar says the term “tar baby” is loaded for Maori, so I must not use it. Okay, sorry for any offence that I may have caused. Substitute “big problem”.

I was doubtful, but then found this:

Is tar baby a racist term? Like most elements of language, that depends…

Lilith __

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 21:51:37 +1200

They’re supposed to be public servants.

Technically speaking, they’re not.

I was speaking broadly. They serve the people of New Zealand.

nzlemming

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 21:48:57 +1200

They’re supposed to be public servants.

Technically speaking, they're not.
SSC has a list of all the public service agencies. MPs are employed by the Crown via the Parliamentary Service budget, and PS is most definitely not part of the Public Service.

nzlemming

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 21:40:18 +1200

public servants

ahaha

Sacha

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 21:31:26 +1200

public servants

ahaha

Hebe

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 19:22:55 +1200

Words commissar says the term “tar baby” is loaded for Maori, so I must not use it. Okay, sorry for any offence that I may have caused. Substitute “big problem”.

Lilith __

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 19:06:46 +1200

Key and Brownlee are throwing a hissy-fit at people who've lost everything. This is beyond unacceptable. They're supposed to be public servants.

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 18:57:38 +1200

Br'er Town...
cooking up a tar baby or three for the next mayor
...a new subdivision,
Briar Patch, perhaps?

...the tossers thicket plottens!

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 18:48:49 +1200

It starts to look like collective punishment.
...or some vile high-handed socio-psychological stress endurance experiment, nothing else fits Gerry's interminably cruel tease!

Hebe

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 18:40:57 +1200

Meanwhile, pursuing my grumping, why is our city council – a dysfunctional lot who maintain zero public confidence – making massive decisions like whether to repair the Town Hall and building a new $89m central library, among others, in the dying days of an administration.

Surely that should be left…

Hebe

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 18:32:39 +1200

It starts to look like collective punishment.

It certainly does. Only damaging to the govt if Aucklanders and Wellingtonians decide they cannot stomach behaviour that is so repugnant to natural justice.

Joe Wylie

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 18:28:14 +1200

Got 2 minutes? The essential Quake Out-Casts' story by the supremely incisive Sarah Miles.

Russell Brown

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 18:09:37 +1200

Gerry Brownlee says today he can’t tell them the dcisions on the land due to yesterday’s Quake Outcasts decision.

It starts to look like collective punishment.

Hebe

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 18:04:34 +1200

This is even more sickening than Key's comments. A large group of Port Hills property owners has been waiting for a decision on their land since God knows when. Gerry Brownlee says today he can’t tell them the decisions on the land due to yesterday’s Quake Outcasts decision.

He rubs…

Geoff Lealand

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 17:58:37 +1200

I was in Chch a couple of weeks ago, to do a talk at CPIT, and stayed at 1970s motel on Barbadoes. Walked many blocks around the area (St. Asaph's Street, Hereford Street, Chester Street etc), ostensibly to check out where some of the contestants in the 1935 Shirley Temple…

Russell Brown

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 17:24:32 +1200

One occupied-and-vandalised house on Avonside Drive. Depressing.

Russell Brown

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 17:23:21 +1200

This one seemed to suit monochrome.

Hebe

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 17:17:48 +1200

And I’m relieved that this post has been universally well-received. I didn’t want to be Earthquake Tourism Guy from Auckland.

You weren’t. Someone must document it. You've done so sensitively but without sentiment. I haven’t the stomach for it, though as a life-long writer/journalist/politico I feel remiss about not doing…

Russell Brown

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 16:22:04 +1200

And meanwhile, the Prime Minister apologises. Sorta:

Key apologised today, saying he was sorry if any offence was caused, but his comments needed to be taken in context.

"Look, that's the expression people use when there's a breakdown in things, so it's got to be seen in the context of…

Russell Brown

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 16:00:49 +1200

The red zone is at the end of my street. I seldom go there – it is too depressing. An film reel plays in my head – x lived here, my kids played with y there, that house had the cute dogs, that house there I coveted to live in…

Marion Ogier

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 15:55:49 +1200

ChrisW

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 13:33:23 +1200

Evocative pictures, Russell. The one with the drift of leaves, particularly.
Forced to leave
their home,
they left.
Present tense –
leaves enter
unbidden.
All that’s left,
not yet past.

Hebe

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 13:31:15 +1200

as if the inhabitants one day forgot to come home

You've named that feeling Lilith. Clever.

Lilith __

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 13:02:54 +1200

Evocative pictures, Russell. The one with the drift of leaves, particularly.
Isn't it creepy, the sometimes subtle cues that a place has been abandoned?

I'm well away from the residential red zone, but quite a number of houses in my neighbourhood have been condemned. With some, fallen bricks make the…

Tristan

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 12:30:48 +1200

not to discount the obvious suffering behind these streets...wow an urban photographers dream and if it could be made safe a wonderful movie set!

Kiwiiano

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 12:17:10 +1200

I've driven through the area a few times, to check out the home I lived in as a kiddie and to visit schools and a factory still operating in the area. It's a depressing jungle of shattered roads with detours on detours as the CCC tries to repair infrastructure, hardly…

Russell Brown

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 12:16:59 +1200

Arguably, they were in ‘motions’…

While there are your puns, Ian, there is hope.

Dylan Reeve

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 12:03:15 +1200

Couldn't someone at least create some great post-apocalyptic film there? At least then we can all get something from this sadness.

Tim Michie

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 11:56:31 +1200

As if on cue, Suspicious fire engulfs red-zoned property (NZH).

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 11:01:22 +1200

... whitebaiters ignoring the health warnings were almost the only people not in motion.
Arguably, they were in 'motions'...

Hebe

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 10:39:07 +1200

Blossoms and the wreckage of picket-fence dreams: frigging weird. Friends are campaigning to get a food forest happening in the red zone and green frame.

Eoin Ryan

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 10:33:27 +1200

Thanks for this. I live in my own bubble here in Chch, unaffected as much as these people have been while working and growing family help me … forget?
I went digging soon after and remember the people I’ve never met before (or since) doing a 360 degree turn of…

Russell Brown

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 09:55:27 +1200

One more: a house standing proud in a ravaged street. It must be so hard to leave this behind.

Public Address

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 09:55:27 +1200

Discussion from blog post.