The Role of Sport for a Disaster Zone

One of the most inspiring stories from last year was the Superbowl victory for the New Orleans Saints. Unless you were under a rock for the last few years, practically everyone on the planet within earshot of a radio would have been aware of the devastation wrought on New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. There was a quote from Drew Brees, the New Orleans quarterback. "We just believed in ourselves and we knew that we had an entire city and maybe an entire country behind us," said Brees, the game's MVP. "What can I say? I tried to imagine what this moment would be like for a long time, and it's better than expected." Try the entire world behind you Drew. Not only were the Saints the underdogs, but many people around the world wanted something special for residents of New Orleans.

Remember the Rugby World Cup in 1995. The All Blacks ruled supreme for the initial parts of the tournament but came unstuck in the final against the hosts. Now it could be argued that food poisoning had its role, but that would be insulting to the host nation, who played like it wasn't just a rugby game, but a symbol of the new South Africa. A nation prepared to embrace all of its citizens. In truth, though it hurt as a New Zealander, it was far more important for South Africa as a nation to win and to show the world, Francois Pienaar holding aloft the trophy with a jubilant Nelson Mandela applauding in the background. In New Zealand, it would have just been an empty cup, to quote Doc Hudson.

So exactly five weeks on from the Christchurch earthquake, Canterbury people have something to look at and cheer for. Although they haven't played in Christchurch yet, or will for the remainder of the season, the Crusaders are putting a big smile on our faces. Not only are they winning, they are winning in style. There is even talk of them being the greatest Super Rugby side ever. They have just played the Sharks in London and have been exciting not only the home fans, but the expat population and even the Northern Hemisphere media.

Add to that the Black Caps bundling out the Cricket World Cup favourites unexpectedly and now through to the semi finals where they play Sri Lanka tonight, then you can have many things to smile about. Especially as they have been written off already by Cricinfo. They have already done better than expected and anything more they do will be awesome.

So how does having a winning team help people in a disaster zone? It's not going to help people build homes or save businesses. It's not going to help rebuild infrastructure or even more poignantly, bring back loved ones. But it will provide a distraction and a happy one at that. And even though many Christchurch people will not see the Crusaders play this year, they will provide a boost to morale, which is extremely low at the moment. So while we grapple with what has become our new normal, we can pause and appreciate that our team is doing its part in our regions recovery. That is inspiring for us all.

Is it Time to Bring Back the Ministry of Works?

Alice in Videoland is one of the most beloved of all central Christchurch businesses. The reasons are pretty clear once you get there. It's a world class collection of movies that is available to all members. It would easily be the best video store in New Zealand if not Australasia. In fact it would be hard to find a better video store anywhere. Last year I embarked on an epic journey of trying to watch a classic movie per week from Alice's. I generally seemed to stick to Kurosawa movies, but even though I fell into the trap of sticking to a genre I liked, there were heaps of Kurosawa movies to choose from week after week.

One of the frustrating things for the movie lovers of Christchurch at the moment, is it looks like all the Alice's staff have to do, is pick up the DVD's off the floor and put them back on the shelf. They could then carry on trading. The problem is many buildings around that area have been destroyed and it is in the cordon zone. However, the building Alice's is in, looks completely unscathed.

Part of the reason may be that Alice's building used to be the High Street Post Office and it was built following the Napier earthquake by the Ministry of Works. The Ministry of Works had a high reputation for not only having world class engineers as staff, but also for over-engineering their projects so they didn't only meet the building codes of the time, but met the standards set by the Ministry of Works. Many projects done by the Ministry of Works have been true engineering wonders.

The Ministry of Works still exists in some form as Works Infrastructure. The MOW was split apart with some becoming Works Infrastructure and the rest going to Opus. So now Works Infrastructure competes on the open market for projects. And there will be compromises that have to be made on the open market.

My own earthquake experience in a Ministry of Works built building has given me food for thought. With so much reconstruction needed, shouldn't we employ the best? And if that is the case, shouldn't we be the best again? No privately run company could possibly carry out the scale of reconstruction needed in Christchurch at the moment so why not have a Ministry of Works who get a similar budget to roading to carry out much of this work. Then in 80 to 100 years when Christchurch next has an earthquake there will be a lot more buildings standing intact around the Alice in Videoland building. And that generation of people will be grateful for the Ministry of Works.

March the 20th of 2011

I suppose I should do this. Because tomorrow I may not be here. I may be crushed under some building. If the predicated massive earthquake in Canterbury happens.

I'll be the first to admit. If I'm lying buried under rubble tomorrow, I'll be slapping my head (if I can reach it) and saying "Shit, shit, shit". And I'll be gutted that Ken Ring was right. I will be kicking myself as well as I wouldn't have changed anything I regularly do - as if anyone in Christchurch is doing what they regularly do at the moment. Because of my stubborn intention to not change anything I might do, I'm not expecting anything out of our current ordinary to change drastically.

However, I'll go out on a limb. I predict we will have an aftershock tomorrow. I also predict that I may put in a case for a new mountain bike given the current topography of Christchurch roads and bike tracks. I also predict that I may finish my book. I'm also predicting that I still won't know where I'm supposed to turn up to work on Monday.

I don't think Ken Ring fully understood the affect his prediction would have had. He just spouted off the date of when it would happen quite knowingly. To be fair to him, that was after the 4 September earthquake, where no lives had been lost. Things have changed drastically since then. Any smugness that we had all survived a massive earthquake has well and truly been smashed. I don't think the 4 September t-shirts will be worn for a while. There certainly will be no market for surviving 22 February t-shirts.

Many people are so terrified they will take any prediction as certainty. Others are leaving town, just to be sure. It is after all, around the time a big aftershock is expected. Prior to 22 February, a big aftershock was expected every four to five weeks. It is nearly four weeks since the 6.3 earthquake. I have neighbours who have taken off to Auckland for the weekend and when I spoke to one of them as we went to school to pick up our children, she had family pressure to leave town for a bit. As we talked about it more, she conceded that she knew the science and didn't really believe in the prediction. But even as a non-believer in the Ken Ring prediction, nobody can condemn anybody who wants to get out of town for the weekend. Just to be sure.

The city's morale is low. Many are terrified. A great many of us in Christchurch have had loss. Christchurch is a small place. You do not have to look through the list of people who died long to see someone you know. Personally I've seen four names - two of those people I knew well enough to talk to. You can be talking within a small group of people and inevitably someone will say something like their wife's cousin was killed in the earthquake.

In a disaster, people generally revert to a state similar to someone in shock. This condition is detailed in Naomi Klein's book "The Shock Doctrine". What her point is in the book is many governments usually push through unpopular reforms at this time, or they take advantage of the lapse in attention of the population to redevelop areas devastated by a disaster to a standard demanded by their campaign contributors. At this stage many Christchurch people are in that shocked state. What may seem absurd, now seems like reason.

What it really comes down to is if anyone chose to leave town this weekend, who would blame them given our mental states at the moment. If I'm under trapped under something tomorrow, I will probably consider them visionary.

The Rugby World Cup in Christchurch

It was the news many Canterbury rugby fans dreaded - the Rugby World Cup games have been removed from AMI Stadium. The only consolation I can think of is at least the decision was made quickly and now we don't have to fret about hosting 20,000 odd people in a city that lost at least half if not more of its hotel beds following the earthquake.

On 22 February, the question of RWC games being played in Christchurch was raised. Like many, at the time, I didn't care. The Rugby World Cup was in the words of Doc Hudson "an empty cup". It didn't matter and neither did rugby. Lives had been lost and more parts of Christchurch were badly damaged. For a few days it was a non-issue. The Rugby World Cup didn't matter. Slowly, but surely the question started to be raised some more. I felt that it was still a non-issue. But my feelings changed on 4 March when the Crusaders played the Warratahs in Nelson. I watched this more out of habit than any maddening desire to follow the Crusaders. I was also worried there would be too much emotion and the Crusaders would be crushed, especially as the Warratahs had been pretty ruthless in disposing of their first two opponents. And it looked that way for most of the first half until the Crusaders mounted a comeback and basically belted the Warratahs.

If you are looking for something positive to give you a lift when you are down, then the Crusaders are a pretty sure bet. They win far more than they lose and they usually put on a pretty clinical show. This Crusaders team has the potential to be the best one ever. There were people talking about something else apart from earthquakes all of a sudden. Now there was something to look forward to and sure enough, the next weekend, the Crusaders belted their traditional foe 52-10 in Nelson. If they can go on and win the competition, it would be a phenomenal achievement as they would not have played any games at their normal home.

With that in mind, my feelings on the RWC games are they should not have been taken away. When in a disaster zone, you need things to look forward to and the problems associated with AMI stadium were certainly not insurmountable. Accommodation could have been handled. Team facilities could have been handled. It could have been a goal for the people of Christchurch to look forward to, much like the Mardi Gras in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. And the worst bit? We would have pulled it off.

Earthquakes both here and abroad

Dr Mark Quigley may be the most respected New Zealander in the country at the moment. As a nation, we tend to like the no bullshit, matter-of-fact type characters that don't pull the wool over our eyes. That could explain why Willie Apiata consistently appears at the top of the most respected New Zealander list despite the fact that he is in the SAS and is supposed to be on secret missions.

Many Cantabrian's have found solace in Mark's easy to understand explanations of what has happened and have appreciated his no bullshit approach. His public lectures could have made him a rich man and instead of having curtain raisers at the rugby, the Canterbury Rugby Union could have used him to deliver one of his lectures. Could have boosted ticket sales.

We all knew that the news of 22 February would be tomorrows fish and chip paper, but who knew what would happen in Japan? With everything so raw for us, all of a sudden a country that New Zealand has quite a close relationship, suffers an unimaginable catastrophe. All the more considering the Japanese search and rescue teams worked so hard while here and the huge Japanese media interest in the 22 February earthquake. While it was humbling to discover how many friends around the world New Zealand has, I would rather that we didn't have to repay friendship so quickly.

Many of us in New Zealand are asking, "is there a link between what is happening here and what is happening in Japan?" The answer is probably not even though in Canterbury we are on the same tectonic plate that caused the mega thrust earthquake in Japan.

So witnessing the absolute power that Mother Nature can unleash on us is scary, it's perhaps pertinent to remind ourselves that we don't own this planet. We are residents and we have to ride out what our home throws at us. Even if we are really well prepared, as Japan is, there is only so much you can do when a mega thrust earthquake occurs and in Japan's case, the tsunami's that can accompany them. I don't think that anyone who saw those images of the black water surging through towns, carrying cars, planes, ships along for the ride, will ever forget the relentless power of a tsunami.

Mark Quigley is again being sought after for his explanations. On Campbell Live on TV3, he again, was able explain, simply, what had happened in Japan and define to the best of the knowledge he had, what was happening here. And while Cantabrians may understand exactly what he is talking about now, whereas many other Kiwi's scratch their heads, Mark Quigley has provided much needed answers to some pretty important questions. It all adds to my theory that many of the successors to Mark Quigley and his generation of geologists, are going to come from the Canterbury region.