Forty-six earthquakes in Canterbury in the last 24 hours. Twenty-five at 4.0 or higher.
This was the reality that greeted us this morning and facebook told us that our friends had been forced to leave their apartment in the middle of the night.
They slept in their car on the street after the police ordered them out of their unsafe building just before 1am. They were crammed in the front seat after filling the back seat with those things that are really needed.
Being only a 2 minute walk away, Naomi went round to see them.
They were told that structural engineers would be there at 8am to assess the building and there was a greater chance it would be red than orange stickered.
They had roughly 2 hours to get everything out - once it was red stickered entry was prohibited and anything left inside would be demolished with the building.
Our friends were rather bewildered after a sleepless night in the car and getting to grips with their new *homeless* reality so we decided they needed our help. We grabbed all our spare laundry bags and Naomi, mr16 and I headed over to help. Basically we stuffed things as fast as we could into bags, boxes and suitcases, carried it all downstairs and piled it on the grass. 2 hours of hard labour meant we were walking out as the red sticker was being applied. Whew, just in time but everything was out!
We used the CentrePoint Mobile and 2 other cars to get everything back to the motel garage where there was time for sorting before everything went to another friends place for storage till they get there new flat on 21 Jan.
They are staying in the motel till they get sorted.
So, our friends will now spend Xmas in a motel, a bloody good motel that is, but it won’t be the same as having it in their own house.
This is just part of life in Christchurch these days! We hope they have a very merry Xmas day!
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