24th February 2011

As you will have all seen the news by now you will well know that Christchurch has again been hit hard by an earthquake.  It is significantly worse than the one we suffered last year in September, and with quite different consequences.

Staff of the YMCA are unhurt and safe.  So far I have not heard news that any of our residents, students or accommodation guests have been hurt, and most have been accounted for.  However, with 75 confirmed dead in the CBD it is likely that many of us will know some of the deceased.  People are grieving very much for material things at the moment – but the grief for actual people we know and love is likely just around the corner.

The facilities of the YMCA are all closed.  Two of our facilities are within the police cordon – that being the main YMCA at 12 Hereford Street (Accommodation, Student Hostel, Williams House, Climbing Wall, Cafe, two fulltime youth education programmes, conference room, dining room and all the administrative staff), and the new Education Centre (the home of 8 staff and 40+ teenage students).   These two centres have suffered considerable damage although it has yet to be quantified.  

The main YMCA has certainly been badly flooded and pre-existing earthquake damage has been worsened.  The Education centre is a leased premise.  I have not seen this centre with my own eyes but the words “it's trashed” have been used by staff who were there at the time of the quake.  

We have two other centres outside of the cordon.  One is Bishopdale YMCA and the other is the camp at Wainui.  

Bishopdale has suffered minimal damage – on a scale similar to the last time I believe.  We will have to repair the stadium roof, yet again! The west side of Christchurch city, where Bishopdale is located, has barely been affected.  It is quite amazing.  Most of that side of town still have full facilities – water, power, sewerage etc.  

At Wainui Park, at the time of the earthquake, three schools were enjoying their school camp at Wainui.  Wainui Heights and Powell Village were full.  One school evacuated immediately, but the other two stayed overnight and evacuated yesterday.  The damage at Wainui has been minimal.  The Akaroa area was hit less badly than the earthquake in September.  Again, remarkable.   Staff were well trained and knew exactly what to do when the quake hit – not to mention the children also having all been through this already.  Panic was therefore kept to a minimum and the Wainui staff coped well with the situation.  Incredibly, no utilities have been affected there.  Power was restored quite quickly and water, sewerage etc were not impeded at all.  

So, as far as our Y is concerned,  the main areas of damage and destruction is the City Y and the Education Centre, the two centres within the CBD and the police cordon.  

Everything is closed.  There is little point in trying to “get back to normal” until power, water and sewerage is restored across the city, and the cordon lifted.   To acknowledge the stress that many staff may be under due to how their homes/families have been affected, there is no intention of trying to regroup staff before Monday.  We may get staff together on Monday at Bishopdale to assess what we can do for our members – particularly our young people and our older adults.  Until then, it is best that we sit tight and not add pressure to the gridlock of cars that is the few roads around the city that are still able to be driven on.  

For myself, my family are safe and well.  Our house has been damaged further – compounding the damage from the September quake.  However, despite no water, sewerage etc we have a house that is water-tight and quite comfy.  We are lucky to have our power back on too.  

At the time of the quake, I was having a lunch meeting in a cafe in the CBD. The entire cafe is now rubble.  We were dug out of the building by police.  Emerging into the street a short time after the quake, I felt calm, enjoying in some ways the adventure of it all.  I now realise how lucky we all were.  There was chaos and carnage on the street in Christchurch.  People screaming and blood everywhere.  I helped extract one person from a flattened vehicle, amazingly unhurt although very distressed.  

I raced back up the road to the YMCA only to fall over numerous times because of violent aftershocks.  When I got to the City Y it had been evacuated to Hagley Park, along with the rest of the Christchurch central city businesses.   We did manage to gather together in the dining room of the Y about an hour later, offer comfort and hot drinks to our YMCA guests and other random passers by, and take a form of 'roll call' to start to account for people.  It was raining inside – the flooding throughout the building on all floors, through the ceiling onto the ground floor.  At this stage none of us were really aware of the extent of the damage in the central city.  

Civil defence then advised us to totally evacuate and lock down the building.  We were all back to Hagley Park.  We set up tents and a soup kitchen and began feeding our people and anyone else who came along.  Eventually Civil Defence set up a proper tent for people to overnight in.  Many of our guests, Williams House residents and university/youth housing students stayed overnight at Hagley Park with 4 of our YMCA staff.  Of course if it weren't bad enough it had to rain all night.  Yesterday the airport got cranking again, so we took van upon van load of our Y guests to the airport or to the homes of friends.  Now there are about 10 of our Williams House residents still at one of the refuge centres, but they are cheery.  An offer to go and stay at Wainui was turned down – they are making new friends at the refuge centre and enjoying themselves no end!

The future is obviously very uncertain.  If the Y building turns out to be structurally sound then we will have to repair flood damage etc before anyone can stay again.  However, we may be better off than many others – some massive hotels only a few blocks away from us have been condemned.  Most of the backpackers are destroyed.  I have little hope for the future of our Williams House – but of course, I'm not an engineer.  

My main worry is the psychological state of the whole community.  The stressful event is made worse by the fact that the aftershocks continue – big, and regular.  Many people are not coping well with this.  As a community, we had still not recovered from the last time.   I expect that many of our staff have homes that have been badly damaged.  The timeframe for repairs will be long.  Our house had still not been assessed by EQC after the September quake, if that gives some kind of perspective.  The scale of the repair effort is massive, and meanwhile the people of Christchurch continue to shake rattle and roll – worrying about future quakes, their employment, their homes... and of course it won't be easy to sell a house in Christchurch for a while!?   

On the bright side, we will be made more resilient from this.  If nothing else, this will help us focus on what is important in our lives.  I also managed to pay our staff yesterday – so at least that is one less thing for the team to worry about.  

And on a reassuring note – we are OK.  We will be OK.  And we have much to be thankful for.  Thanks very much to you all for your support, your messages, and your $$$ offerings!  All is great for the spirit, the optimism,  and the practical realities we are facing.  

Logistical stuff:  The YMCA server is obviously down so email contact is only via personal email addresses.  My cellphone never stops ringing – mostly my own staff team.  I do however appreciate your messages but don't hang out for lots of answers!  Later today I will be able to update our website – where I intend to do daily updates on our home page.  So from tomorrow please check there for any new news.  This information can be passed on to our international family too.

Thanks and love to you all.  

Josie Ogden Schroeder , Chief Executive Officer , Christchurch YMCA

More information on the Earthquake in Christchurch