Canterbury Quake Cafe Reflections

Taranaki Community Emergency Response Team (TCERT)

From the North Taranaki Midweek, May 8 2013 via the TCERT Facebook Page.

CD LOOKING FOR RECRUITS

The Taranaki Community Emergency Response Team provides a professionally managed volunteer support team for Emergency Management with in Taranaki in accordance with Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management national guidelines.

Team members, who are all volunteers provide support during an emergency in the Taranaki region.

These can be Civil Defence Emergency Management events or other emergencies.

Expressions of interest are being sought from volunteers who believe they have the aptitude, attitude and fitness level required to become a member of this special team.

On-going training is an essential part of this role and you need to be committed to attending a minimum of 80 hours a year.

You will need to fill in an application form and attend an interview.

If you are short-listed you will complete an aptitude assessment after which a final selection will be made.

This is a challenging role but if you want to help others in a time of their greatest need, then now is the time to start the process.

* If you are interested contact Heather at Volunteer Centre in 06 758 8986 or email her at npvsnz@yahoo.co.nz for further details.

[ends]

The Senior Emergency Management Officer at Taranaki Civil Defence, Shane Briggs, is the responder on the cover of the Christchurch Earthquake Book, Responders. He is also on the Steering Committee of the New Zealand Response Teams, and was deployed to Christchurch for both earthquakes with NZ-RT4, Palmerston North.

Shane recently moved to Taranaki to help implement the Taranaki Civil Defence & Emergency Management Plan. It is great to be able to follow the emergence of a new NZ Response Team. You can learn more about New Zealand Response Teams and the roles they played in the Christchurch Earthquakes at http://ChristchurchEarthquakeBooks.com.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2013 Deb DonnellAll Rights Reserved

The Origins of ANZAC Day & NZ Volunteer Responders

ANZAC Day has its origins in the First World War, and is timed to coincide with the initial landings at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, and the first major battle of the war. After the Second World War, it became a day that remembered and honoured all New Zealanders and Australians who volunteered or were conscripted to sacrifice their lives and serve during military operations.

“It commemorates those who died serving New Zealand during war and it honours returned servicemen and women, past and present.” NZ RSA Anzac Day

My family were fortunate. Those who served overseas returned home. Even so, no one has ever talked much about the War. Having been through the Canterbury Earthquakes, I do understand how hard it is to talk about something that is overwhelming and incomprehensible.

I can only recall the following discussions:

My Great Uncle (who is still alive) joined the Airforce towards the end of World War II, trained in Canada and flew Spitfires in the Pacific.

His older brother, my grandfather, was excused from serving overseas because he worked the land. He did, however, serve at home as part of the Home Guard, driving army trucks and doing duty protecting the coastline at Godley Head.

My other grandfather could not join the army due to an injury he’d suffered working as a carpenter. He served his country as an area warden, making sure that blackouts were observed and being ready to assist in the event of a possible attack.

When I researched the history of the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management and the evolution of the New Zealand Response Teams, I discovered that their origins were in the Second World War. Volunteers and conscripts were required to join the Emergency Precautions Scheme to help protect our homeland from enemy attack or natural disaster.

“A Brief History of Volunteer Response Teams:

In the build up to the Second World War the New Zealand Government established the Emergency Precautions Scheme (EPS). Handbooks were issued in 1939 to teams of local volunteers made up of women and men who were not likely to be called up for military duty. The training included elementary drill, fire fighting and first aid. These basic skills would help them in emergency situations arising from enemy attack, epidemics, earthquakes and other natural disasters.”

From the book, Responders: The NZ Volunteer Response Teams Christchurch Earthquake Deployments.

Fortunately the only notable event that the EPS volunteers responded to was the Wellington and Wairarapa Earthquake of 1942. In the aftermath of the Christchurch Earthquake the Civil Defence & Emergency Management NZ Response Teams and the NZ Defence Force played a crucial role in helping our city get back on its feet. This would not have been possible without the courage and sacrifice of our grandparents and great grandparents during the First and Second World Wars. While we remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice with their lives, we should also remember those who were willing to voluntarily prepare for possible attack or natural disaster.

Lest we forget all who answered the call to Defend New Zealand.

Responders: The New Zealand Volunteer Response Teams Christchurch Earthquake Deployments is available for purchase at retail bookstores, or online at http://Responders.co.nz/

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2013 Deb DonnellAll Rights Reserved

Co-Author, Pete Seager, is in the news about our book, Responders: The NZ Response Teams Christchurch Earthquake Deployment.

It’s great to have recognition outside of Christchurch for the book, and more importantly for the teams. When I agreed to help the New Zealand Response Teams write and publish the book, it was my goal that the volunteers get recognition for the sacrifices they made to help us. Especially as they said to me “we want a small publication for the volunteers and their family”.

The Responders are all very humble people. They train week after week in basic search and rescue techniques, voluntarily, in their own time. And yet, when the cry for help came after the Christchurch Earthquakes, they didn’t hesitate to put their own lives on hold and come running from all over New Zealand.

It was very tough for them to say goodbye to their loved ones, especially as they didn’t know what they would find in Christchurch. For many, they have struggled to return to normality, and have been as impacted by the earthquakes as those who survived them.

So when Pete Seager approached me, on behalf of the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management registered NZ Response Teams, about the book, I didn’t hesitate to say “this is going to be huge. Let’s make it 200 pages, and release it in the public arena”.

The response from the book industry and the general public has been even better than I thought it would be. Pete and I have produced a book we are both incredibly proud of, and would love to see it in every home around New Zealand. It’s certainly finding its way onto bookshelves in retail stores and libraries around New Zealand.

We had feedback last week from The Christchurch Libraries, which was “This is the best book published on the Christchurch Earthquakes”.

Wow.

Ken Dunning, from La Famia Radio, also said exactly the same live on air when he interviewed me earlier in the month.

What makes the book so great is the contributions from the Response Team Volunteers. 350 original photographs, taken by the volunteers themselves, which show their experiences in chilling details. You walk with them through the abandoned city, into damaged buildings and car parks, searching for people, recovering vehicles, helping business owners like myself and my parents recover our property. They share their stories and those stories make things all vividly real for the reader.

I know I’m biased, because I co-authored the book, but getting the feedback from media, retailers, readers and the Christchurch Library supports everything that I intended the book to be. The story of courageous and selfless men and women who didn’t hesitate to come help me and the rest of my community in our darkest time. If you haven’t seen a copy, then go to your local bookstore in Christchurch, or check it out online at Responders.co.nz.

Oh, by the way, Pete Seager and I have chosen to donate our Author Royalties to the Canterbury Earthquake Survivors Trust, so when you buy a copy, you are helping the most seriously injured survivors rebuild their lives. Thanks for supporting them and the Response Team Volunteers.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2013 Deb DonnellAll Rights Reserved

Café Reflection at Ballantynes Contemporary Lounge

12 April 2013, 12:25pm

I’ve just met with Gretchen Miller, the producer of Australia’s ABC Radio National’s 360 Documentaries programme for a two hour interview. We met in Re:START Cashel Mall, and after we finished, I discovered that the Contemporary Lounge has finally reopened, along with the café. My last visit to here was on 11 January 2011. Like so many of the CBD businesses, it has been closed since the 22 February 2011 earthquake.

Inside Ello Cafe, Contemporary Lounge

I head upstairs and find the Contemporary Lounge looks very similar to how I remembered it pre-quake. The only noticeable change is new bright yellow “Ello” emblazoned on the glass wall beside the café.

I’m looking at the array of Dutch foods in the cabinet when I hear an excited “Hello Deb!”

Oh dear, has my reputation preceded me? I look up and see my friend, Jan Brown, who used to own Coffee Culture High Street. She is now working at Ello.

We have a quick catch up, but she’s busy. It’s only the second day that the Contemporary Lounge has been opened. I order a piece of the Cathedral Cake and a cappuccino, and set myself up on a bar stool beside the window.

This was always my favourite place to sit and write in the Contemporary Lounge Café pre-quake. I could look out over Colombo Street and watch the traffic flow past beneath me, see the people walking along the footpath, waiting for buses at the Bus Exchange, going in and out of the shops.

The Crossing doors now lead to nowhere

The street below me is now closed to traffic. The occasional earthquake sightseer walks up to the fences to look at the exposed basements of where there were once thriving businesses such as Sucklings Shoes, Rangiora Bakery, and Nairns. This area of the city is still a graveyard.

Ahead of me the doors of the Discovery School and the Crossing hang suspended in mid air, their connecting floors demolished. The road beneath me has been repainted with purple, blue and white stripes, and instead of cars parked at the side, there are round containers boxes with native grasses and maple trees planted in them. The brick pavement is patched up with splotches of hot mix.

View of Colombo Street north from Contemporary Lounge Cafe

I look north up Colombo Street, across the cleared site where the Triangle Centre once stood, and feel surprised to be able to look right across to the empty space where my parent’s business, Donnell Jewellers traded for 35 years.

I turn and look south. More bare sites, more rubble. Goliath, McGee March’s 130 tonne high reach excavator is sitting patiently waiting for his next opportunity to feed.

View of Colombo Street south from Ello Cafe

So much has changed since I last wrote at the Contemporary Lounge Café. I said to Gretchen during the interview, that a part of me still grieves for all that we have lost. However, I have also learned that in order for me to fully recover, I need to take control of how I respond to the events we have survived.

Using Disasters to Live Your Dreams

The earthquake was a devastating catalyst to launch me into the action required to make the dreams I wrote about pre-quake come true. Part of that action was writing and publishing two books on the Christchurch Earthquakes. It still seems amazing that I am now living my dreams. I hope that you are starting to live your pre-quake dreams too.

You can read what I wrote on 11 January 2011 at the Contemporary Lounge in my book, Café Reflections: Christchurch City 1975-2012. Available online at http://CafeReflectionsBooks.com or from New Zealand retail bookstores.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2013 Deb DonnellAll Rights Reserved

My two Christchurch Earthquake Books, Responders and Café Reflections have been in the news quite a bit in the past two weeks. It’s been very exciting to have been interviewed on TV One Breakfast, Newstalk ZB – Chris Lynch’s show, CTV’s Canterbury Life, and in the Mainland Press (Read Article dated_7_March_2013 HERE). Sometimes the questions have stirred up memories and emotions I thought I had managed to bury.

James Thompson, NZ-Response Teams Steering Committee, welcomes guests to the Responders Book Launch.

I don’t think the experiences of February 22, 2011 in particular will ever be forgotten. They will always be there, just below the surface, ready to throw me off course without warning. When these moments occur, I do my best to remember why it is I have chosen the path I have taken. There are three reasons, which I outline in my interviews when I have the chance.

1. To remember those who lost their lives.

2. To help those who’s lives have been changed forever due to the serious injuries they sustained in the Christchurch Earthquake.

3. To acknowledge and honour those who dropped everything in their own lives and responded to our cry for help.

And this is what Responders is about. Ensuring that the group of Civil Defence & Emergency Management trained volunteers are publicly acknowledged for their courage and risks that they took in 2010 and 2011.

While we were running out of the city, they were running in. They came from all over New Zealand, saying goodbye to their loved ones and driving through the night in those dark days of February 2011 to come to Christchurch. They arrived, tired, but eager to get started. As they approached the earthquake zone, the mood in their vehicles changed from nervous, but good humoured joking, to the grim realisation that all was not well in New Zealand’s second largest city. There was no doubt left in their minds as they drove up to the army cordon set up around the devastated Central Business District. Army LAVs (Light Armoured Vehicles) greeted them and waved them onto the NZ-Response Teams’ Base of Operations in Latimer Square.

In the days and weeks that followed, these brave volunteers searched damaged buildings and piles of bricks and rubble for survivors and victims. They escorted engineers and business owners into the red zone to assess buildings and recover essential property. They assisted the NZ Police in the recovery of over 5,500 vehicles belonging to the exiled inhabitants of the CBD. Whilst these tasks were their primary goal, they couldn’t help be take photos of what they were doing, when it was appropriate to do so. It is these photographs, along with their stories, which have gone into the book about their deployment.

Responders has been extremely well received since it’s launch on 18 February 2013, and can be purchased from all good retail bookstores in Christchurch, or online from Keswin Publishing Ltd.

For further media enquiries, please contact me on 027 820 6396.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2013 Deb DonnellAll Rights Reserved

Christchurch Earthquake Books Media Release

18 February 2013 from Keswin Publishing Ltd (Christchurch Earthquake Books)

A New Christchurch Earthquake Book Focuses on the role of the New Zealand Volunteer Response Teams Deployments

Responders is a new book released about The New Zealand Volunteer Response Teams deployments to Christchurch the 4 September 2010 and 22 February 2011 earthquakes. Most of the twenty two teams are registered with the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management and are owned and supported by either Territorial Authorities or non-government organisations.

Over 300 trained light search and rescue volunteers were deployed from around New Zealand immediately after the earthquakes. They assisted the 111 Emergency Services, USAR Task Forces and other responding agencies with the search, rescue and recovery process in the central business district and outlying suburbs.

The 200 page book features nearly 350 photographs from the responders’ private collections, as well as detailed accounts of the various tasks they were deployed to. The volunteer teams were deployed to various behind the scenes tasks, such as searching rubble and buildings for survivors and victims, assisting engineers with building assessments, recovering vehicles trapped inside the Red Zone Cordon, and helping business owners and residents retrieve property from their premises.

Authors, Pete Seager (NZ-RT16 Tauranga) and Deb Donnell (Christchurch CBD Survivor) are donating their royalties to the Canterbury Earthquake Survivors Trust.

Responders: The NZ Volunteer Response Teams Christchurch Earthquake Deployments is available for $49.95 from retail bookstores in Christchurch (Paper Plus or Scorpio Books) or online at ChristchurchEarthquakeBooks.co.nz.

###

Responders: The NZ Volunteer Response Teams Christchurch Earthquake Deployments by Pete Seager and Deb Donnell. First Edition. A4 Paperback. 200 pages, 355 photographs.

ISBN 978-0-958278-0-3-4. $49.95. Contact us for a 300 dpi JPEG of the cover.

Keswin Publishing Ltd, P O Box 21-138, Edgeware, Christchurch 8143, New Zealand

Ph 027 820 6396           http://KeswinPublishing.com

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2013 Deb DonnellAll Rights Reserved

This post is inspired by today’s article in The Press about the Christchurch CBD Red Zone being on track to reopen mid year.

There is still a lot of work to do in the CBD Red Zone. I was thinking about how much this morning, after working until 1 a.m. on the engineering support section of the Responders book.

It is still very emotionally hard to see the damage to my much loved business neighbourhood. I still grieve for the once familiar that we have lost. The reality is that the familiar has now been relegated to a past we cannot retrieve. However, we can use the historical records we have (and are creating) to help trigger our memories and keep the past alive for as long as possible.

Those who have taken over and inhabit the CBD Red Zone since 22 February 2011 have done and are doing an amazing job and we must remember this. A friend of mine spent every day of his Christmas break going into the Red Zone to check on the sites his company is responsible for.

On one visit, he was chatting with the soldier on the Army access point, and four young women called him over, and told him what a great job he and his colleagues were doing in the Red Zone. Another person standing nearby overheard, and got abusive to my friend, saying how terrible the demolition companies are because they are destroying our city.

What this person, and so many of the people who continuously criticise and abuse those who are working hard to make our city safe and able to be rebuilt is that this is NOT a situation created by human beings – it was a natural disaster that human’s had no control over.

The damage caused by this disaster to our buildings often is not fully revealed until the linings are stripped away and the structural frameworks are revealed. Safety is the priority of everyone’s mind who is involved with the City Centre red zone, not only now, but from 12:51pm on 22 February 2011.

If you are at the cordon, and see people working inside of it, please let them know what a great job they are doing. It helps to lift their day and encourages them to keep on with their jobs.

You can read The Press Article here.

Deb Donnell is a Christchurch Earthquake CBD Survivor and author of Cafe Reflections: Christchurch City, which tells her story of being part of the Central Christchurch community from 1975-2012. This is available from Scorpio Books in Cashel Mall Re:START or Riccarton, or directly online from Deb at KeswinPublishing.com. You can also pre-order your copy of Responders: The New Zealand Volunteer Response Teams Christchurch Earthquakes Deployment, by Pete Seager & Deb Donnell from KeswinPublishing.com.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2013 Deb DonnellSome Rights Reserved

Silent Company in the CBD

Remembering Christmas Past in the Silent Christchurch City Centre

This is the second year that Christmas has not been ‘normal’ for me. Between 1975 and 2012, I was always involved with the pre-Christmas retail madness in Christchurch’s CBD. But since the earthquakes and without replacement premises, our Christmas build up tradition has disappeared.

As a child, I used to help out at the shop by running messages, getting lunch for my parents, liasing between the shop floor and the workshop to get urgent resizes or repairs done, giftwrapping people’s purchases, or, as Christmas Eve drew near, being sent on a secret mission to our upstairs office in the Triangle Chambers Building (which became the upstairs area of KFC).

Last Friday night I was sitting on Rebuild Christchurch’s Football in the Gap pitch, reflecting on how different life is now. Those ghosts of Christmases past kept me company, as did silent iron dinosaurs parked beside me and the pigeons flitting in and out of the empty shells of buildings that were awaiting demolition around me. Across the road I could look into the stripped shell of the ANZ as the windows had been removed, and see right through to Cathedral Square. To my right, was Burger King, which used to be Trust Bank Christchurch, where I worked for a couple of years. Ahead of me was the empty space where our shop and the Triangle Chambers had been.

Plenty of memories flitted in and out of my mind. The Donnell Jewellers customers we helped to solve their Christmas shopping problems. Our awesome staff who had worked hard for us over the years. The social functions we had at Trust Bank, and the customers who came in from the personal and business community. It felt good to know that we had made a difference, at times small, and occasionally bigger, to so many people in our 35 years of being in the Christchurch CBD.

Because of the Christchurch Earthquake, so little remains of my time in the CBD, just memories, some photographs, and the trees that were outside the Triangle Chambers. I got thinking as I looked at them, still healthy and strong, about the secret mission I got to do every year as a child and teenager. I’d be sent upstairs to wrap the boxes of chocolates and bottles of wine that were part of the Christmas bonus for our staff. I’d wrap each one with such care, knowing that presentation mattered.

For all those who came through the doors of the places I worked, either as an employee or a customer, you are still here in my memories and I wish you a very happy and safe Christmas and New Year.

Learn More About Deb’s Christmas Past Ghosts

Deb Donnell is a Christchurch Earthquake CBD Survivor and author of Cafe Reflections: Christchurch City, which tells her story of being part of the Central Christchurch community from 1975-2012. This is available from Scorpio Books in Cashel Mall Re:START or Riccarton, or directly online from Deb at CafeReflectionsBooks.com

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Deb DonnellAll Rights Reserved

The orange helmeted NZ Response Team are tasked with keeping business owners safe in the CBD Red Zone.

Christchurch is a city which is surviving and starting to recover because of the courage and generosity of people, including those who stepped up in a response volunteer capacity. Many volunteers give countless hours of their valuable time, without complaint, in tasks which are designed to help people recover their emotional well being as well as other important states of being.

In the past few months I have been working with NZ Response Team Volunteer, Peter Seager, on a book that tells the story of some of the organised volunteer teams that came to help Christchurch after the earthquakes. The NZRT organisation was set up to help support first response emergency services when they are overwhelmed by an event.

If there ever was an event that fits that description, it is the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. A lot of the work that the NZRT volunteers were tasked to do went on behind the scenes. Most of the public don’t realise what an important role these people played in ensuring that our city returned to normality as quickly as possible.

Of course, for the Central Business District, that was an impossible task, but the NZRT volunteers, along with other organisations, did their utmost best to get the survivors of the CBD back up and running as soon as possible.

Talking with these volunteers, who came from all over New Zealand to help, I am humbled at the risks they took, and the impact it had on them. Their stories help to put things in perspective, and am looking forward to when we release the book and you can have a glimpse into what they did, and how it helped survivors take small, or big steps forward.

As time passes, and the memories start to fade to managable levels, we forget how traumatic those first weeks were. Back when we were locked out of our businesses, our homes and even our cars, which were all trapped behind the cordon set up around the CBD because of the February Christchurch Earthquake.

We think in terms of workers and business owners in the CBD, but we forget about the elderly or parents who were in town shopping that day, who had parked in Lichfield Street or other carparks, and had to walk out of the city leaving their only mode of transport behind.

The Responders talk about how evident it was that our lives were interrupted and abandoned in fear. We think office blocks, shops and cafes. We tend forget about the children who were at school, but when you see images of lunch boxes and drink bottles sitting among shattered glass outside of the classrooms, you realise how serious this was.

Working on this project is an incredible honour, and time and time again, I realise how much we relied, and still do rely, on the generosity of volunteers, especially those who have given up their spare time to develop skills just in case an emergency event like an earthquake might happen.

There are so many stories to share about the Christchurch Earthquakes. Responders: The NZ Response Team Volunteers Christchurch Earthquake Story is just one of them. I touch briefly on it in my already published earthquake book, Café Reflections: Christchurch City. If you want to know more about either title, please go to Keswin Publishing’s catalogue of Christchurch Earthquake Books.

Thank you to all who volunteered to help Christchurch Survive and get back on its feet.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Deb DonnellAll Rights Reserved

Are there diamonds in the rubble of our demolished city?

Who would have thought we’d find diamonds in the Christchurch Earthquake Rubble? Although there has clearly been a lot of movement in the tectonic plates in the region, the area does not have the right indicators to find natural diamonds.

In this case, I’m not referring to natural gemstones. Even though I am a very newly qualified diamonds expert (I passed my final paper yesterday with the Gemological Institute of America Graduate Diamonds Diploma), I often use diamonds as an analogy for other things like writing.

Lately though, I have been referring to diamonds as an analogy for what I have learned the day my city was struck by the September 2010 earthquake. Before 4 September 2010 I wanted to run away from Christchurch. I felt it was too small the city for me, and that I had lived here too long. I felt that nothing out of the ordinary ever happened in Christchurch.

How wrong I was, huh? The September earthquake was definitely extraordinary. It took a while to recover my mental and emotional strength, but by the beginning of February I, along with many others in Christchurch, felt hopeful that all would be okay. When the 22^nd arrived with its devastating consequences, our city turned to rubble and buried so many of our hopeful diamonds.

For the past 21 months we have been sifting and sorting through the rubble of Christchurch. Building after building has been declared unsafe or uneconomical for repair, and the demolition crews have brought them slowly (or quickly) to the ground. The jewellery industry, like so many other industries, has been heavily impacted by this disaster and there are no doubts there will be some natural gemstone diamonds lost in the rubble created by the earthquakes.

However, this article is about searching the rubble of my life to find metaphorical diamonds.  I’ve had to search because of the impact of the earthquakes on my plans to run away from the city. At its time of greatest need, I could not leave. And now, twenty one months on, a variety of factors mean that I must remain here for the foreseeable future.

Rather than sit and stare at the rubble, grieving for what it represents, I decided to sift through it, searching for whatever I could find that shows value. Many valuable diamonds have emerged from relationships I’ve formed over the years, including several that only begun in the aftermath of the earthquakes. There are many diamonds included in my book, Cafe Reflections: Christchurch City 1975-2012. You can order this here.

Who am I? I am a Christchurch based earthquake survivor with a mission to document and share the Christchurch Earthquake Story in a positive way. I am doing this through speaking, writing, publishing and training people to mine for their own diamonds. If you would like to know more about the products and services that I offer, please Click Here.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Deb DonnellAll Rights Reserved