my earthquake story… coz we all have one.
im gonna leave some bits out coz i dont think you all need all the gory details, and i dont exactly want to make an effort to remember them,
Feb 22nd started out like any other day… on the news there was something about a teacher getting fired for being inappropriate with a student or something dont really remember. i got out of bed at the usual time of 7:15 coz it only took roughly 25minutes to bus to school and school was right in the centre of town, right next to the bus exchange. i had barely said hello to the family that morning, just a hi and bye. (i say good bye and i love you to my family every morning now. you never know when goodbye is your last) anyway, it was a pretty warm morning as i waited for the number 28 bus at the end of my street, i took the bus into town and went and sat in my homebase area. cant remember what classes i had that day but i do remember english, the class we had before lunch. we watched the first 5 minutes exactly of the hurtlocker and then we talked about it, i was sitting at a table with phoebe and matika and some others but i cant think who.
then after class was over i walked to the dairy to get my favorite noodles and an up and go. found a seat in homebase and made my lunch, everyone was doing the usual lunch time chatter talking about classes and some asian kid doing burlesque dancing or some shit on youtube.. which is when robyn the school counsellor came and told us that we should get our parents to call us in sick so that we could go home instead of going to some stupid team building thing that john had planned for us. we all sat there pretty pissed off, called our parents and then made plans to leave before lunch was over. sophie and phoebe left first, and i left soon after to go to the gym for a bit seeing as it was just on cashel street and i needed to get rid of some energy.
it was now that my life changed forever.. i was walking past the hotel grand chancellor excited to get to the gym which was next door to ctv listen to music waste my afternoon there, just seconds after thinking that everything started shaking, i was confused at first then i realised what was going on, window were smashing all around me from tall buildings bricks and other shit was falling everywhere just missing me. the westpac building was swinging from side to side that i thought it was about to fall down, then i looked down the street and could just see the ctv building falling and dust everywhere. i could see bricks falling off southern star, and people running for their lives. it stopped and everybody was still for a second and then there was screaming, and sirens from everybuilding in the city centre, people covered in dust, and blood from falling stuff. i stood outside so hotel next to grand chancellor in shock, i had no money on my phone so i could call my family or anybody i was by my self thinking my family and all my friends were dead because of all the broken buildings here in town. i waited outside the hotel for maybe 10 minutes while people poured out of surrounding buildings. eventually some guy from the hotel latimer came and told everybody to evacuate to latimer square. to get there we all had to walk past the ctv building, crappiest moment of my life i think, people were being pulled from the damage, people who im not sure where dead or alive but they looked pretty not good… people were helping there and we were told to keep moving i think so we quickly got to latimer square, where i stood for maybe half an hour just waiting for something to happen, at this point i was still all by myself. there were lots of seriously injured people around me, people crying and hugging each other, some guy in a dressing gown and slippers. i asked a lady if i could text my mum to tell her i was safe and stood with her for a while till eventually my knight.. or knightess found me (my awesome aunty jo) who found me by some miracle from God, she was working by the hospital about a 15-20minute walk away from where i was. she found me and we cried and hugged i was so happy to have her,
after that we went to find my brother, we couldnt find him anywhere and nobody said they had seen him, i managed to find my school and my friends who were all alive and safe, jo got a text from him saying he had been at the bridge of rememberence and we would meet him near jos work. we walked out of latimer and i was sure we were not going to make it home, we walked up to tvnz and a ute drove past us with a girl in the back, again not sure if she was dead or alive but she was lying really still. then some lady from tvnz tried to interview jo and i and we told her to get lost and go home to her family pretty much. bits of this walk have blacked out, i remember walking past the catherdral and balling my eyes out. i remember a cop telling an asian tourist couple to get away from the city library coz there was glass everywhere, i remember seeing a few cars crushed by bits of building, i remember seeing the avon river it looked awful and full of silt, then i remember finding james and his girlfriend at her friends step dads work we sat there for ever waiting for my dad to reply to see if he would pick us up from there or if we would walk home or whatever, long story short. we ended up walking home after we saw how bad the traffic was, we got home at about 4:30 i hugged my family an told them i loved them and then mum my little brother and sister left to timaru because our house wasnt safe for them.
im pretty sure i have left bits out but ill update it soon. this is an event we will never forget..
