14.12.11. Swanns Rd / River Rd view, orange, plastic, road cone cordon, orange, road pump, quake damaged Swanns Rd Bridge
14.12.11. Steel mesh fence cordon. Quake ghost house, green portaloo, River Rd / Swanns Rd
I parked on Swanns Rd, as River Rd was road-blocked by a gang of road-workers digging a hole on Avon River bank. Repairs went on at Avonside Girls HS on the opposite bank, Avonside Dr side.
14.12.11. Steel mesh fence cordon. Green portaloo. Post quake, River Rd excavation site, nr Swanns Rd Bridge
14.12.11. Trash truck, River Rd, by Avon River
14.12.11. Quake ghost house, River Rd
Between Swanns Rd Bridge & Stanmore Rd Bridge, River Rd was bad: shingle, tarseal-patches, cracked-curbs & cracked-footpaths. Ditto the other side of Stanmore Rd Bridge towards Fitzgerald Ave, riverside-slumping by bridges on both riverbanks.
14.12.11. River Rd view, quake ghost houses, Avonside Dr, by Avon River
14.12.11. Quake trashed, concrete block, garden wall, River Rd
14.12.11. Quake trashed, concrete curb, River Rd
14.12.11. River Rd view, Avon River, Avonside Dr / Woodham Rd / Linwood Ave crossing
14.12.11. River Rd view, Avon River, Avonside Dr
Avonside Dr: Daily, I drove over widening cracks & widening potholes, regularly tarsealed. 15 months post 4 September 2010 Quake & 10 months post 22 February 2011 Quake, Avon River bank was still unstable, slumping with the ebb & flow of tides. Daily pounding by heavy traffic aggravated slumping due to lateral-spreading.
14.12.11. Quake ghost house, River Rd
14.12.11. Electrical substation. River Rd view, Avon River to Avonside Girls HS repair site
14.12.11. Quake ghost house, River Rd
River Rd: Many ruined-houses, long grass in gardens, rank weeds, flowers & shrubs growing wild, obscuring broken-driveways & broken-houses. Some ruined-houses had cut grass, but were uninhabited, windows were closed, locked up. Some home-owners maintained the illusion of inhabited-houses, cutting grass to stop burglars.
14.12.11. Quake ghost house, River Rd
14.12.11. Quake ghost house, fallen chimney, River Rd
14.12.11. Quake house demolition site, River Rd
One big ruined-house looked OK, but the side-driveway & undercover-parking was a mess: grey quakemire everywhere, boundary retaining-wall, braced with planks.
14.12.11. Quake ghost house, River Rd
14.12.11. Wood braced, retaining wall, between quake ghost houses, River Rd
14.12.11. Quake ghost house, River Rd
14.12.11. Quake trashed / part repaired, River Rd / Stanmore Rd crossing, by Stanmore Rd Bridge
Rainy, there was little action on River Rd: a jogger, a cyclist, a wary woman peering from her first-floor apartment-window. No one played tennis at Avonside Tennis Club, too wet. A yellow rubbish-truck rumbled by, stopping to empty the few rubbish-bins from inhabited-houses.
14.12.11. Avonside Tennis Club, River Rd
River Rd: Old houses, about half were ruined-houses. Old brick-houses & garden-walls were shaken to bits. Bricks & stones lay where they fell. I saw big gaps in old, wooden house-walls in several ruined-houses. Grey-quakemire lay on driveways 10 months post 22 February 2011 Quake & six months post 13 June 2011 Quake.
14.12.11. River Rd view, upstream Avon River, nr Stanmore Rd Bridge
14.12.11. Ghost house, quake trashed, brick, garden wall, River Rd
14.12.11. Quake ghost house, River Rd
Avonside Dr: Across Avon River, houses looked in better condition, few ruins there despite busy road traffic.
14.12.11. River Rd view across Avon River of Avonside Dr house. Roadside, green, plastic, sewage tank in foreground
River Rd / Fitzgerald Ave: Old, brick ruined-house: kaput, overgrown-garden, wall-cracks, gaps by windows, bricks fallen off walls. After more quake-damage, the house would be demolished post Xmas Quake Swarm & all ruined-houses I saw on River Rd would be red-zoned & demolished by CERA.
14.12.11. Quake trashed / part repaired River Rd, between Stanmore Rd & Fitzgerald Ave crossings
14.12.11. Orange, plastic, road cone cordon. Quake trashed / part repaired, River Rd / Fitzgerald Ave junction
14.12.11. Quake trashed / part repaired, River Rd / Fitzgerald Ave junction view, "Pickwicks" demolition site, Fitzgerald Ave
I drove past that brick ruined-house daily, dodging Fitzgerald Ave obstacle-course: orange-plastic-bollard-cordon & orange-plastic- road-cone-cordon, while repairs continued on northbound Fitzgerald Ave, which collapsed in the 22 February 2011 Quake by Avon Loop. It was a botched repair, as engineers failed to accommodate raised Avon River bed which would cause road-flooding after heavy rains.
14.12.11. Quake ghost house, River Rd / Fitzgerald Ave. The house would be demolished post Xmas quake swarm
Fifteen months post 4 September 2010 Quake, EQC, insurers, CERA & construction firms were delaying the CBD-rebuild & residential-housing-rebuild, but were running out of excuses. The recently released Tonkin & Taylor geotech report said it was OK to rebuild on red-zone Christchurch CBD-land. Mayor Parker rejoiced. Never mind Avon River running through the red-zone-CBD & vast areas of the red-zone-CBD liquefactioned with 100s of CBD-ruins demolished post 4 September 2010 Quake. Many more demolitions still to go by CERA. Christchurch Fault which ruined the CBD in the 26 December 2010 Quake ran under the CBD. Why did Tonkin & Taylor think Christchurch Fault was safe for CBD-rebuild when further downstream 1 000s of houses were red-zoned for demolition?
Avon River ran beyond red-zone-CBD through red-zone riverside-suburbs to the Pacific. Massive areas in riverside-suburbs were red-zoned by CERA, 1 000s of people displaced. Tonkin & Taylor engineers & Council hadn't learnt a thing, biased for rebuilding on CBD-land. Council revised its CBD-rebuild-plan for CERA minister Brownlee to sign.
October 2012: Nearly a year later, the red-zone steel-mesh-fence-cordoned CBD would still be occupied by CERA, red-zone checkpoints still manned by NZDF-soldiers. More demolitions had happened, but little rebuild had happened in the CBD, nor residential-suburbs.
Ditto November 2013. NZDF-soldiers would occupy the CBD for 28 months.
06.01.12. Quake trashed, brick house, River Rd / Fitzgerald Ave, post 23.12.11 quake swarm. The house would be demolished
Fitzgerald Ave Bridge: Damaged in the 22 February 2011 Quake: concrete-abutment tilted out of river mud at an odd angle, River Rd side. I'd seen several Avon River bridges with similar damages to abutments. Concrete span / abutment joins & steel-handrail joins were my visual assessment of bridge damages, as spans shimmied against abutments during quakes, causing spalled concrete, cracks, buckled-tarseals. Abutments often slid into mud at odd angles. Steel-handrails often split at span / abutment joins. Handrail-splits were often more than a foot apart, at odd angles, depending on how concrete-structures below had moved during a quake. Quakes would cause bridge-spans to horizontally rotate, either clockwise or anti-clockwise, leaving concrete-span corners sticking out or withdrawn on the bridge deck. I saw that often on bridges. But the bridges were used daily for years during & after after quakes, despite damages.
06.01.12. Orange, plastic, road cones, orange / white, plastic, road barrier cordon. River Rd view, Fitzgerald Ave Bridge, towards "Pickwicks" demolition site, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
06.01.12. Quake tilted, cracked, concrete abutment, Fitzgerald Ave Bridge, River Rd / Fitzgerald Ave, post 23.12.11 quake swarm. See quake split, steel handrail
It was time Council / SCIRT started fixing bridges & roads properly, as garages earned megabucks from wheel-alignments & replacing broken-suspensions caused by potholed-roads especially in suburbs east of Fitzgerald Ave. Years would pass before SCIRT completed repairs to damaged bridges.
*Trekked River Rd, Fitzgerald Ave. 86 snaps.
Coda:
2021. I would trek River Rd again between Stanmore Rd Bridge & Fitzgerald Ave Bridge: All the red-zoned houses were demolished leaving green & shrubby parkland from Avon River bank to green-zoned housing about 100m-200m back from Avon River bank. All that was left was Avonside Tennis Club.
Content & pics Copyright Mark JS Esslemont.
See CERA demolitions list
See City blueprint to get go-ahead (The Press / Stuff Co)
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