06.01.12. Green zone, Heath St, Burnside, no liquefaction mud, nor serious damage, after 9 500 quakes, 04.09.10 quake - 23.12.11 quake swarm
Over the last 16 months in Heath St & in Burnside, we'd experienced shaking, jolting in 1 000s of quakes, but no liquefaction. No mud.
Eastern suburbs, like New Brighton, were built on sand or swampland. Post quakes, eastern suburbs regressed to mud.
Trouble with CERA land zoning was that there were anomalies in geotech engineers' Tonkin & Taylors' zoning, as green zoners in eastern suburbs like New Brighton, not only endured shaking, jolting, like us in Burnside, but dug themselves out of liquefaction mud, after quakes. Something stank in CERA / Tonkin & Taylor land zoning.
Continuing my New Brighton treks, I parked by Bowhill Rd / Keyes Rd traffic circle, wanting to see nearby Baker St, Rawson St, Sinclair St, all mostly green zoned, between Avon River & Rawhiti Domain, near the coast.
06.01.12. Serial quake trashed Bowhill Rd / Keyes Rd traffic circle, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
Atrocious Christchurch roads: Traffic circle, badly liquefactioned by Feb 22 Killer Quake. Patch repairs done post quake. Eleven months post Feb 22 Killer Quake, liquefaction raised bricks, stacked on traffic circle. Roads, still lumpy, bumpy. Hopefully repaired roads would have new sewage & water pipes laid on roadsides, instead of road centres, as an uncountable number of quake-raised manholes in road centres were destroying vehicle suspensions.
By the traffic circle, I snapped by-election billboards of prospective councillors, including Christ Church Cathedral's dean, Peter Beck who would become a councillor, briefly. Another billboard touted David East who would become a councillor at a later election, after Beck left.
06.01.12. Peter Beck by-election board, Marriotts Rd / Bowhill Rd, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
Mayor Parker & some councillors voting for invisible CEO Marryatt's salary, $538, 529 p/a, insulted citizens enduring hardships during quakes: deaths; job, business, home losses; liquefaction flooding; digging quakemire from properties; water & power cuts; destroyed sewage connections; stinking roadside portaloos; plastic sewage tanks; chemical toilets; juggernaut excavation & demolition machinery & trucks; sewage sucker trucks; negotiations with EQC, insurers, CERA, builders; disintegrating roads; forced relocations; financial hassles.
Green zoning by Tonkin & Taylor for CERA was crazy, due to Technical Categories: TC1, TC2, TC3. CERA's Landcheck website zoned the following for New Brighton roads I trekked:
Baker St: 176 properties, 169 green zone, 7 red zone.
Rawson St: 31 properties, 25 green zone, 6 red zone.
Sinclair St: 81 properties, all green zone.
New Brighton Rd: 249 properties, 2 green zone, 247 red zone. (I trekked a bit that day).
Green zone: Repairs / rebuild could begin.
Red zone: Land repair would be prolonged, uneconomic. Land to be abandoned, forced relocations. Payout negotiations with NZ National govt / CERA & / or insurers.
Those New Brighton streets were quakemired, quake after quake. Burnside green zone housing had no mud post quakes, no mud digging. New Brighton green zone had mud digging post quakes. New Brighton green zoners would need to spend money repairing house foundations on shifting sands, whereas Burnside green zoners would have less house foundation expenses on firm shingle.
New green zone, Technical Categories TC1, TC2, TC3 were for house foundations: Our Burnside house was TC1, no liquefaction, no foundation rebuild. TC3 housing, liquefaction damaged, required foundation rebuilding. About 28 000 houses were green zoned TC3 by CERA, doomed to foundation repairs, due to liquefaction. Doomed to resale hassles. Why were 6 500+ red zone houses & 28 000 TC3 houses built on liquefaction prone land in the first place? Previous Councils should've known liquefaction dangers, as NZ had a quake history.
Biggest anomaly: CERA's pet, geotech engineers, Tonkin & Taylor reported that it was OK to build anywhere in red zoned, Christchurch CBD swampland, despite CBD being a disaster zone on top of Christchurch Fault, bldgs collapsing everywhere in CBD liquefactioned Avon River proximity. Something stank in the state: 5 Tonkin & Taylor staff would be awarded by NZ National govt in the 2013 New Year Honours Awards!
Trekked down one side of part-cleaned Baker St, returned to my car along the other side. Saw ghost houses, overgrown gardens, most Baker St houses were inhabited.
Months before, deputy mayor Button defended Council workers doing gardening in the red zone CBD, while citizens were banned from the CBD. (Still banned 11 months post Feb 22 Killer Quake). Button should get Council workers attending to overgrown gardens, verges & demolition sites in suburbs where ratepayers lived.
Weedy Christchurch: Post quakes, natural growth quickly took over demolition sites & abandoned red zone properties. That showed pre-quakes, Garden City image had nothing to do with councillors & Ellerslie Flower Show, but had everything to do with ratepayers' gardening pride.
Watched sewage, sucker trucks clearing clogged drains on Dennitt St, off Baker St. Sucker trucks roamed trashed Christchurch streets ever since 04.09.10 Darfield Quake, clearing trashed drains & sewage pipes.
06.01.12. Green zone, green, plastic, sewage tank, Baker St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
06.01.12. Sucker trucks clearing quake clogged drains, Dennitt St off Baker St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
06.01.12. Rubbish bin, overgrown garden, Baker St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
06.01.12. Quake damaged housing, Baker St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
06.01.12. Green zone, liquefactioned Baker St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
Baker St: Liquefaction damages to road surface, pavements, driveways. Most grey mud, already cleared by contractors. Water tanker drove past spraying water. Not much good, as water dried, Baker St citizens still enduring liquefaction dust. On Baker St, I got that creepy feeling again, while trekking past ghosts.
01.06.12. Orange, plastic, road cone cordon. Green zone, liquefactioned Baker St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
Baker St / New Brighton Rd: Damaged concrete curbs. Avon River stopbank walkway, closed.
06.01.12. Sewage, sucker truck. Liquefactioned Baker St / New Brighton Rd, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
06.01.12. WALKWAY CLOSED. Avon River stopbank, New Brighton Rd, opp Baker St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
06.01.12. Overgrown garden, Baker St / New Brighton Rd, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
06.01.12. Green zone, liquefactioned pavement & driveway, Baker St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
06.01.12. Green zone, liquefactioned Baker St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
Baker St pavement: Between a green, plastic, sewage tank & a hole by a fence, stinking water leaked across the pavement onto the road. Quakes degraded Baker St to Third World, grey mud, puddles everywhere. Likewise other eastern suburb streets.
06.01.12. Green zone, liquefactioned Baker St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
During the 1980s, I'd lived, worked in the Negev Desert, Israel & Namaqualand sandveld, RSA. Desert winds blew sand onto town streets. Sand was cleared by road maintenance vehicles. Liquefaction sand in Baker St & other Christchurch, liquefactioned streets, was worse than wind blown sand I'd seen in desert towns. Desert sand: clean. Grey liquefaction sand: crappy.
06.01.12. Leaky pipe by green, plastic, sewage tank, Baker St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
06.01.12. Green zone, liquefactioned Baker St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
New Brighton Rd to Rawson St: Some ghost houses, overgrown gardens: fire hazard & invitation for thieves, squatters, arsonists. Marryatt's precious Council workers must mow!
06.01.12. Red zone, quake trashed house, New Brighton Rd, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
New Brighton Rd / Rawson St: Tilted power poles, tilted Telecom cubicle by a dairy. Liquefaction damaged pavement.
06.01.12. Red zone, quake damaged New Brighton Rd / Rawson St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
Rawson St: Liquefaction damaged road, pavements. Most houses, inhabited. Some abandoned houses, overgrown gardens.
06.01.12. Quake tilted, Telecom cubicle. Green zone, liquefaction damaged Rawson St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
06.01.12. Green zone, liquefaction damaged Rawson St / Sinclair St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
Sinclair St: Quakemired, 23.12.11 Xmas Quake Swarm. Yellow, McLaren contractor, water truck; yellow tractor with roller brush & grader blade; white, Bobcat digger with roller brush, all cleared grey quakemire. Some ghost houses, overgrown gardens, like a wood braced house on the road bend. Most houses, inhabited.
06.01.12. Roads contractor, yellow tractor cleaning 23.12.11 quake swarm mud off green zone, Sinclair St
06.01.12. Green zone, quake damaged Sinclair St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
Green zone, western suburb, Burnside: Clean. No quakemire. No flooding. No dust.
Green zone, eastern suburb, New Brighton: Dirty. Filthy quakemire. Flooding. Dusty.
No wonder CERA invented green zone TC1, TC2, TC3, including such anomalies. Never mind potential flooding in sunken green zones after rains.
06.01.12. Green zone, quake damaged Sinclair St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm
Fri 06.01.12, 2.20pm, M5.0 quake, 5km depth, 10km NE of Christchurch. Rumbled below our Heath St home, jiggled my computer screen while I typed, strong enough for me to hold the screen steady. Trembled pot plant leaves on our computer table. As we lived about 10km from Pegasus Bay, that M5.0 quake epicentre was about 20km from Burnside.
8.04pm, M4.7, 11km depth, 20km E of Christchurch.
Sat 07.01.12, 1.21am, M5.2, 15km depth, 20km E of Christchurch (GeoNet). Rocked our house.
Luke told me, on Fri afternoon he & girlfriend walked Avon-Heathcote Estuary, low tide flats, when a quake struck. They felt mud moving underfoot, watched marine puddles moving!
I told Luke: "Run for a high spot, or shin up a drain pipe onto a roof, if a tsunami hits. Have an escape plan!"
Sat evening, 07.01.12. Mayor Parker announced on TV that a long-planned tsunami warning system, with sirens at coastal points from Brooklands, around Banks Peninsula, to Birdling flats, would be done.
Pre 2011 Xmas, Royal Commission of Inquiry hearings: Given revelations, about a Council suppressed Jan 2011, McNulty / Griffith report, complaining about Council safety issues when doing red / yellow / green stickers for bldgs, post 4 Sept 2010 Darfield Quake, I thought Council wasn't interested in safety & health of citizens during quakes, aftershocks, tsunamis. Parker jabbered lots about CBD restart & rebuild plans, but little about citizens' safety.
*Trekked Heath St, Bowhill Rd, Baker St, New Brighton Rd, Rawson St, Sinclair St. 123 snaps.
Coda:
Six months later, in 2012 tsunami warning would be installed: series of loudspeakers on power poles, for sirens to blast for ten minutes should a tsunami threaten. Signal for residents to evacuate fast. Sirens would be tested twice yearly, spring and autumn daylight saving days. (The Press 19.06.12).
19.06.12. Baker St residents would want a CERA review for their TC3 green-blue zone housing, unhappy with their green-blue zoning. They wanted to go red zone, cash in on their damaged properties, instead of lengthy hassles, waiting years for geotech reports, repairs & inevitable devaluing of their properties.
Baker St & other streets close to Avon River, like Pratt St, Rawson St, Sinclair St, Palmer St, Waygood St, Bower Ave: housing near Avon River was badly liquefactioned. Liquefaction damage lessened the further properties were from Avon River. All that groundwater caused liquefaction pressure in sandy soils. Months of aftershocks, there would be sliding / tilting / sinking of housing towards Avon River, due to lateral spreading / slumping.
Driving along Owles Tce & New Brighton Rd at Avon River high tide, I saw New Brighton Rd had sunk & Avon River bed had risen, as river water level was above road level, or at road level. Just the post quake stopbank along New Brighton Rd, stopped the road & ghost housing being flooded.
New Brighton Rd was the worst road in Christchurch: potholes, buckling, undulations, patch repairs, flooding.
Although large areas of Christchurch had sunk during quakes, there was chirping about land zoning by Tonkin & Taylor & CERA, but not a cheep from CERA about future flooding due to quakes.
In future there'd be flooding after rains, in quake-sunk areas, like Flockton Basin, off Warrington St. In 2014 Flockton Basin housing would be flooded several times after heavy rains.
2023. Texting when Luke & girlfriend searched to buy a post quake, Christchurch house:
Luke: We've just been looking at a house for sale at Brighton on Baker St. J searched online to see if she can find any info about flooding etc being so close to the river and red zone. One of the first things she found was your blog post with a very well documented Baker St completely destroyed and liquefactioned after quakes. You already had a warning for us over 10 years ago.
Mark: Baker St was liquefactioned. Many residents wanted their houses red zoned so they could leave, but their houses were green zoned! Nearby Avon River just saturates the soil high water table, hence all the liquefaction mud! You paid Blogger for uploading my quake pics, so your paying forward saves you money from post quake, dodgy house sales!
Luke: Your blog confirmed what we were already thinking. Nice house on big section, but too risky.
Content & pics Copyright Mark JS Esslemont.
See Parker dismisses abandoning city (Stuff Co / The Press).
See Most Baker St residents want to see red (Stuff Co / The Press).
See $48m plan to stop Flockton flooding (The Press / Stuff Co).
Responded to an email query about a Baker St house.
ReplyDeleteResponded to an email from Canterbury University, Hazard & Disaster Management query, wanting to use photos about the liquefaction cleanup in Christchurch, specifically Rawson St & Sinclair St.
ReplyDelete