Thursday, January 5, 2012

Year 2 CERA. Green Zone: Baker St, Rawson St, Sinclair St, New Brighton

New Brighton focus. Fri 06.01.12. According to CERA Landcheck website our 5 Heath St, Burnside land was green zone. The whole of Heath St was green zone. All 36 houses were built on shingle, minimal quake damage, few repairs to be done, after 9 500 quakes, so far, 04.09.10 Darfield Quake - 23.12.11 Xmas Quake Swarm. (The Press). Yesterday morn, almost 2 weeks after the Xmas Quake swarm, a M4.8 woke us. "A wavy one," opined Leah, "not as vicious as jolting, shakey ones."


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 had to endure shaking & jolting, like us in Burnside, but had to dig themselves out of liquefaction mud, quake after quake. Something stank in CERA / Tonkin & Taylor land zoning.

Continuing my New Brighton treks, I parked my car by Bowhill Rd / Keyes Rd traffic circle, as I wanted 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

The traffic circle was badly liquefactioned by the Feb 22 Killer Quake. Patchy repairs were done post quake. Eleven months post Feb 22 Killer Quake, liquefaction raised bricks were stacked on the traffic circle. Roads were still lumpy & bumpy.

Post quakes, Christchurch roads were atrocious. Hopefully repaired roads would have new sewage & water pipes laid on roadsides, rather than in the middle of roads, as an uncountable number of quake-raised manholes in the middle of roads were destroying vehicle suspensions.

By the traffic circle, I snapped by-election billboards of prospective councillors, including ghost 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 had no shame, voting for CEO Marryatt's salary, $538, 529 p/a, which insulted citizens who'd endured so many hardships during the quakes: deaths; job, business, home losses; liquefaction flooding; digging liquefaction mud from properties quake after quake; water & power cuts; sewage connections destroyed; 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 belatedly invented 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. Payout negotiations with NZ National govt / CERA & / or insurers & relocations needed.

Those New Brighton streets were inundated with liquefaction mud, quake after quake. Burnside green zone housing had no mud post quakes, no mud digging. New Brighton green zone had mega mud digging post quakes. New Brighton green zoners would spend lots of 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, with no liquefaction & would require no foundation rebuild. TC3 housing was liquefaction damaged & would require expensive foundation rebuilding. About 28 000 houses were green zoned TC3 by CERA, doomed to expensive foundation repairs, due to severe liquefaction & doomed to resale hassles. Why were 6 500+ red zone houses & 28 000 TC3 houses built on severely liquefaction prone land in the first place? It's not as if previous Councils didn't know the dangers of liquefaction, as NZ had a history of terrible quakes.

The biggest anomaly was that CERA's pet, geotech engineers, Tonkin & Taylor had reported that it was OK to build anywhere in red zoned, Christchurch CBD swampland, despite the CBD being a disaster zone on top of the Christchurch Fault, with bldgs collapsed left, right & centre & the CBD severely liquefactioned due to closeness to Avon River. Something stank in the state: 5 Tonkin & Taylor staff would be awarded by NZ National govt in the 2013 New Year Honours Awards.

I trekked down one side of part cleaned Baker St & returned to my car along the other side. There were ghost houses, with overgrown gardens, but 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.

Christchurch was now weedy! Post quakes, natural growth rapidly took over demolition sites & abandoned red zone properties. That showed the pre quakes, Garden City image had nothing to do with councillors & Ellerslie Flower Show, but had everything to do with ratepayers' gardening pride.

I watched sewage, sucker trucks clearing quake clogged drains on Dennitt St, off Baker St. Sucker trucks had roamed quake trashed Christchurch streets ever since the 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: There was much liquefaction damage to the road surface, pavements & driveways. Most of the grey mud was already cleared by contractors. A water tanker drove past spraying water. It wasn't much good, as the water soon dried & Baker St citizens still had to endure liquefaction dust. On Baker St, I got that familiar, creepy feeling again, while trekking past ghosts.

06.01.12. Green zone, liquefactioned Gresham Tce, off Baker St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm



01.06.12. Orange, plastic, road cone cordon. Green zone, liquefactioned Baker St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm













Baker St / New Brighton Rd: Quake damaged, concrete curbs. The walkway on Avon River stopbank was 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 had degraded Baker St to Third World status, 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 was clean. Grey liquefaction sand was full of crap.


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: Quake 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 were inhabited. Some abandoned houses had overgrown gardens.


06.01.12. Quake tilted, Telecom cubicle. Green zone, liquefaction damaged Rawson St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm







Rawson St / Sinclair St: Deep liquefaction damage, especially road curbs. Mud was already cleared.


06.01.12. Green zone, liquefaction damaged Rawson St / Sinclair St, post 23.12.11 quake swarm




Sinclair St: Lots of liquefaction mud still, post 23.12.11 Xmas Quake Swarm. A yellow, McLaren contractor, water truck, a yellow tractor with roller brush & grader blade & a white, Bobcat digger with roller brush, all cleared grey liquefaction mud. There were some ghost houses with overgrown gardens, like a wood braced house on the road bend. Most houses were 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 liquefaction mud. No flooding. No quake dust.

Green zone, eastern suburb, New Brighton: Dirty. Filthy liquefaction mud. Flooding. Quake dust.

No wonder CERA had to invent green zone TC1, TC2, TC3 to include such anomalies. Never mind potential flooding in quake sunk, green zones after heavy 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 were walking Avon-Heathcote Estuary, low tide flats, when a quake struck. They felt mud moving underfoot & watched marine puddles moving. Muddy hell!

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 ghastly revelations, about a Council suppressed Jan 2011, McNulty / Griffith report, complaining about Council safety issues when doing red / yellow / green stickers for quake-weak bldgs, post 4 Sept 2010 Darfield Quake, I thought Council wasn't interested in safety & health of its citizens during quakes, aftershocks & tsunamis. Parker had 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 the tsunami warning would be installed: a series of loudspeakers on power poles, for sirens to blast for ten minutes should a tsunami threaten. A signal for residents to evacuate fast. The sirens would be tested twice yearly, for some minutes on spring and autumn daylight saving days. (The Press 19.06.12).

19.06.12. Baker St residents wanted a CERA review of their TC3 green-blue zone housing, unhappy with their green-blue zoning. They wanted to go red zone & cash in on their quake damaged properties, instead of lengthy hassles, with years of waiting for geotech reports, repairs & inevitable devaluing of their properties.

The snag with Baker St & other streets close to Avon River, like Pratt St, Rawson St, Sinclair St, Palmer St, Waygood St, Bower Ave... was that 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. Post quakes, over many months of aftershocks, there would also be sliding / tilting / sinking of housing towards Avon River, due to quake lateral spreading / slumping.

Post quakes, driving along Owles Tce & New Brighton Rd at Avon River high tide, I could see that New Brighton Rd had quake sunk & that Avon River bed had quake risen, as river water level was above road level, or at road level. If it wasn't for the post quake, stopbank along New Brighton Rd, the road & nearby ghost housing would be permanently flooded.

Post quakes, New Brighton Rd was the worst road in Christchurch, full of potholes, buckling, undulations, patch repairs & sporadic flooding.

Although large areas of Christchurch had sunk during quakes, there was lots of 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 heavy rains, in areas which sank during quakes, like Flockton Basin, off Warrington St. In 2014 Flockton Basin housing would be flooded several times after heavy rains.

2023. Texting when Luke & girlfriend were looking 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 very 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). 



2 comments:

  1. Responded to an email query about a Baker St house.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Responded 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