Uh, firstly? While the thoughts and positive waves are more than welcome, even to someone like me who wasn't actually in the shake-zone, you guys were
kind'a Roosterboyed. ;)
While I'm here, though, does anyone mind if I vent for a second? 'Cause you've gotta
love some of the 'experts' the foreign TV-news networks have found, really. Some talking-head on CNN this afternoon was going on about how:
- New Zealand architecture isn't set up for a shake like this and we should build all our structures on roller-bearings like the Japanese do.
(We've been doing that for decades already
, you nimrod - the Japanese got that idea FROM us. [tickedoff] So did the U.S.
, for that matter - not that I'd bet it got implemented, between the bureaucracy and the NIH Syndrome! [tickedoff] Those churches and heritage buildings that got wrecked simply pre-date that building code - and many of the others were pre-weakened by the Sept. 4 shake.)- New Zealand is 'insufficiently prepared' for an earthquake disaster and needs more national preparedness arrangements.
(We have Urban SAR teams in every major centre, and Civil Defence - both in Christchurch and response-teams from across the South Island - was moving even before the shaking stopped. And preparedness? School taught me what to do in a 'quake before I was eight
- and previous generations of kids had had similar training before the Napier Quake of 1931
!)- California, a state with far more territory, people and money than us, would have a hard time handling something like this, so
we have
got to be completely overwhelmed.
(Why, you smug, condescending.... See above. Plus, there was a multinational military exercise going on in Christchurch
when it happened, including numerous defence personnel from NZ and other PacRim states, plus
two international conferences' worth of doctors (urologists and neurologists, IIRC), plus
a collection of US politicians - Senators? Congresscritters? Who knows/cares?. The biggest delay to a coordinated response was that Christchurch's top CD people were in Wellington trying to sort out reconstruction efforts and damage claims from the Sept. 4 'quake! Even then, their deputies were more than on top of things until they got back. "Overwhelmed"? In a pig's arse, we are! [tickedoff]) This frakwit thought New Zealand is 'underprepared', 'poorly built', and 'overwhelmed'? ??? Really: some of these 'learned commentators' might want to come down here and actually study our set-up, so they can
FIND OUT WHAT THE ****** THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT before they open their mouths and prove the extent of their
expertise ignorance. [tickedoff]
Please excuse me while I step away and calm down? I've gotta stop blowing my stack every time I encounter a self-important big-mouthed idiot, otherwise I'll never get anything
else done. [tickedoff]
