Neil Watson: Free-ranging chickens and smashed buildings.

Mr Watson had travelled alone to Christchurch for a family event last Friday evening and was staying the night with his sister in Riccarton when the quake hit at 4.35am.

“My first thought was helping the children. Then of course I remembered mine were in Auckland and my sister doesn’t have any. The shaking seemed to go on for ages but in reality, it was probably about a minute, it was definitely the worst I’ve experienced. Then of course we had no power so I used my cellphone as a torch and called my mother and other family around Christchurch to see if they were okay.”

Fortunately, no one had been hurt but the news was bad from his other sister’s poultry farm at Weedons, about 13km southwest of Christchurch.

“My sister’s farm and house had been very badly damaged. Cages with 26,000 chickens in them had all fallen over and chickens were ‘free range’ around the property.”

At this point, going back to bed was “the last thing on anyone’s mind” and the family headed to Weedons to assess the damage and help with the clean up.

“As we drove there were no traffic lights but you wouldn’t have thought there was much damage.” Then they arrived and found utter devastation. “A lot of people had already been working since first light. The farm employs about eight people so they were there and we all just spent the day moving the chickens and doing what we could.”

The immediate future looks bleak for the farm, which had been recently modernised and upgraded, as “hundreds of thousands” will have to be spent before it can properly function again.

“We were so lucky that it was a beautiful day in Christchurch on Saturday. If the weather had done what was predicted [gale force winds and rain] it would have been impossible to do what we did.”

Mr Watson was originally scheduled to fly back on Saturday but with the airport closed and flights having to be rebooked, he eventually flew back to Auckland on Sunday afternoon.

Having seen the damage first hand, he thinks some parts of Christchurch will have serious infrastructure problems to deal with before life can return to normal. And the experience has made him question his own family’s readiness for a disaster like this.

“We really have to be prepared with emergency kits and civil defence information. Having that torch and the transistor made all the difference when we wanted to find out what had happened everywhere else.” •

Julianne Evans