Stockpiling supplies in the shed for the next big earthquake

Thursday, 27 October 2022

Some supplies that Jean Gorman is stockpiling in her garden shed in anticipation of the next big earthquake.

Jean Gorman is a writer based in Tasman district.

OPINION: I've been hoarding tins of food in the garden shed (aka Shelob's Lair) forever.

In a fit of enthusiasm, I decided to brave the spiders, clean out the shed and tally up just what we were going to eat after the house fell down. The answer: tinned tomatoes. OK, there was a lot of rice, pasta and oats in tubs, but it still didn't seem like too good a diet.

Plans are one thing, details are another.

Geological studies have shown that an earthquake of magnitude 8 occurs on the Alpine Fault at regular intervals and it's due. The whole of New Zealand will be affected to some extent.

Geologists inspect a section of the Kekerengu Fault rupture in coastal Marlborough in November 2016. Of the faults that ruptured during the Kaikōura earthquake, it produced the largest horizontal offset of 12m.

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A simulation shows how the Kaikōura earthquake moved up the country before causing Wellington offices to shake, including a call centre in the Hutt Valley, caught on CCTV.

At a Civil Defence conference in Nelson, one speaker commented: “When you wake up just after midnight, after half an hour's sleep, you need an A4 sheet of what to do when the shaking stops. It's all very well knowing what to do, but the nitty-gritty of how to do it needs planning and a practice run.”

Personally, being woken by the Kaikōura quake, I surveyed the beautiful picture swaying over the bed and removed it as the next shock hit. I discovered there is a difference between “that picture may fall one day” and “that picture is going to scone me in the next half hour”.

All kinds of priorities occur to me at different times: the elderly neighbours, the farm's diesel tank on its tower, the water supply. Every farm water tank in Kaikōura was torn in half by the quake in 2016 because the pipes were anchored in the ground. What to do and in what order are not decisions to be left until the house has been shaken and the contents stirred.

Under the scenario that New Zealand suffers an Alpine Fault wriggle from Milford Sound to Lake Kaniere, near Hokitika, it is thought Nelson will suffer about M7 (difficulty standing, flying bookcases and some structural damage). However, further south matters will be worse and a great many electricity pylons will come down. All the mountain passes will suffer landslides and the roads will be blocked for perhaps weeks.

After the weather recently, it sounds all too familiar.

The quake advice used to be for three days – forget it! Each family will be reliant on its own resources for at least a fortnight. How uncomfortable you are will depend on your level of planning. It will be six months before things are back to a new normal.

Cell towers will be down, there will be no internet. There will be no ATM or eftpos until the electricity is restored. Keep some cash on hand. Big stores may have diesel generators but diesel generators need fuel, garage fuel pumps work by electricity, and the underground tanks may well be ruptured.

Supermarket shelves will empty rapidly. More food and fuel cannot be delivered if port facilities are damaged in Nelson. Wellington may also be affected.

It is hard to imagine living without electricity. However, it takes two days to fix one pylon and there are hundreds between the hydro dams and the top of the south. No pylons may be fixed until there is road access. Solar garden lights are a wonderful thing, as is a gas barbecue.

Barbecued oats and tomato stew again. Oh, good!