Download Tephra Volume 23 (PDF, 1.33MB) - Ministry of Civil ...

Challenging disaster
management through
Community Engagement
Tom McBrearty
A land to be shaken
The Avon River meanders eastward out of the Christchurch
central business district toward the sea, across land that
would have been swamp, shallow lagoons, oxbow lakes
and low-rolling countryside of metres-deep silt before
Christchurch existed.
For decades, Christchurch had suffered no
significant earthquakes. There was no shaking, or
liquefaction, and so the geological problems of the eastern
suburbs did not impinge on the minds of the population.
Homes were needed for the city as it grew through the
19th and 20th Centuries, and some of the easiest places to
build were either side of the Avon River where the suburbs
of Richmond, Avonside, Dallington, Shirley, Avondale,
Burwood and Bexley now sit.
Following the river’s twists and turns is River Road,
fed by tributary roads, home to largely low-to-middle
income families. The people have typically grown up there,
love it, and tend to shift only about once every 15-16 years
– a length of stay more than twice as long as the rest of
Christchurch. These local people know the area very well
and how the land, homes, businesses and people fit together.
People know each other and there remains a strong sense
of community ownership (Māori might say kaitiakitanga or
guardianship) of the river and the area around it.
This community spirit came into its own after the
first quake. With aftershocks shaking and shunting the
suburbs, opening holes in the roads and pumping silt-slurry
out of flower beds, the chances were high that people in
leadership positions would take immediate action. The
locals thought that it would have been wrong for decisionmakers
to make hasty choices, and decided to make sure
their voice was heard. Our communities had long histories
and (we hoped) optimistic futures, we knew that we would
need to keep dealing with central and local government
politicians and other officials for months and years beyond
the immediate crisis. We also thought that seeking victories
over them, therefore, would have been an unwise approach.
We decided, instead, to seek win-win solutions for our
community and for government.
Shattered lives
After the September 2010 earthquake we felt that in the
main, politicians and government officials continued to
communicate with the community in the same way they did
before the quake. That is, top-down, “we know best, follow
our instructions”. We thought their standard information
sources that worked in normal circumstances were not
working for our community.
A group of local residents took the initiative and
sprang into action, trying to organise themselves. A local
Member of Parliament (MP) for Christchurch Central,
Brendon Burns, tracked down some of these people and got
them together in a room. Brendon seemed well attuned to
respond at the community level, as too were some of our
other local politicians.
Each of the community members had a story to tell
and a way of helping their neighbourhood, street or suburb,
and after a bit of eyeballing and learning about each other,
they quickly understood that they could work together to
take action in pursuit of common goals to serve the people
of Christchurch.
At local level the impact of the earthquake was
about the simple things in life – toilets, water, food, phones
and petrol. All that was about to get worse: the February
2011 earthquake struck, the power stayed off for days,
petrol stations closed, there were no communications, and
no cooking facilities for whole blocks. Radios with batteries
were our most sought after assets. There were no working
fridges to store food, no ability to recharge cellphones, and
even home gardens were destroyed by liquefaction. All sorts
of social challenges were created because the quakes made
32