Guest Grant Magrath Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 First off, thankyou so much for your messages of concern and support. We live in the badly hit eastern suburbs and our house has suffered some damage. It looks superficial at this stage, but it's up to the experts to figure out. Dad's place was hit real bad. That's where the cars are. But as was mentioned before, they're all ok! Dad was fixing a bad earth on one of the coupe's headlights when it hit. The car shimmied into the door of the garage but he managed to hold it back! Not bad for a 72 year old in a disaster! The rear garage door was open and straight after the shaking came the liquifaction. Water and sand came pouring up from behind the house and flowed into the garage and through the laundry door. By the time it had stopped, the driveway between the garages was under 18" of silt. The Buick garage had 6". And about 3" to 12" in the rear garage where the Dodge and Stingray are. Sadly, his house is probably a writeoff. However, a bunch of rugby players were driving around and helped him clear his property yesterday. We have access to the rear garage now. Still no power, water or toilet. I was at work on the top floor of our 7 story building. I had just walked in to voice a few commercials, when WHAM!!! The building rocked incredibly violently. I had to hang on to the door frame to stay up. When the shaking stopped, I raced down the dark stairs, out in to the car park, and it was like a sea mist had rolled in. Turns out it was the dust from all the collapsed buildings in town. I used to work for CTV, and quite a few of my friends were killed when the 6 floor building was flattened to just 5 meters high. Anyway, the boss asked for a volunteer to go back up to get the radio station car keys (and his wallet!!) So, two of us went back up thse dark stairs, crunching the busted plaster and stepping over the cracked and buckled concrete. As we were on our way up, a 5.7 aftershock hit. Not good. Got up there, and grabbed as many keys as I could find in the shattered offices, and had to grope around that dark studio floor for my bag and cellphone. We hightailed it asap! The drive home was difficult. I had taken the 38 sedan to wark, and ran out of gas just as I had parked it down from work! Still there. So I thought, since I had risked my life to get the keys, I was entitled to help myself to a station vehicle, a Jeep Wrangler. Took about 1 1/2 hors to get home, avoiding broken roads, bridges out, and driving through flooded streets. My wife had an eventful ride from her work as well. She was right near the epicenter. My son, who I saw at the mall carpark as I was driving to work, was still outside when it hit, and watched an old church collapse in front of him. My daughter was at her boyfriend's house, so we're all ok. So now, we have to deal with the aftershocks from the 6.3, which was an aftershock itself from the Sept 4 earthquake. Only this time, it's all too familiar. My radio station wants us to broadcast from Dunedin for a couple of weeks. That's about 4-5 hours south. It will be hard being away from the family! But hopefuly they can come down fo a while. Once again, thankyou to everyone here. We really appreciate your concern.CheersGrant;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrspeedyt Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 WOW! what an experience! hope all turns out well for all of you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1939_Buick Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 (edited) Good to here the the Magrath family and the pre war cars are OK . You are brave (or silly!) to back in for keys. Have read of a woman who went back into a building for a cell phone, but did not make it out. When will you get the 1938 back home ?The other old quake thread here: http://forums.aaca.org/f165/7-1-earthquake-288403.html==http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.htmlhttp://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/week13 quakes over magnitude 3 today (16:00 NZ time) Edited February 26, 2011 by 1939_buick added links (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Schramm Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 Glad to hear that you and yours are good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nzcarnerd Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 Grant, if any of you need a hot shower, give me a call on 323 9121. I am only a few minutes from you. Mark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danhar1960 Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 Glad to see you and the family (including the cars) are all well and safe. I was merrily typing away as the news broke and was mega shocked by the graphic details they were reporting live to air.It will certainly be something to tell the grandkids.Danny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buick840 Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 Grant,very happy to hear your family is all OK and our sincere sympathy to those who lost loved ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mike Hanning Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 Grant, I have been keeping tabs on you via Owen Crequer. If you or family need accommodation during this terrible time call me on 021 895 248. We live West of the City and escaped with no damage this time. We have 3 spare bedrooms, all services operating and our own water supply. I realise the Forum is not intended for this means of communication but during a disaster of this magnitude it has provided an emergency way of getting messages through.Pleased to hear the cars have come out safe and well.Rgds. Mike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1939_Buick Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 Grant, I have been keeping tabs on you via Owen CrequerSame here. Owen has been busy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Shaw Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 Whew! Grant, this is something to tell stories about later... But for now, we are all glad you and yours survived this disaster.... Our hearts go out to those who lost loved ones.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Grant Magrath Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Here's some footage taken less than a block from where I was when it hit. On the bright side, I picked up the 38 sedan yesterday from where I left it before the quake. Too hard to get gas, so we were let through the army cordon of the cbd to tow the old girl home.YouTube - Major Earthquake has hit Christchurch, New ZealandCheersGrant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1939_Buick Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Good the 38 is back home ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danhar1960 Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 I wonder if the bloke at the end of the footage survived ??? :( Every so often Mother Nature comes along and smacks you in the face just to remind you who the boss is. Thankfully on this day she spared you and the '38. Good to see you got her home.Danny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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