Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomanybeersies | Hacker News Reader

Currently in Wellington. Was fucking shaky, seriously thought the building was about to collapse. This was ~500 km from the epicenter.

We were evacuated and let back in. All the planning in the world doesn't prepare you for the real thing, the first thing you're meant to do is keep calm, and I sure as hell didn't. I sprinted right the fuck out of my apartment building, I have 4 levels above me, hiding under a table wasn't going to do shit to save me.

The building has some cracks in the plaster and food has fallen off all the shelves, but nothing serious. The water seems to be running a bit brown though, so maybe some damage to the water pipes.

Props to the crew at Bizdojo (http://www.bizdojo.com/) for opening an invitation for us to come and chill there if we couldn't get back into our homes. Doing the right thing there!

View on HN

    > I have 4 levels above me, hiding under a table
    > wasn't going to do shit to save me [...]  food
    > has fallen off all the shelves,

The advice to hide under tables isn't meant to save you from the entire building collapsing, but from injuries sustained from stuff falling off shelves & the non-structural parts of your roof collapsing.

"You're doing it wrong," only for earthquakes.

Also, some tables, particularly heavy wooden and metal tables, can withstand lots and lots of weight. Hiding under them can help you avoid getting your skull bashed in by a falling slab of concrete.

The one biggish one I went through was in Seattle, where I was in a startup. We had cheap IKEA desks, which barely held the computers. I bolted for the door, which was the wrong thing to do in a brick clad building. Thankfully, we were on solid ground on Capitol Hill, not the fill in Pioneer Square, so I didn't get hit by falling cornice.

Water pipes often accumulate a layer of sediment at the bottom. Anything that stirs it up will cause brief discolouration of the water. Your pipes may be fine. (That said, I wouldn't drink the water right now.)

I'm pretty sure Civil Defence announced it's been contaminated. I would get bottled water, and get away from the coast if you're anywhere near there, or get to high ground. If you have no other option, go to a building with reinforced concrete that's high such as a parking lot. The Tsunami warning is issued to as far as wellington, and all of the cook straight.

If you are getting bottled water after an earthquake, you are already f*cked.

Have water on hand beforehand! It's not like bottles of water aren't for sale everywhere.

Or, if you live near massive amounts of fresh water, stock up on high grade water filters, and have buckets or many bottles.

Yes, absolutely agreed. Last night's quake exposed my flat's somewhat chronic lack of preparation. I'll be visiting the supermarket tonight and ensuring our insurance policies are up to date, as I imagine much of Chch will be.

We've got a small collection of life straws/survival supplies for tramping, which is good, but they're in a part of the house that'd be inaccessible in a major event :/.

Stay safe and good luck.

You get the same thing if the Fire Department uses the hydrants, for real or just to test the system.

The usual advice is to boil the water if there is any doubt. For sediment, a coffee filter first wouldn't be a terrible idea.

Edit to add: immediately after an event, if you have a tank water heater, the water in the tank was already there. If you shut off the intake valve and turn off the heater, you have enough drinking water to last for a couple of weeks. Assuming you can get a container under the drain valve on the side. Triple check you have turned off the furnace before draining any significant amount water!

Given what ChCh went through, I really hope Wellington takes quake-proofing its more risk-prone buildings seriously. I say that every time an earthquake causes damage there, but still the building owners ask for more time and the council gives it.

Yeah Wellington has always taken it seriously, I remember the building where I worked in 2002 had a sticker on it by the council saying the building wasn't earthquake safe. The buildings here are much more earthquake safe than Christchurch but also the damage potential is much higher.

Great. Do you have a pic of the sticker? I'm moving to Umbria, Italy...

No, it was a while ago. But a google image search showed up one of the ones that they used in Christchurch.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ncu7cINaZiE/TtGHnDoH72I/AAAAAAAAAS...

Thanks.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/assets/news/18382/eight_col_xlarge_...

That's the yellow sticker that buildings in Wellington get if they're unsafe but still usable.

> Yeah Wellington has always taken it seriously,

Only sort of. We have the whole dynamic of pushing out the date buildings are supposed to be meeting requirements, and dodgy engineers signing off on buildings that are below target NBS.

Dodgy engineers aren't going to sign off on anything because they are liable for manslaughter in the case of a catastrophe. I used to work for a structural engineering company and had to present evidence at the Royal Commission of Inquiry, engineers (at least all the ones I know) take this very seriously.

Most of the out of date buildings are empty, there are still a few empty buildings around Wellington because they don't meet code.

As far as pushing out the dates, buildings with a big sticker on them saying they are unsafe tend to struggle to find tenants, and when they do the rent has to be very cheap, so most building owners either sell the buildings or strengthen them.

And that's why the property owners have been lobbying the councils to hold off on those big stickers - because then how could they afford to do the work that they'll totally do, within X years, if the rents drop?

That's what I'm referring to, yeah.

A lot more buildings in Wellington are on isolaters. Parliament was retrofitted with them (huge saws cut through the concrete foundation where they were then installed). TePapa has a thing outside the museum where you can go down and see some of them.

Advice in Japan is stay inside. They claim running outside during an earthquake your more likely to get hit by falling glass and other debris

You're 500km north of epicentre and felt that. Im 150km south of epicentre and felt nothing.

We even felt it up in Auckland. It woke my partner and I up and made the building creak and flex a bit.

Wellington isn't 500km away :)

It looks like the quoted epicentre was just the start point of the rupture that headed off to the northeast. Which explains why the shaking seemed worse to the north and why so much activity seems to be recorded from the Seddon area again:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us1000778i#...

In Wellington it seemed like the first half was just a gentle swaying before it really kicked in for the second half. That was probably the rupture moving closer.

I found this really interesting: The USGS talks about quakes of this magnitude usually have a wide scale area of slippage eg they've modelled 200x60 km for this one:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us1000778i#... http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us1000778i#...

Currently in Wellington. Was fucking shaky, seriously thought the building was about to collapse. This was ~500 km from the epicenter.

~200km?

Also in Wellington, and it's work from home day today here while engineers check the building for damage.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com