christchurch canceled due to massive earthquake / adventures in pepperland

- vodafone and telecom are advising users to limit calls/use text only, so as not to overload phone lines.

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how i got on a plane only to land in iceland about an hour after that fucking volcano exploded?

well, this time we were an hour or so away from boarding a plane from napier, NZ to christchurch, NZ when an earthquake hit christchurch.

we were sitting in a café with our friends kya and aiden, who we’ve been with for the past few days, getting sandwiches before getting on our flight.

eric got a text from a friend of his in christchurch that an earthquake had hit, but we assumed it wasn’t a huge deal until we got online with aly’s iphone and started following the story: buildings collapsed, the church tower fell, serious damage everywhere, people hurt…we called the promotor of my show, mo, who had just landed in christchurch, and he described the place as being in “total chaos”. we drove to the airport, which was only ten minutes from town, to see what the deal was, and everyone was gathered around a TV, watching the images start to surface:

we called jason, who was already down there, to make sure he was ok, and we sorted out with the promotor that there was NO way this gig was going to happen.

i posted minute-to-minute updates of what was happening on twitter and tried to get word from the ground there to see if anyone could tell us what was going on. the #eqNZ hashtag helped…

here’s the cathedral, the main centerpiece of downtown christchurch….

photo via @tesswoolcock (who found it on facebook)

more awful…

and…

(all of these photos via NZPA on nzherald.co.nz)

and here’s a video (warning, it’s intense) of some of the craziness:

look at the ROADS….and you can see a video of the church pictured above…

we’ve been hearing reports on the news that the damage is just devastating….christchurch had an unexpected earthquake this past september and THIS earthquake was just an aftershock….a 6.3, which doesn’t sound huge, but close to the surface, and close to downtown.

when i started writing this, the death toll was at 65 and rising, but it’s now it’s up to 75 and over 300 people missing/unaccounted for – with tons of people trapped inside buildings and under piles of rubble – they say they expect the count to be bleak.

and

so…

if we’d taken off an hour earlier we would have flown into this mess, and who knows what would have happened.

i don’t know who’s been organizing my touring on a cosmic level, but they’re doing a seriously a-plus fucking job.

we’ve managed to avoid the volcanic ashcloud, the floods in brisbane, and now a massive earthquake.

to everyone in christchurch reading this, my love goes out to you and everyone with you who needs love right now.

it devastates me that i couldn’t get down for the show.

if it had been possible to travel there i would have dome SOMETHING in the middle of a VERY SAFE field so we could have all been together.

i’ll keep you updated as soon as i can about ticket refunds, re-scheduling, and what i can do to make you feel better.

i’d love if you could reply to this blog and tell me what you did with your nights.

here’s what i did with mine:

we left the airport, sort of stunned, having officially announced the gig was canceled, and picked up boudicca and nyssa from school.

the go to a great alternative school and we admired the bridges made out of popsicle sticks, the stories they’d written in their workbooks. here’s boudicca’s…she wrote yesterday’s story about….me:

i think i am now her hero since we played an EPIC round of dress-up last night before dinner, which involved over 5 costume changes in a half hour.

we brought them home and i headed straight for bed, where i slept 2 solid hours.

woke up, watched more carnage on the news, cried a little, and then decided to go for a jog up the hill behind the house to get away from it all.

napier is beautiful. like i’d prayed for in my song of two years ago, i finally got to wander around the cliffsides yesterday with the girls, eric, kya and aidan….

here’s boudicca and nyssa on the top of te mata peak, not far from napier….

the hill behind the house looks like it was ripped out of pepperland from “yellow submarine”.

it’s a huge solid storybook-like mound carved out of green with picture-perfect round little trees sporadically scattered around it, giving it an almost two-dimensional look from the house. i could see the whole town from up there, and watched the sun going down.

i ran and ran and stretched my aching lower back on the slope of the steep hill and smelled the grass and felt alive.

i talked to neil on the phone for a while and told him how much i loved him.

then i ran to the bottom of the hill, had dinner with our friends while the kids took their bath, and we talked about our lives, our families, eric’s tattoos, and life.

we shared wine and we shared ourselves and we were happy to be all together in that more-special way when the earth throws things on your plate you weren’t expecting.

the girls wanted a bedtime story and i RE-READ them the wombat book (which is now a favorite) and i realized they had a copy of “pierre”.

so they got TWO stories…one wombat and one impassioned rendition of the story boy who only would say “i don’t care”.

kiss. kiss.

lights.

out.

…………..

the gig tomorrow in auckland is ON: it looks like our flight is 90% set to leave napier at noon.

i tweeted for some emergency back-up rides from napier (it’s only 5 hours from here) in case our flight was grounded, and was pleased to see that #twitchiking also works in new zealand…..thank you to the generous souls who offered to drop all and give us a lift: it looks like we’re going to make it on the plane. i’ll tweet if that changes.

see you all tomorrow in auckland – barring locusts.

xxx

AFP.

p.s. a reminder, from the beginning of this blog.
if you WANT TO HELP, please give money to the new zealand red cross:

those guys are always a safe bet. many people will be homeless, and they’ll need help.

if you work for or know of any other local organizations (especially overlooked ones) who need help, hit me in the comments below.

- vodafone and telecom are advising users to limit calls/use text only, so as not to overload phone lines.