EHO Knows: ZombieTown w/ Stephen Stout

Shane: [00:00:00] Welcome to EHO knows. favorite genre of movie is a zombie. Movie. Just that concept of just having civilization suddenly just stop and what happens afterwards. And we today are interviewing someone who, who effectively worked in a zombie city in that everyone just got up, walked out of the city, and it just closed down. And from an environmental health point of view, could you imagine just the risks involved with that? So we’re talking about no cleanup, we’re talking about just literally standing up and walking away. Um, and so my guest today, Steven Stout, his job was to come in weeks later to try and stop a health disaster. And also ready the city once again, no idea when for people to return again. So Steven, welcome to EHO. Knows.

Stephen: [00:01:00] Nice to be here

Shane: Now the, um, the zombie city that we’re talking about is,

Stephen: Christchurch City and the earthquake in 2000 well the two 2010 2011

Shane: yeah. Um, and everyone in Australia is well and truly aware of the earthquake. Uh, but what happened was we basically had a bad earthquake, but then afterwards, uh, how much longer after the first earthquake did the second one happen

Stephen: It was um four months Yeah about four months It’s it’s February February 1st one was in oh November February Forgotten I honestly forgotten the dates All I know is that we had just moved into our building new brand new building in August And we’d been in for six weeks We got kicked out for the first earthquake got back in and got kicked out by the second one So yeah February 11th is the second [00:02:00] one So there was a good few weeks in between

Shane: And part of the story is the difference in psychology between, yeah, after the first earthquake versus after the second earthquake. Um, I got the impression that after the first earthquake there was this hope of rebuilding and quickly getting back together. psychology changed totally on the, um, second earthquake. Uh, so let’s start on the day of the second earthquake. What was it like? What happened in Christchurch, um, during the, the second earthquake?

Stephen: Well interestingly enough I was actually at a meeting of EHOs outside of the city at one of our neighboring councils And from that perspective which is only 20 5K away it was like a fairly solid but Aftershock really You know the big earthquake was 7.3 the aftershock Um the February one was only only 5.4 but very [00:03:00] shallow So where we were it was very much a ooh that’s a really big aftershock and we didn’t really think too much more about it until it started to come over the news about um all the damage that happened in Christchurch Um my wife who was also an EHO was actually in the city at that time It was around lunchtime She was actually at her gym and she was within a hundred meters of the CTV building when it collapsed and saw go down

Shane: Wow. Yes. Um, the level of devastation, so when you about Yeah, the CTB build, what was that like?

Stephen: Um you you can go back and look at the news footage of it but basically it just pancaked straight down So it was a great big pile of rubble Um my wife was actually she said she saw it go down um and she actually went and helped uh remove people and ended up in the triage center in a [00:04:00] nearby park Um and she helped out as long as she felt she could before she stayed with one of the people that was um taken outta the building at the triage center and just basically was there to support them Um but that triage center yeah it was it was getting people from CTV building but also all over the city because you had The things that people don’t necessarily think of initially which is that buildings don’t necessarily collapse completely but bits of them fall off And so there were a lot of people who were injured by things falling off of buildings Um not necessarily that the whole building collapsed but loose parapets and things like that fell and hit people So there was lots of rubble um walls collapsed uh in various places Um there was a bus that was crushed by a building that fell off of basically a front [00:05:00] wall fell off of the building So you have lots of lots of stuff moving around and coming down

Shane: And so you’ve got people in buildings who are now fleeing buildings and in fact stepping out onto the street where you’ve now got falling

Stephen: Yep

Shane: falling rubble. Um,

Stephen: yep

Shane: and um, and then you just had a mass foot exodus of people walking out of the, the city.

Stephen: Yep

Shane: Um.

Stephen: So people walked out We were actually coming as I say we were actually coming the other way so there was piles and pole of traffic going against us We were one of the few vehicles going into the city Um and we got so far as one of um my then colleagues houses and I walked walked home from there which was about four kilometers Um and basically it was to check up on my house Um the first earthquake had not done very much to us at all The second one um different direction and different [00:06:00] energies involved And so it totaled a few more and things didn’t do a a major amount of damage to our house but um cupboards and things on shelves and everything where the first earthquake hadn’t done very much to that The second one Yeah totaled a lot of it

Shane: Yes.

Stephen: we had a lot of broken damage inside

Shane: So what did your life then look like for the next couple days? I.

Stephen: Um after the second earthquake basically first couple of days was us tidying up in the in the house Um we were actually because our house was substantially complete both of us actually put up our hands and said look we can come in we can get to wherever you need us to be and that was basically the civil defense centers and things like that so that within the next couple of days it was you know to be brutally honest once you had started to tidy up your stuff at home in our [00:07:00] situation anyway um it was well what do we do Life isn’t normal but we have things that we can do that the community um may need us to do So we we were quite quickly back into um work And and it was a really good distraction from otherwise you know we’re just sitting around home We didn’t have broken doors or windows so the house was secure and things like that so we could leave comfortable and that that we didn’t have to stay and look after anything

Shane: we are not focusing on this, but what were the, um, environmental health issues in the couple weeks afterwards?

Stephen: Um but a couple weeks afterwards we were really really environmental health officers tend to be the masters of nothing but know everyone So we were cycling out of the response center So we weren’t there all day at least at the beginning Everyone wasn’t there all day Um and so you would do a couple of hours on a stint You were with what [00:08:00] in Australia would be the federal health people and our local medical officer of health And we are at a a desk um answering inquiries and things usually the sort of thing um Council call centers and everything else would punch through things that no one knew what to do with this doesn’t sound like a road issue or a water issue or a something else issue So it must be environmental health Um and we would get hold of it and we would sort out what it was who it should go to And because we pretty much work with everyone we could put that in place and say right well this has to go to this guy Um because the center was really everyone on top of everyone else it meant that you could just basically walk about 10 meters and find someone and talk to them resolve the issue and get something underway So it was really tight that way Um it was really just responding to quite a lot of interesting little issues You know um what do we do with this You know what do we do with our rubbish Is our rubbish collection still happening And it [00:09:00] would be well we’ll have to talk to the council collection service about that Um I’ve heard it happen somewhere else but not so it was basically um Sorting through and un piling through a lot of those things And as time went on we picked up more and more of the general same issues but more focused on particular things So it might be is our water supply in this area safe now or not Now we’d kick those across to the water people but at the same time we would want to find out for ourselves because the next time someone asks

Shane: Um, because you know, the, the scale of things, you had sewage pipes.

Stephen: yeah

Shane: Just lifted above ground, uh, but drinking water, pipes, just broken, lack of access to water, uh, and then road access. So it is an interesting one in terms of garbage collection, uh, were the tips still available? Were they still [00:10:00] taking stuff?

How do you get trucks in and out? and so virtually every aspect of public safety was just up for grabs. the classic, what was the term for flushing the toilet and having a negative experience?

Stephen: Um there wasn’t really a term What we found and this this sort of went through the whole place um it was known that uh the liquefaction in particular had floated pipes So sewers were questionable all over the city most people tended to work on the if I use the toilet and flush I’ve got water and it goes away therefore all is good

Shane: Yes.

Stephen: Um the issues that came with that were if it was broken downstream Eventually your pipe would fill up and there would be a it doesn’t flush and doesn’t go away And then we would get a call saying Hey what’s happened to the sewer on our area And we’d be [00:11:00] off tracking down what we can do one of the quickest responses uh to the whole thing And knowing that the sewers had broken I think Christchurch managed to acquire every single portal Lou in the south island and I think they were even coming down from the north island So you ended up putting um until the sewer systems would were be able to be assessed Um you put Portal Lous for about every two or three houses down the street So it was like an outdoor lube on the street So every street would get so many port loos one for so many houses just so that people had um a secure known toilet spot you could say

Shane: So if Dr. Who was a Kiwi, he’d be moving around in a Port Lou

Stephen: Oh yeah

Shane: would notice a Port Lou just suddenly appearing or

Stephen: Yep yep And and people stole them

Shane: Okay.

Stephen: one of the complaints we dealt with regularly was that a street was supposed to [00:12:00] have so many port loos on it and now it only had one Um and you’d be wonder wonder where they went Uh and probably you found out within four or five days because you’d get someone else calling saying no one’s come to service the portal Lou and it’s full up And it was well where are you And you’d find that people um particularly with they always said um older family members or lots of kids or something else or perceived safety would go down to the street basically take the portal loop back up their driveway and put it in their backyard So you couldn’t see them from the street and you didn’t know where they’d gone And when they started to complain that it wasn’t being empty then you would know where they were

Shane: they still in the

backyard?

Stephen: yeah

Shane: So you get a complaint from someone. Go, the Port Lou that I stole hasn’t

Stephen: yeah

Shane: Why aren’t you guys doing your job?

Stephen: Yep

Shane: Okay.

Stephen: So so yeah And then you had to have conversations with them There was a scheme in place that if you [00:13:00] did have people who were relatively immobile or wouldn’t be able to make it down or um in some parts of the city there were um issues to get to A safe place on the street just from um liquifaction and dirts and silt and all the rest of it Um you could get a portal Lou just for that family but it was very much on a look You’ve got um limited mobility people who can’t get down to the street or for some reason you can’t So they were given one of their own and we kept a track of those Um and then not quite sure how long afterwards um I’ve still got ours The civil defense people cornered the market on like the cassette camping toilets that you put like in a in a camper van or you take in a tent

Shane: Yes.

Stephen: and I’m not sure if every household in Christchurch got one but lots of people got one of those delivered so that

Shane: Wow.

Stephen: your [00:14:00] sewer wasn’t working that was that was how you could go Um

Shane: interesting in terms of a humanitarian effort. Um, yeah, if you’ve got, no, if you’ve got nowhere to go, suddenly to be bringing in thousands, you know, a hundred thousand of these

Stephen: Oh yeah in a cardboard box with a package of chemicals and the instructions on how to use it I mean immediately after the earthquake there was lots of information on how to dig and uh prepare a long drop safely And uh Facebook and things like that were full of people’s ideas with commode chairs and rubbish bags and kitty litter filled rubbish bags because you it all worked Um you know if you were in a an apartment um or had a no backyard and you couldn’t dig along drop then what do I do And so there was lots of quite reasonable answers that came up and we got asked lots of them you know is this [00:15:00] okay to do Is this okay to do And it was like well You’ve got everything contained It’s being we can dispose of it through the rubbish collections It’s not causing a health problem We don’t have an issue with that Um some of the long drops probably created a problem because some of the aquifers are quite close and some people were quite diggy

Shane: Yes,

Stephen: Uh so yeah

Shane: yes. So after the earthquake, like months afterwards,

Stephen: Mm-hmm

Shane: was notorious for having the most shipping containers in the

Stephen: Yep

Shane: all there. Before the shipping containers, there were port loos and um, and

Stephen: Yep

Shane: You, you probably did well to be known for, you know, the city with the most shipping containers rather than the most port loos in the world. Um, okay. So you then have, people doing do it yourself, toilets and all that sort of stuff to cope [00:16:00] just with the days afterwards. What about water? Drinking water? Yeah.

Stephen: Drinking water Um Fonterra which is a big dairy company was really quick Those areas where there wasn’t any pipe supply available they brought water tankers in placed them in You had fresh water stations so everyone could go and collect water And those pretty much appeared anywhere where they were needed where there wasn’t a um adequate running water supply Um there was a boil notice water on for the whole city because we had no idea the integrity of the water supply So if you couldn’t get water from one of these well if you could get water from a tanker it was portable fresh You didn’t need to boil it Where if your tap was running we were running the boil water notice cause we dunno how reliable it’s um so Fonterra was really good There was lots of water available Um the Army Navy crews brought in their big bladders and pumped them full of water and Provided that as well So [00:17:00] as far as getting water to people um it went surprisingly quickly Um it you always get someplace that would end up with uh but we can’t get water The Navy I think was running power and desalination off one of the ships in Littleton Harbor So there were we were finding answers for everything fairly quickly That seemed to work work pretty well Um downsides of that um particularly for the Fontera crew was they set these water stations up and all of their trucks and everything are set up to be sanitized and all the connections are brass so they can be sanitized and clean and endurable

and we had to basically source plastic ones once those started to be stolen

Shane: Seriously.

Stephen: Yep Well scrap metal They’re big heavy brass fittings and they [00:18:00] started to disappear and once they started to disappear it was we rep the the guys replace em with plastic pronto because yeah those are expensive to replace

Shane: Okay. So port loos, brass fittings, anything that can be taken. did a podcast on, um, post floods and talking about

Stephen: Yeah

Shane: initially people are incredibly generous and then the shift to, um, entitlement. And so it’s really interesting how you see the best and worst of people’s nature in this. Um, and so here’s a lot of good stuff that’s attempting to happen to help as many people as possible. But then after a couple days, after a couple weeks, sets in opportunities Sets in. And so, so people are stealing brass fittings. Which will then stop people from actually having access to water. [00:19:00] and yes.

Stephen: Yeah

Shane: Uh, you were also though testing the quality of the water and you’d increase the amount of chlorine just in case. but from an environmental health point of view, the water actually remains safe to, um, to drink.

Stephen: As uh in the washup reports at the end of the whole thing we didn’t have any any waterborne or foodborne illness reports And that was a huge deal in the sense that um from our perspective in running the the environmental health sector and and and the center and asking inquiries and trying to work out what was going on that was always the big question We didn’t know if the pipe work had been broken and we had cross contamination with sewers or commercial waste or chemical waste or anything else So we got very as I understand very few complaints about off taste and water or tainted water Um we didn’t [00:20:00] have any waterborne illness updates We had very few positive results for any bacterial contamination in water supplies that we knew were still running So um some of the reservoirs and things um had a few issues but they didn’t get any further The rev uh reservoir could be shut down and Basically super dose score chlorine and all the rest of it So there was a few of those Those done as precaution because they had had positive bacterial results in the past not necessarily due to the earthquake just because they’re um the sort of thing that a possum can fall in and and create a problem So they were basically treated very quickly to make sure that that there was no issues with those So in that sense we were actually really lucky Um and on the sewer end as sort of to deal with it um big chunks of pipe work just became [00:21:00] holding tanks and you had lots of septic tank guys going around sucking the sewers out so people could use the toilet as normal It’s just that the sewer line in the street was no longer flowing It was just a big holding tank

Shane: You basically just had sewer tanks buried under the ground, under the streets, called pipes and

Stephen: Yeah

Shane: going round and just sucking that out. Yeah.

Stephen: And that went on quite a while

Shane: it makes sense though in terms of the fresh water versus sewage because if you get a, any damage to fresh water, it’s under pressure. It can only go outwards.

You’re not gonna be tending to get stuff back in. So as long as the source is clean, if you are turning the tap on and it’s under pressure, logically it should be clean. Sewage

Stephen: Yeah

Shane: isn’t under pressure. and you can flush the toilet and it will go. But like you said, only so many times and then it’s gonna be.

Stephen: Yeah

Shane: back at you.

and so [00:22:00] sewerage definitely the big, big, um, problem. so last week you were talking about, um, a person who had actually was giving away water and then started to sell water. What was going on there?

Stephen: Um Christchurch has a basically a natural aquifer system and this was unknown aquifer We it’s always been there Um and it was associated with a day spa and it was basically just untreated water coming up from the ground wasn’t reticulated and it had a particular wellhead And after the earthquake um basically that was still running and he just offered people to come you know look if you want fresh water he actually did get it independently tested so we knew it was potable Um and so people would go and just collect water but when people were starting to come to him and collect with a trailer and a huge tank on the trailer and collecting 400 liters at a time [00:23:00] he started to get a bit Um worried about the amount of people and um agro that was beginning to happen because someone who only wanted to fill a 20 liter bottle uh all of a sudden they’ve got a guy in front of them with a 400 liter tank on a trailer and it started to get bit that way Um and so he started to charge basically a nominal fee to try to reduce a bit of that effort And ultimately uh months afterwards um he registered officially with the ministry of would’ve been food safety at the time since changed its name um to ba be actually a water bottler Although he didn’t bottle the water he just provided it but it was the best

Shane: because that’s just a really interesting one in terms of, he started off literally as a, as a charity, just giving away water that he’s got in his backyard effectively. Um, but then he starts selling and [00:24:00] so then he’s nudging over the line from looking after your mates to, wait a minute, this is now a business. So then what are the requirements for business? But wait a minute, he’s doing it because he’s still trying to be helpful. He, he didn’t do it to make a quid in the first place. He’s trying to stop abuse. And so you are here trying to say, well, what are the regulations that apply to you? Um, but he’s fundamentally doing a really good thing.

Stephen: Yeah And basically we were um relatively supportive We walked him like any of the food businesses at the time we walked him through everything that he needed to do and worry about And essentially he could he worked out that he could meet all of those and away he went But it was more about the um yeah businesses coming driving in from town with tanks of water and and filling up and disappearing again And he just began to think that oh essentially my good nature’s being taken advantage of here

Shane: Yes, yes. let’s. [00:25:00] Actually move on to the, the zombie moment. Um, so as we’re talking about everything we’ve been talking about, we’re not talking about the CBD anymore because the CBD just shut down and we’re talking about what was happening out in the suburbs and

Stephen: Yep

Shane: the city as a whole survived. What happened in the CBD in the, in initially the weeks after the earthquake.

Stephen: Um essentially it was shut down pretty quickly because of safety issues So essentially a cordon went around thrown out around the city um and basically meant by the army Um which was always fun because um Well we particularly in the early stages we went in and outta the city um to our secure points And the army were sitting on the edge of the so you just had to wave your idea and say I’m council person with this and I’m coming through and they’d check you through and it always happening going back and forth [00:26:00] Um eventually there were some natural points that you could secure so uh around the Avon River and things like that you could create as a border And the other areas were fenced streets were fenced off and basically it was to prevent anyone other than contractors civil defense um demolition all of that from going into the central city And so it was basically initially a safety thing because of all of the Buildings that were a problem um uh at any stage a number of them could fall down And so it was to keep people safe Um ostensibly it was to prevent any looting as well Um

Shane: Are stealing

ports and brass. I could not imagine looting being an issue at all.

Stephen: yeah it it’s surprising Um there were definitely homeless people that were living in the CBD who probably didn’t [00:27:00] leave

Shane: Okay.

Stephen: and so they were tromping around in there We know really quickly um the Civil Defense Center where I ended up working quite a lot of the time I was sitting with the Army Um and the army were paying a lot of attention to what was happening in the CBD and were pretty sure that they were field testing quite a lot of movement sensors and night vision stuff and sensors um just On the security of the CBD so if anything moved they knew about it so we weren’t too worried about that We actually think that looting as you might think of as you know grabbing money and things like that that probably all happened Any that did happen pretty much on the same day as the earthquake or very quickly afterwards Uh there’s some weird things that um happened Um one group of hospitality outlets that we dealt with later on um there were [00:28:00] four tills very close together The one till was missing or the cash drawer was missing Um the other three were still there So the owner recovered about 20 K in cash and reckoned that the missing one probably had five or six K in it

Shane: Yes.

Stephen: But It’s sort of the if someone had come in to loot the place you would’ve expected them to have got all four Um and so there was always that question of well someone must have grabbed that pretty much on the day of the earthquake and and taken off and didn’t come back

Shane: Yes. Because if you’re gonna come back, you know,

Stephen: where the others are

Shane: all the cash rather than just, I’ll put

Stephen: Yeah

Shane: arm and I’ll just keep on going.

Stephen: Yeah

Shane: would’ve made fascinating viewing of watching people walking outta the CBD till under arm or But, um,

Stephen: It at the at the time you no one was really paying attention to that There was um yeah there was so many ways [00:29:00] outta the CB D that people just scattered and and collected up later Um yeah from our point of view you you could never search everyone later on with the demolition and things like this There were a lot of issues that the police got We actually had the police going into the red zone during demolitions to deal with issues

Shane: Practically though you’re talking about, you know, these, these places were now just effectively just shut down. Um, buildings were dropped on top of them, like it’s just a big, massive insurance claim. Um, and so having some small things disappear here or there, a till here or there, um, in the grand scheme of things. Um, not the end of the world. but the risk to life, you know, trying to have this entire CBD just shut down. Uh, for anyone who’s never been to Christchurch, the CBD is a beautiful grid, and then it’s got a nice couple ring roads all the way around [00:30:00] from which, you know, chaos then radiates out. But you’re talking about, it’s about blocks wide.

I and then probably about 10 blocks long. and that entire area was just shut down. Um, uh, big fence all the way around. Um, I would make a joke about a certain, country at this stage, but I’m still planning on visiting. So, uh, but it’s that sort of like, let’s just.

Stephen: Yep.

Shane: Um, okay, so no one’s coming in and out, apart from, uh, demolition people or whatever.

So what’s the concern? So we’re now talking weeks later. What’s the issue?

Stephen: So where we got tied up into this is for whatever reason, and these things always in hindsight, um, you look at it and go even more. What was the reason? There was this [00:31:00] overwhelming concern from various groups of civil defense that all of this food in the CBD, because there’s lots of food businesses, was going to feed rats and were going to have a, a, a rodent explosion, which would create health problems and, uh, would be unsafe for people to work in there because of the risk of disease and rats.

And anyway, we ended up running a, a, a user pays contract of all things to go in, uh, with an engineer and small business owners. Business owners could get support from, uh, civil defense. We would go in, we would have paid cleaners, so this is why it was user pays. Um, and we would go into your business and clean up all the food waste and leave it as clean as we could, and you could recover small items like your till or personal items that had been left at the time of the earthquake.

So lots of people had things like, um, oh. Particularly family owned businesses. They had things that were important to the [00:32:00] family still in the shop paintings or, um, decorative items or bits of equipment or knives, you know, for a chef, their knives or everything. Um, all those things. So we, we, we were taking part in those, but they couldn’t take out equipment, they couldn’t recover an oven, they couldn’t recover a fridge or anything like that.

Um, and we had to have an engineer clear a route for us to go in. So it was safe to go in, clear and safe enough for us to continue to work in the building. And we were given, um, time slots so we could only go in after a certain time. We had to be out by a certain time. And we often had spotters in the street watching buildings because if there was an aftershock, you needed to know where everyone could go to.

So we had, um, a bit of a safety briefing before we went in, and that’s all well and good. apart from we are only, were able to deal with about a third of the businesses that were safe to get into. Um, the other two thirds were in buildings that were completely unsafe. Used no way that [00:33:00] you were going to send anyone in volun, voluntary or owner or anyone because they were too, too higher risk for anyone to go in for any great length of time.

So to reduce the amount of food for rats, you were at best only taking a third out. And during the third that we did, we only ever ran into about three or four places where we could actually say there were rats or something there. Yep.

Shane: Yeah. So in terms of justification, if you shut a place down. If you do get rats coming in, there’s still only a finite amount of food there. So yes, the rats can have a field day, but that food source is gonna run out.

Stephen: And the thousands of people that worked in the CBD and the Daily Waste and everything else that was produced in the normally running city area was way more supportive of rats than they, there’s nothing more coming in. When this runs out, we’re going to starve rats.

Shane: been [00:34:00] a bigger rat risk

Stephen: Oh, yeah,

Shane: having,

Stephen: yeah.

Shane: you’re talking about having a, a cold room. So you’ve got a sealed door. Yes. Open it up, it’s gonna stink. But the rats aren’t coming and going. But the moment

Stephen: Not,

Shane: it and they’ve tossed it out into the bin, it’s now just sitting there.

Stephen: Yeah. So, but we had, um, to do this waste cleanup, we actually had a small rubbish truck with us. So we would go in and everything would go into the rubbish truck. And so it was, it was a in, out, clean it

Shane: Yes.

Stephen: Um, we occasionally had really hideous things that we found that, um. We, there was no way we could have done anything else, but at the time it was just really, really repulsive.

Shane: What was

the worst?

Stephen: Um, worse for smell is anything that’s fish. So if you’re cleaning out a freezer that’s got 20 odd kilos of fish in it, um, it’s the only time the cleaner’s actually really wore the masks was when dealing with lots of rotten fish. [00:35:00] Um, the one that

Shane: Are we

Stephen: had us all in,

Shane: FLI masks or are we talking about going hazmat?

Stephen: we had, we had hazmat masks for those.

Shane: Yes.

Stephen: Um, and the, the one that, as I say, caused us terrific entertainment and we never, we know that it didn’t get to the river. So it was a good thing that the sewer and stormwater lines were broken, which they definitely were in the central city. Um, we cleaned a place out that had, it was a bar and they had probably a.

40, 53, 4 liter containers of things like orange juice and milk. So the giant bulk catering containers. And they’ve been unrefrigerated for about eight, nine weeks at the time that we found them. So they were all basically swollen, round, do not open because these are on the edge of bursting. Um, and we put them into our rubbish truck and it was a compactor truck.[00:36:00]

So when they compacted it, all of this stuff exploded and it just poured over the tailgate of, you know, your classic rubber tr filled it up to the top like a pond, and then poured over the top and disappeared down one of the stormwater grates, but congealed lumps of white milk. And it was, yeah. Um, someone described it as, you know, that an elephant had vomited in the street when this truck started to move off.

It was, but there was no other way for us to deal with this stuff. Um, and we were very much on the. Oh no, this is gonna end up on the river. This is gonna be a problem. And so we, um, set a couple of guys off to watch any of the stormwater exits onto the river to see if we, um, needed to sandbag them to stop the stuff from getting out.

And it never appeared. We dunno where it went. Um, the remediation of the area never found it. So as far as we can tell, it just basically soaked into the sand somewhere under the CBD.

Shane: Uh, there’s, there’s a, a rat [00:37:00] nightclub underground,

Stephen: Yeah.

Shane: nonstop yogurt for the next a hundred years.

Stephen: Yeah. But it was really interesting to see

Shane: Yes. Okay, so, so nonstop yogurt. What about meat? Did you go into freezers and suddenly

Stephen: Yeah, that a lot of the products even then were vacuum packed. So basically it was vacuum packed. It was just straight out. Um, a surprising amount of the food that we were able to deal with, um, was, was already packaged. So in a lot of ways, uh, it was just making sure that none of the packages were broken and you could get rid of it reasonably quickly.

yeah, sometimes it wasn’t and it became, yeah, just a real stink. There were a couple of chest freezers that we weren’t going to clean out. Um, there’d been no power for a while. Everything had started, things had liquified, so there were things floating [00:38:00] in things. and one of the best ways to deal with that was we would just, uh, record the details of which premises and which freezer it was, and then we’d just duct tape it shut

Shane: Yes.

Stephen: and leave it because it was all, it was never going to be recovered.

Shane: Biohazardous waste,

Stephen: yeah.

Shane: from a garbage disposal point of view, then you are taking stuff away that is well and truly beyond normal sort of waste. Could you just dump it as per normal or was, were there

Stephen: Yeah, it was now that was that waste. The, um, the food waste could just go in the normal landfill. So it just went through the transfer stations and went out to, um, Cape Valley or landfill operating at the time as per normal, um, demolition waste, there were two, three, at least three options for it. Um, one of it was just to be left where it was as it fell.

Um, the [00:39:00] other was that it would be because it was contaminated with all sorts of things you couldn’t use as a clean fill. Um, that would go to a landfill site at Burwood, which was reopened or kept open for the purpose. Um. You couldn’t use it to do anything with because it, it’s got metals and potentially food and furniture and everything else in it.

Um, and the third one, which was much more carefully handled and always had to be, was anywhere where there had been fatalities. And all of that waste was moved, um, very carefully, very, um, respectfully to a location. Um, and that waste was gone through very carefully to make sure that there was nothing that needed to be found and, and dealt with.

Shane: Yes. many people died in the earthquake?

Stephen: Now you’ve got me, it should be etched in my head, but no. Um, the CTV [00:40:00] building was probably the one that was the standout and that’s the one that most of the waste was sorted through very carefully. Oh, no, I’m not even going to guess because I’ll, I’ll either underestimate it. I just, it’s just something that we know.

There’s the memorial wall and, and things like this and, and people we knew were, were killed. So it’s, um, at this point I just know that they did and where,

Shane: And it really, the key difference between the first and the second was the first, Was upsetting. But the, um, the second one was, was, tragic.

Stephen: yeah, the first one, um, way more movement. Um, lots of li Liquifaction. it was spectacular for the liquifaction in areas and we had lots of building guys come down from up and down the country, and even from overseas eventually, to look at, the damage that had been done to buildings and the liquefaction and taking measurements and being really, really interested in it.

Second one. Short, sharp hammer. [00:41:00] Not very, not as long, um, not as much liquefaction, but lots more shock damage to the buildings. That’s one that, that did all of the really major damage that, particularly the CBD buildings.

Shane: I. Had the opportunity of then going through the, um, the CBD on one of

Stephen: Yeah.

Shane: just before they opened it up again. And it really did just seem like a, a zombie movie in that you could just see going past restaurants, you could still see stuff just sitting on the tables where people had just literally got up, walked out, left all that food behind. Um, you are now stepping into behind the scenes and cleaning up a lot of the, the restaurants, but just absolutely everywhere was just food scraps, human existence up and gone. But you didn’t [00:42:00] see at that stage the rat infestation that the fear was.

Stephen: No. Um, with all the broken windows and things, we actually had more issues with birds because the birds would fly through the broken window and as you say, there’s lots of food left on counters and things like that, and the birds would get to it. Um, so that was the biggest animal that we had an issue with.

The other one was, um, just flies, just normal flies. Investing food. So to look in some of those buildings, you could see, um, what people thought were carpets of wrap crap because there’s thousands and thousands of these black cylindrical objects about five millimeters long, and they were actually fly pupa cases.

Shane: Yes.

Stephen: if, so, if you were looking at a, um, a celler, for example, that the door had broken, um, it would be filled with these black cases and you’d be, people would say, it must have been thousands of rats. And it’s like, no, it’s fly er cases and you’ve had the classic maggots and the meat, and now [00:43:00] everything’s gone and you’re left with these.

Shane: So hanging around, did they notice flies further around? Were they complaining about flies

Stephen: Now they didn’t complain about flies, they didn’t complain about rats. Um, they did tell us occasionally that there were very big rats and Basically that was the extent of their discussion was that we occasionally see really big ones. Um, they were much more interested in homeless people that were still drifting around in there.

Shane: Yeah. Okay. So from an uh, environmental health risk point of view, actually having a city shut down. Isn’t a huge, huge risk in terms of impacting what’s around it. So you didn’t see this mass explosion of rats spreading

Stephen: Yep,

Shane: You didn’t see a mass explosion of flies spreading out. but you also then had the city didn’t get repopulated again for years.[00:44:00]

Stephen: yep.

Shane: Um, so the story that we’re telling now could have had a totally different ending if everyone was walking back in three months later, but that

wasn’t the case.

Stephen: If you, the, the, the real difference with, from looking out from an earthquake is that if you’ve got a place that’s flooded, you’re damage to the buildings as much less so. Um, you could go into a flooded building for the sake of argument, cut out all the wall linings, dry it out, replace the carpets, repaint it, do it, do everything you need to do, and then reoccupy it.

in the buildings that we were dealing with, you were being told not to go into them because the engineers were pointing out that the thing could slide off in any one of four directions.

Shane: Yes.

Stephen: It could fall over at any time, and within six or eight months, it wouldn’t be there anymore. So starting new meant absolutely new.

You had to rebuild the whole building or put something there that you could use.

Shane: Um, and so [00:45:00] we’ve joked about, uh, Christchurch having the most shipping containers in the world, uh, but the most port loos in the world. But it got to the stage where Christchurch had the most car parks in the world because it got to the stage where it felt like every second or third building was literally just demolished straight down to the ground. Um, and you just had, had a vacant block. Um, so what percentage of the buildings were destroyed in the end?

Stephen: Oh,

Shane: Well, I’m, I’m getting you with all the stats. You can go, uh, I’ll plead the

Stephen: wouldn’t know. It was pretty significant. Um, there isn’t very much, uh, for me to walk through the central City now. There’s not very much that pre-existed the earthquake. Um, for the CBD in particular, it was really much. On the highs. Um, it would over 60% I [00:46:00] think actually went down in the end.

Shane: Yes,

Stephen: Um, but it’s a combination. Um, any of the o most of the older buildings went,

Shane: yes,

Stephen: anything newer survived.

Shane: yes.

Stephen: Um, so the, um, the IR city council building was survived. Um, the IRD building survived. A couple of the big hotels survived, and a number of the newer shops and, the newer shops and, and supporting administrative and office buildings survived it.

It was a bit of a, a lottery. Um, the city council building was ex post office and sorting office and was over built to start with. Um, so that’s why it survived as far as we can tell is, is yeah, it was over a hundred percent of construction. One of the hotels, which is only just now being refitted, it’s been empty ever since, and they finally sorted out the [00:47:00] insurance issues and they’re rebuilding.

That was way over a hundred percent of the building code at the time because it was built as a possible private hospital. So it was built to a, a resilience hospital standard. And so you had buildings like that and even, um, some of the buildings that survived, one of the hotels, for example, that’s now a hotel, was an office block.

essentially the building itself survived. All the internal staircases disappeared. So they all had to be re.

Shane: Okay. Um, also saw every single church in the place was destroyed, um, and to the point where the controversial bit is what happens to the cathedral slap bang in the middle of Christchurch. Uh, that one, last time I was there still is pretty much

Stephen: Still is under construction.

Shane: a safer version than what it was just after the earthquake, but not much different.

Stephen: Yeah.

Shane: but pretty much all of those a hundred plus Euro [00:48:00] buildings, the big ones now just gone.

Stephen: Yep.

The art center survived. and they probably one of the few buildings that had, uh, significant insurance enough to, to do substantial rebuilding even so they’ve run outta money. Um, the old, one of the first council administrative buildings, what was Canterbury Council? One of the first buildings that, um, housed the local administration still hasn’t progressed.

Um, it was, uh, roofed over to prevent any water getting into it because the top, top of it collapsed in on the bottom. It’s been roofed over to prevent any further damage, but there’s no money to restore it. So it’s sitting, waiting for sufficient funds to come together to restore it.

Shane: Yes. So looping back to the environmental health aspect of it, then, so you are stepping in to try and get rid of a rat infestation. Trying to [00:49:00] potentially, you know, just reduce the health risk. In hindsight, you can now see that it wasn’t until years later that people were stepping back into,

Stephen: Yeah.

Shane: uh, to Reoccupy. What would you now recommend? Best course of action.

Stephen: Best course of action would’ve been basically to pr, essentially prepare a waste site. And that was always going to be mixed weight. So there was no way that you were ever going to go in and clear all of those buildings of everything else that’s in them. So all the furniture and electronics and everything else that would be in an office building or a hotel or anything else was all going to be there when you demolished it.

It would be much more of, look, just find a suitable site that you can transport all of this stuff to, because you can’t use it as pill, you can’t build on it. Um, it’s just got to go somewhere and be managed as waste that you can’t deal with. [00:50:00] Or at the very best, you’re going to have to take it somewhere where someone with a lot of, um, patients is going to sort through it and try to recover all the metals and everything else recycling, but essentially you just gotta move it to somewhere else.

Shane: Yes. And I said in the intro psychologically that was the difference between the first earthquake and the second first earthquake was that hope of let’s quickly rebuild. And the second one was

Stephen: Yeah,

Shane: cutting losses.

Stephen: Yeah, the first one was most of the damage, um, basically went round the other way. Um, most of the damage for the residential red zone was in the first earthquake, all the liquefaction and pipes and everything else. So it was away from the CBD that most of the damage and personal upset and loss of, you know, you lose lost your house and all the rest of it.

That all [00:51:00] happened out there. The second one, it was the CBD that took the biggest hit.

Shane: Yes.

Stephen: the other thing I would say about what we would do differently is we wouldn’t try to get rid of the waste, but the, the whole process of getting people engineering support to go in and recover things from their buildings. Was a good one. Um, because people did at least get a few things, not necessarily money, but it’s the, the things that they’ve had felt they’d left behind.

I mean, some of them, a number of them had had left, wallets and handbags and, you know, all their personal stuff behind had just left. So going and recovering those definitely I would, I would support. But going into clean waste, no.

Shane: Yeah, because the argument was, um, health risk. And

Stephen: Yeah.

Shane: irony was that you were literally taking cleaners, paid to go

Stephen: Yep.

Shane: clean something to remove a [00:52:00] risk, in the process, you are putting them at risk.

Stephen: Yeah.

Shane: Um, and so in hindsight, that other risk didn’t exist, so why put people in that risk at the first

Stephen: Why put people at risk? Yeah. Um, we could have dealt with much smaller groups and been much quicker. I mean, some of the, places that ended up not being engineeringly safe to go in and clean the waste out of, they were still able to later get people in and give them, um, essentially like a 20 minute window.

They’d get a vehicle in there. They would have 20 minutes to get in to the building. There were lots of spotters and engineers and everyone else around. And, um, they would go in and grab stuff. In one particular building, the engineers, um, even the owners weren’t allowed to go in. Uh, they set up with some light rescue people and basically the owners described what they were after and where it was in the building because the building was.

Yeah, bordering on the, well, it was very unsafe. [00:53:00] And so they had, um, to describe everything to these guys, and they went in, in basically full safety gear and everything and, and basically ran in, grabbed what they would’ve been described and ran out again.

Shane: Yes. Yeah. And you don’t want to slam the door on the way out, because

Stephen: No, no,

Shane: ever slam.

Stephen: no. And that, that particular building had shifted on, its, it was broken off at ground level and it moved, so it was now off center

Shane: Yes. Oh.

Stephen: and it was like, uh, yeah, that’s not a good one to be in. So

Shane: Yeah.

Stephen: I.

Shane: Okay. So what’s really interesting about this story is we’ve, we’ve now gone, Hey, look at this role of an EHO, keep people’s lives safe and do all this sort of stuff. And then we get to the end of this, this awesome story and going, but in hindsight, it would’ve been good if we had basically just done nothing and instead focused on other [00:54:00] issues.

Stephen: I think the, the, the biggest point to focus on in the end was the recovery and at the, at the far end. Um, you talked about demolition waste, and we’ve talked about demolition waste. Um, all the things like asbestos and all the rest of it. That was in that, it was, well, what are you going to do when these buildings come down?

They’re likely, you know, you’re going to have to deal with that. Where do, where does it go? How do you deal with it? How do you manage that? Expectations from noise and dust and everything else. Uh, some of these temporary dump sites that we used, or in the sense that temporary time limited because time went, I could, you could say long, um, particularly the demolition and building guys became really used to it because, well, it’s cheaper, closer, and, and faster than going all the way out to the designated landfill, so why can’t we just keep this open?

Shane: Yes.

Stephen: And so they were agitating really hard and everyone who lived on the [00:55:00] roads to and from those sites were, we don’t like the traffic, we don’t like the noise, we don’t like the dust. We don’t know what’s going to happen with the dust coming off this landfill that you’re using. And so from noise, um, dust hazards and all the rest of it that, that we deal with on complaints, that was becoming a bigger issue.

Uh.

Shane: Yes, yes. So in hindsight, um, identify the risk, but actually quantify the risk and then try and focus on what’s gonna be the, uh, most important, um, face it, you know, whatever happened after Christchurch. Part of it was, um, strong knee-jerk reactions. Part of it is nothing like this has ever happened before. Um, and so. Uh, no one can ever be criticized for what happened, but the benefit of hindsight is we can actually now turn around and say, actually, this risk isn’t as big as we thought it was. Um, [00:56:00] and, but focusing on this would’ve been, uh, potentially better. And, um, that’s why it makes for such a good podcast, uh, because it’s about, hey, here’s the lessons learned. And so, yeah,

Stephen: and the thing that happened pretty much as I say the CB. D. Disappeared as a, as a place of operation. But we were dealing particularly, um, I dealt lots and lots and lots with the food, food businesses and recovery. You were dealing with lots of people coming up with great ideas to reuse things like containers, um, small spaces all over the place or their, to recover their food business.

So you were doing what you could say the routine food business stuff, but you know, whereas in, in a normal town, you might get sort of a small percentage of new businesses opening every year. Um, we had 700 open in in 18 months to two years. So you were almost always dealing with people with new businesses.

Um, lots who’d never done it [00:57:00] before or Yeah. Opportunity was still there. So you were busy from that perspective, but the C, b, D until they, until they started to rebuild the stuff in there, you didn’t happen.

Shane: Zombie land. So yeah,

Stephen: Yeah. Um.

Shane: probably a really, really good place to finish this episode. So Steven, thank you very, very much for sharing the, um, the highs and lows, the, um, the smells and the joys of a, um, A CBD turned into a zombie zone. um, and I suspect that we’ll have an episode coming up soon on how to open 700 restaurants in the space of a couple months. yes. So thank you very much, Steven for, for being on EHO knows.