The plan has been to leave the response to the Canterbury earthquake for a few days but the disaster in Australia with the floods & the front page news here in relation to the EQC & insurers have meant it needs to be dealt with now.
First the Australian floods are another disaster for this part of the world. A part that pretty much thought itself in the same vein as Australia likes to call itself "the lucky country".
If memory serves one town hit by the floods we spent a night in as part of the NZ Army & it hadn't rained there for four years until the night we showed up. Later on in the exercise another area claimed no rain for something like 16 years until the day we showed. So we got an invite back, but no one would of thought back then of the devastation now been wrought.
After the disaster though comes the recovery & hopefully Australia's is much better managed than those here in New Zealand have been of late.
The Pike River Mine disaster is an on going tragedy & will be until they retrieve the bodies of the miners.
Right now though you are seeing the anger & frustration I have talked about in previous posts starting to show through.
In Monday's 'Press' there was a front page headline about how ex police officers were been used as assessors. But that head line obscured the real issue of poor assessments & the inability to show empathy. It says later on that each property was visitored by two assessors. One is a trade qualified builder.
Natural Disasters
Well seems really depnds on who you get. As I said my friends house was visited by one builder assessor to assess one part only, but who could empathize with the damage through out the property.
Whilst the main builder assessor dismissed much of the damage as already present when you could tell it quite clearly wasn't.
Other issue is my friends have started to fix their bathroom just so the cabinet maker can work their frustration out I suspect. That work though has revealed at least four cracks(of which photos have now been taken) in one wall the assessor said were not there as they could not be seen. Well I could tell they were there just by deformity in the wall.
But then the body corporate representative did the same thing when I said I could hear the roof clicking here. After I gave him his pedigree he said it was because there was no visible crack(which duly started to show a week later)but I could see the ridge caused by the movement in the roof & a board out of place not to mention the undulations in other parts. To me that equals a weakening of the roof. It also shows that there is damage though not fully visable yet.
Natural Hazards: Earth's Processes as Hazards, Disasters, and Catastrophes (3rd Edition)
Which when I think about it fits with how the outside wall has now moved inward at the top as the bottom has bowed slightly.
This constant poor assessment & claims of people trying to rip the system off is causing more anger & frustration.
Today's 'Press' headlines show people asking for an independant body to sort out the differences as many having the insuarnce companies saying one thing & EQC another. One showed a difference of $54,000 in costs to repair, whilst another was told to move back into their house after EQC had said it was uninhabitable.
I think Goofy or Pluto must be in charge here.
All is glibly dealt with by the CEO of EQC saying most people dealt with have been satisfied. He says adding another body to ensure issues were sorted would basically slow things down. He is right but it would also expose the corruption & incompetence of EQC.
His statement of most been happy?
Well he is wrong & out of touch!
Most are been told that is it!
Like it or lump it!
There is also the 'Kiwi' reserve about not wanting to rock the boat. Time it was rocked good & proper. I know some people are getting groups together of neighbourhoods to do just that. It would go to the courts if the financial crisis was not about to add to the financial woes of those hit.
I have only heard two people satisfied so far. One in Rangiora where by the sounds of it it was actually organized & I believe they used equipment to test for unseen damage(which has been mentioned here but as far as I am aware very few if any in Christchurch have seen it). The other didn't even see anyone as person calling in was a former master builder so they took their word at it.
Disasters: Natural and Man-Made Catastrophes Through the Centuries
Of course there will be some people trying to rip the system off but from what I have seen so far people know their property a lot better than the assessors & they only want their property restored to a good liveable, safe state.
They are too traumatised to be worried about getting extra cash, but the more EQC & co-horts make a meal of the recovery operations, the more people are likely to start trying that sort of thing.
Like ACC & WINZ they will actually create the environment that causes people to take those measures to rip the system off. EQC like those other entities are the issue not the solution.
Natural Disasters
In the meantime in the US there has been a mass shooting including a member of the US Congress. Some say it was an assasination attempt.
So what has that got to do with natural disasters?
Well the most obvious issue that has brought on this type of incident is the financial crisis & growing Sovereign debt crisis which both have not hit Australia or New Zealand hard yet.
Throw in poor response to natural disasters then at worst you have similar types of events or as was expressed the other day in the recovery Ministers electorate, "there is no way they are voting for him next election". His response to the locals has been poor & the whole recovery has been poor.
With the latest electoral poll showing the next election in New Zealand could be a close one, continued poor response to the disasters could be the straw that broke the camels back. Not to mention the expected austerity measures in the next budget, lack of work which could result in riots going on overseas experience.
Natural Hazards and Disasters
It is at times like these that radical extremist governments are elected even under MMP(it is how the Nazis got to power-coming out of a hyperinflation period then hit by world depression & a fire at the Reichstag(German Parliament).
EQC are making a hash of the recovery as are the government. It needs to be fixed & fixed now!
As one Australian sports reporter said "New Zealand is a Gunna country. We are Gunna(going to) do this or Gunna do that, but we never do."
I sincerely hope that the Australia response to recovery is much swifter & better planned.
http://www.foxhoundsecurity.co.nz
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