Topic: Hey Still Thinking... How's Whakatane?

I hear its a bit wet down there!

I hope it isn't affecting you too much...

The flood damage looks pretty bad at the moment.

2 people dead already and they've been having earthquakes as well.

My Dad and Brother live in Tauranga and work in Te Puke so am not sure if they're even going to be able to get to work. I hear that there are a lot of slips and road closures down there.

Not good.

Sprakley Gal, I was just about to post this, I know a few people that live in Whakatane, and a couple that live in Ohope. I hope they are all alright.

But who wants to entertain on this deck??

(Picture stolen from www.nzherald.co.nz)

Just an indication to those non-nzers what is happening down in the lil ole Bay of Plenty at the moment.

I have to wonder if the earthquakes have been caused by all the extra weight sitting on the ground pushing down on the techtonic plates and releasing any "stress".

Well it is possible

I was wondering if they were linked somehow...I mean it is surely just too conincidental...I was discussing my theory with a lady here at work yesterday, and she just looked at me as if to say "how can you think the two are linked" so I asked her if she thought that God was in a bad mood and just picked the BOP to throw some shit at.

It certainly seems that they are linked to me.

There have been a huge amount of quakes in the BOP since the area was completely flooded.

Yeah, I wonder what the BOP did to piss God off so much

I am alive!!

Yeah it is pretty devastating down here

Spent 5 hours helping sandbag in town to prevent the CBD from flooding, thankfully that was successful.

The weirdest thing about that was, after parking the car (which got semi drowned by the way!) and walking to where they were sandbagging, was looking over and UP and seeing the Tour Boats floating damn near at the top of the stopbanks, wish I had my cmaera with me.

I have some photos I took from a lookout above town on monday that I will post on my website, got nothing else to do, as I have no work for atleast the rest of the week. We are on septic tanks at work, while we didn't get any flood waters through, the area out the back where the septic tanks are is still under about a foot of water apparently.

As for the earthquakes, thats all we needed! People were starting to panic that the Matahina Dam had suffered damage, but that was not the case.

Also if you hear stories of looting, ignore them, the police have said that there has been no increase in crime in town, and who would want to pinch sodden stuff anyway?

I'll post here again when I have the pics up

Oh and it is raining again, and more earthquakes!

oh Man Still thinking, my thoughts are with you guys...

Someone sent me these pics yesterday...(I know someone who lived in the area for ages)

http://www.envbop.govt.nz/flood-images.asp

Yeah its interesting how all the earthquakes are happening, I've been keeping an eye on geonet at the earth quakes...the last one a 4.4 at 3am.

www.geonet.org.nz

Yikes. Always more real when you hear about it from someone actually going through it.

The earthquakes must be really frightening ... I felt a very mild earthquake when I was in Rotorua once ... it was freaky ... the ground was sort of rippling. I didn't like it, no siree, I didn't like it at all.

Earthquakes are cool, we sued to get the m all the time in Wellington. When I first moved up here I felt the gorund shake and jumped under the desk, people thought I was werid, it was just a big digger moving out in the yard