Following Saturday’s earthquake we were finally able to get into Bedford Row on foot yesterday (with army escort!) and see how our building had fared. The news is better than we expected – the building looks virtually untouched, with the exception of one large crack in the facade above the double doors (not visible in the photo above), resulting in a yellow sticker. This means we have restricted access – at this stage we are able to enter the premises (at our own risk) to retrieve business essentials, but we won’t be able to work from our office until it has been assessed further. Which is fine by us – after last night’s encore performance of magnitude 5.0 aftershocks we are quite happy to continue working off site!
Inside, our office looks almost just as we left it on Friday – the only evidence of an earthquake was a few open drawers. We were expecting at the very least to have a fair amount of broken glass to clear up in the kitchen, but every single glass was still intact on our rickety old kitchen shelves! We have been very, very lucky.
Next door is a different story – they have a red sticker, meaning it’s a no-go area. It appears to be due to a collapsed interior wall. Although it seems bad, a red sticker doesn’t necessarily mean the building is condemned, so we are keeping fingers crossed for our neighbours and for us, as their building is attached to ours.
We would like to reassure our clients that their files are all safe and backed up off site. Mel and I are both available and can be reached by email or on our mobiles – you can find all our contact details by clicking the contact link above. We are currently waiting for the second assessment of 16 Bedford Row and will keep you posted!
Tags: Christchurch, earthquake
