Busy holidays

The holiday period had a bit going on emergency-wise!

Boxing Day started early with a 3am wake-up call from the National Warning System, letting us know that the quake in in Vanuatu wasn't going to cause us any tsunami problems (I hope everyone in Vanatu came out of it all right!)

Later that day Canterbury had a rather rude series of aftershocks which caused more damage to properties, and gave some people a hell of a fright while they were making the most of the Boxing Day sales.

A couple of days later things got a bit breezy... The Rimutaka Hill road was closed for several hours as winds gusted over 150km/h, and Wellington recorded 172km/hr! There were roofs lifting, trees & power lines down, and more than a couple of probably brand-new trampolines being blown into buildings.

Much of the rest of the country received more rainfall than they really wanted in such a short time, with many rivers flooding - http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/4500399/Flooding-worst-in-150-years, and campers being forced to abandon their tents to rising waters.

Don't forget to ask for help if you need it - we generally don't know if something is wrong unless someone actually tells us! http://www.stuff.co.nz/marlborough-express/news/4505316/No-call-to-Civil-Defence. Ring 111, ring your council, let people know when there is a problem!