I, for one, never saw it coming. An earthquake in Wellington? Sure. Napier, same. A tsunami in Dunedin or volcanic eruption in Auckland, yeah, ok, but Christchurch? From the first tweets on Saturday morning to the ongoing aftershocks, one story has rightfully dominated the news, and as it has it’s put a few previous headlines into a new light. So here’s an incomplete shortlist of what the Earthquake has put into perspective:

1. Auckland’s Motorway

On Friday, much of the news was concerned with convincing us that closing about half a kilometre of road for 36 hours was about to plunge Auckland into Automotive Armageddon. What a crock. Even before the news came in from down south, I can assure readers from outside the 09 that most of us were deeply embarrassed. Apparently the idea that we were capable of finding something as exotic as an “alternative route” was too implausible. No, we’d all drive straight into the jaws of gridlock, and stay there, sipping our lattes and blithely using our cellphones to explain why we’d be late for Father’s Day luncheon. No wonder you dislike us so much.

Of course, as it happened, the closure went smoothly, the road reopened hours early, and we all watched genuine disruption in the Christchurch CBD with a mixture of humility and awe.

2. The Government Can Get Some Stuff Right

Ok, maybe John Key waited a couple of days too long to cancel his high tea with the Queen, but from getting down there early, through both him and Phil Goff cancelling the petty spectacle of Question Time to the fact that the oft-derided “patch and paste” earthquake-proofing of some buildings over the last decade or so seems to have worked, it’s times like these that people like me have to back off. Temporarily.

3. Civil Defence and the EQC

Remember earlier this year, when Civil Defence was attracting flak for “unnecessary” tsunami warnings? When there were calls for the system to be overhauled and for some level of restraint to be implemented on when and how they could issue warnings?

Turns out, CD is not only necessary, but when something unexpected does happen they’re very, very good at their jobs. Same goes for the Earthquake Commission, who had online claims information up within hours of the quake on Saturday.

It all goes to show that we need to protect the public institutions we have, even if we can’t imagine ever using them. CD, EQC, ACC – whatever the acronym, this week has proven that we let our politicians meddle with them at our own peril.

4. New Media

Both of our major news networks attracted some criticism over the weekend, mainly for the speed of their response, and mainly fuelled by the fact that they were “scooped” by so-called citizen journalists posting reports, images and videos of what was happening on social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook et al. I personally feel this criticism was undeserved. A couple of facts to bear in mind; local journalists are just that – local. They were in the same boat as everyone else at the time, checking on their own homes and families, and I don’t for a moment begrudge them for doing that before running into the night to go to work. Secondly, it’s not easy broadcasting from anywhere without power.

So yes, social media came into its own – and was utilised by the traditional media well, with them broadcasting images and interviews via cellphone to fill in before they could get their own resources up and running. At the same time, social media showed its most glaring inherent flaw – lack of oversight. The early reports regarding Jim Anderton’s comments the night before were at best entirely wrong, and in a couple of instances, deliberately malicious lies. So whilst new technology is undoubtedly changing the nature of reporting, traditional research based journalism is still what we wait for, and learn from.  

The same can also be said about natural disasters. We wait - hopefully we wait for our entire lifetimes, but if and when they do happen, hopefully we also learn.