 Welcome to the Cal OES News blog. We are found at OESNews.com. Today we're gonna be talking with the longtime television journalist and blogger and TEDxTalks presenter. She's also a former CBS colleague of mine and also a friend of mine as well. She's way down there in New Zealand in Wellington, New Zealand. And this is Pallas Hupe Cotter, now known as Pallas Cotter, but we knew her here as Pallas Hupe. It's so good to see you again, Pallas. How are you? You too, Sean. I'm great. Thank you. Very grateful to live down here despite all the shaking that goes on. Yeah, so tell me about the shaking. This was the Kaikoura earthquake, November 14th, roughly two minutes after midnight, your time. It was 7.8 magnitude. You lived here in California a number of years. I don't think you ever felt anything like that. What did you guys feel there? Well, no, I've never felt anything like this. And we felt it. I was asleep, obviously. It was just past midnight. And often you'll feel a little shake and you'll wonder, okay, should I get out of bed because is it gonna be a big one or not? So there was a little bit of a shake and just groggy waking up and then you realize it's going on a little bit more and then it's starting to get a little more intense. And the first thing I did was grabbed my little dog, which I don't know whether I would recommend, but you don't think necessarily clearly came out of the bedroom yelling to make sure my teenage sons were up. And as it happens, I had two friends visiting from California. So I wanted to make sure they were up and the house just was rocking and rolling. I said, I felt like I was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz as if it was just gonna come right off of its foundations. And you're told to stand under the door jam because that's probably structurally the safest place to be. And you're told to stop, drop and hold. But in the moment, you know, it's just happening both. It just seems like it's happening in slow motion so that your brain isn't even actually working as quickly as it should be. So I don't remember crouching down, but I remember seeing my sons crouched down. And then all, yeah, all I could think of was just, I just can remember hearing glass breaking and feeling myself just thinking, this is it. This is the end. Wow. So how much damage did your home there suffer? None. None. The house can move like this way and then that way. And you hear the creaking of the wood. The glass that I heard shattering was a water glass that fell down. I went downstairs. There were pictures that had fallen off the wall. There were, you know, wine bottles that had fallen over. Nothing had broken. So shockingly, I just looked around and thought, how does a structure move like this and not show cracks in the plaster? Now, that was me. There were friends of mine who lived down in Wellington proper on reclaimed land or in high rises and they were a mess. Things had just been thrown out of cabinets. All kinds of wine glasses had broken and they were higher up or on somewhat shakier ground. Wow. So now let's give everybody sort of an idea of where Wellington is, Wellington proper compared to where the epicenter of this earthquake was. Kaikoura is roughly 95 miles south of Wellington proper and it was, there's a straight. It's called the Cook Straight right across that separates the two, the two islands there. And yet despite the fact that you were 95 miles away and an ocean barrier between the two, you felt obviously a lot of shaking, a lot of rocking and rolling as well as your friends. Well, exactly. It's interesting, you know, quakes are so unpredictable and so unique and individual so they can impact depending on how deep they are or what kind of shaking or slip it is, it can impact different areas. So the immediate thought after the earthquake was what's happening in Christchurch because it was close enough to Christchurch only a couple of hours away, but for some reason and I'm sure you know, the specific reason and the geological reason, it didn't impact Christchurch as much as it did us here in Wellington. So it's stunning. Even people up in Auckland, which is an eight hour drive north, woke up with a little bit feeling a little bit. So it was really stunning how widely felt this was and I remember hearing news reports of the people in the Kaikoura area sort of being frustrated because all they were hearing was news of the damage in Wellington. But the fact is, and you know this from being in news, they just couldn't get the crews there to take the pictures and talk to people. So they might get a landline if they're lucky but it was right here in Wellington where the news stations are based where you could do more of the reporting and see more of the damage. So I would assume that there was no real kind of warning. This kind of struck out of nowhere. Well, earthquakes do. I mean, there are slight 30 second warning systems that you can purchase around the world. But and in some cases, maybe if you have a power plant or something like that, that might help. But for the average citizen, there's no warning. Even 30 seconds wouldn't give you a chance to do much. I mean, the advice is if you ever have warning to switch off power and gas and things like that. But you know, at midnight, you're groggy. You're just trying to get out of the bed and figure out what's going on. We have such strong winds in Wellington that they can rock the house. And so I've said you've never been living in a country where you can, it's hard to distinguish between an earthquake and winds. So literally you'll spend that 30 seconds saying, is this wind? Is this an earthquake? Do I need to get out of bed? Oh, I do. And then it's gone. So a warning system wouldn't be very helpful. Right. A prayer might be. A prayer might be. Having your earthquake kit would be very helpful. Do you have a lot of people? Oh, yes, I do. Tell me that. Well, I went and got one set up after the first one that I felt, which was in the sixes. I mean, the first significant one that I felt. But I've got one in the car and I've got several bags in the house. And they, of course, include canned food, extra pair of clothes, but things like masks to cover yourself, you know, from breathing in particulates, water purification tablets. After this one, I'm just telling you some random things. I went and got Calm X pills for my puppy dog because he did not sleep for 40 hours straight because it just kept shaking and shaking. So you want to think about your pets and what they need, some food, some treats, funny things that you might not think of putting in or just coffee and tea because you don't want to be in an aftermath of a situation with lots of water and that you don't have your daily fix of coffee. Even I learned from watching someone who'd been through the Christ Church, Rose Quakes, and this is getting rather down and dirty, but it's important to know you have to have lots of toilet paper, newspaper, and plastic bags to deal with all of that. Tarps are a good idea. I went and purchased some tarps after this one. Matches lighters in protective plastic coating or bags, and also having a copy of your homeowner's insurance or renter's insurance to cover your contents, having that in a plastic bag to just have that copy with you. Of course, you can do that digitally as well, but there's nothing like having a paper copy with you and any spare cash to have on hand because cash doesn't continue to come if they can't refill the ATMs. That's right. Gas in the gas tank, something to cook food on, you know, a grill or a little portable thing. So that's just a selection of items. No, it sounds like you are more prepared than most of the people that we deal with on a day-to-day basis here at Cal OES. Was this something that was sort of brought to your attention when you first moved down there? Like, we have faults. We have a lot of tremors. You need to make sure that you have your emergency preparedness kit, and, you know, is that something that they put out there a lot? Well, they do, but they don't have to. Well, they should actually, I should say, I'm probably one of 15% of people who is that well-prepared, even in New Zealand. But when we moved here, it was within three weeks that we got, I think it was just a 4.5 shake, but we were in a restaurant, and I was watching all the wine bottles in the bar move back and forth. And all it took for me, not having grown up in an area where it shakes all the time, is one experience like that to think, okay, this is real. This is something we do need to be prepared for. So I probably may be coming from a news background, you know, think about, okay, this is what I need to do. But even with the public service announcements and the public information campaigns, human beings are human beings, and we don't get to the point of doing things that are maybe not required until we absolutely have to. So after a strong earthquake like this, lots of people went out and purchased earthquake kits, but people who've grown up here and no better basically have told me it took this shake to get them into gear. Well, sometimes it does take something a little more out of the ordinary to kind of wake people up. I agree. I mean, when I lived in Florida, the first couple of storms that we dealt with, were such a big deal. But when one of the big three hurricanes came through when we were down there and we had to evacuate, and my wife evacuated to Orlando, I was stuck covering the hurricanes, and I'll tell you, you really start to make that mental checklist of the things that you really need to have and to make sure that your loved ones have those things so that they're prepared. If you're separated in any way, shape, or form, you want to make sure and have that ease of consciousness that everybody is going to be okay. Mm-hmm, absolutely. Yeah. And it's a shame that it takes having to experience it to get the message through. So hopefully things like this interview will help get the message through because if this had been just that much stronger, you know, a lot of people would have been in trouble because they wouldn't have been prepared. I got to tell you, I've seen some of the video online and what really kind of blew me away more than anything was to see the sea floor having risen up along State Highway 1, six feet or more in some places. That's a visual that I will never forget. Have you seen that footage as well? I've seen it. I mean, clearly I haven't been anywhere down near it, but it is, it's hard to wrap your brain around that the Earth can move in such a dramatic way in just a matter of minutes. It has made some people question why they live here, but as you just mentioned, you've got hurricanes in the other part of the world and you've got, you know, tornadoes and, see, there's always something that's going to get you. And I always say, you know, living in California, in the California, in New Zealand is great because, you know, when you go hiking, there are no critters, there are no snakes, there are no poisonous spiders. There's nothing that's going to get you except the weather. And in that weather, umbrella, I would include earthquakes. They are, they are significant and it is hard to imagine, but the power of Mother Nature is awesome in the truest sense of the word. It really is, Pal. So I'm so glad to hear and to see that you are fine, that your family's fine, your friends and everybody's okay. It really helps having seen your posts on Facebook to know that everybody's okay. I love the picture that you included with you guys hiding under the table. That was fantastic. Drop cover and hold on. That's what they preach here in California. Yes. Well, and that was my California friend with me and I have to say I was, I was blessed to have someone who knew what to do with me because it made it a lot easier. I do want to point out that down on the waterfront in Wellington, there are still several buildings closed. There are many government departments where people have not been allowed to go back to work. So even though things are quiet, you are going to see the costs of this, just build and build and build into the billions because even from just two minutes worth of shaking, the damage it does, even though I was fortunate enough in my house not to have suffered any, was really significant and tremendous. So, yeah, it can be, it can displace you, even if your home hasn't been hurt, you can find your out of a job in some cases, but certainly out of your workplace for weeks at a time. So hopefully this doesn't happen anytime soon down there in California, up there in California, I should say. Yeah, right, right, right. One last question here. Have you heard of any international aid that is being planned or that has maybe already arrived? You know, that's a very good question. I have not heard about that because from a human point of view, there's not a humanitarian disaster. We had two deaths and, you know, some displaced business people down in the Kaikoura region, not to say that they haven't responded. I know that the Red Cross has responded, but I think that's, you know, I don't know if that's been an international effort to raise funds or if they just did it within the country, but I think had it been more a humanitarian crisis, you would have seen more of that covered in the news, but there are probably, you know, NGOs and aid organizations operating that I'm, you know, that are international and so are using international funds, but no governments that I know have reached out because not necessary because of people, so that's good. And that's the good, that's the silver lining in this cloud, I think, the fact that nobody was really, really hurt other than the two folks who did die. Well, had it been, had it been during the work day in Wellington, you would have seen significant number of injuries because we had one stats building it as it's a ministry, an entire floor, pancake down onto the other. Wow. Wow. So, and I have a friend who works there, you know, so that could have been very significant. We were very fortunate that it happened at midnight. Absolutely. That's one of those things that you look back on and say, thank goodness. Pallas, it's so good to hear you and so good to see you. Thank you for taking the time to share your experiences and giving us sort of a first person account. The old Pallas Hoopay reporter is coming out of you and it's great to have you. Pallas Cotter, thank you so much. And we want to let everybody know that if you want to learn more about this, we'll have more information at oesnews.com and call oes.ca.gov. Pallas, thank you and say hi to your family for us and be well. Thank you, Sean, and keep up the good work you all do at OES. Thanks, we'll do.