This story is no longer valid.
It’s at times like these you realise who your true friends and supporters are.
After the 7.1 earthquake struck Christchurch on Saturday, 4 September 2010, our servers and phones went down. Power was out. Since both Noel and I were in the United States at the time, Don Kendall, Soni Cayadi and our personal friends Adam and Katrina went (separately) to check out the NaSA campus. All reported back that, while there was some damage inside, the building was okay, which was a great relief to all of us.
Because the servers and phones were down, students, staff and supporters had no way initially to see if NaSA was okay. (Noel and I were in Chicago, fretting… CNN had continuing news stories and images on-line were showing stricken buildings near NaSA over and over again.) This is where our Facebook page was a God-send because it kept everyone in the loop.
Big kudos to Don and Jacqui Anderson for handling the initial response and keeping Noel and me in the loop. Also a big shout-out to Adam Lyness for volunteering to help out and for going out of his way to see if NaSA was okay!
Phil Whittaker (our IT guy) came in and got everything up and running again. A huge thank you to him for doing that! (A big thanks to his wife, Emma Whittaker, for her help and support as well!)
And our team… a big thank you to Catherine, Suzie, Shelley, Becky, Robyn, Angela and Soni for their help and support. It’s at times like these we are truly thankful for such a wonderfully awesome team!
Once the phones and servers were up and running, the offers of help came flooding in, first on Facebook, then through email and telephone calls. Students, clients, graduates were all contacting us to see if they could help. To be honest, with health and safety the way it is, we couldn’t accept that, but we want to say a big heartfelt thank you to all of you for your support and caring!
NaSA isn’t only a campus, a building, a collection of history and courses and diplomas on the wall, but it’s a community, a family, and this event has proven that beyond a doubt. It’s made up of the people involved in it. If the building fell and was a pile of rubble, that didn’t matter so much as long as everyone was okay, because we could rebuild or move to a different building in the worst case scenario.
When Jacqui called me to tell me about the initial earthquake, the first thing I said was, “Is everyone okay?” And that’s all that matters: everyone is okay.
I can’t express in words how thankful Noel, Don, Jacqui, Catherine, Suzie, Shelley, Becky, Robyn, Ange, Soni and I are for all your support and offers of help. Thank you so much — we can’t operate without you — and we hope you are all well in these trying times.