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Four years on from the 22 February Christchurch earthquake, the city still has a long way to go. The city centre is not as alive and buzzing as it once was, despite the best efforts of the Restart Mall, set up where Cashel Mall once was. The eastern side of the city is littered with road works, detours, potholes and desolate, empty-looking houses. These lingering aspects of the earthquake make it almost impossible to move on. A lot of people in Christchurch are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or are experiencing high levels of long-term stress due to the lack of stability offered to them.

Anne, a resident in eastern Christchurch, spoke of the initial stress she experienced on the day of the quake. She was home alone, standing in her kitchen, when it hit. The cupboards flew open, flinging her plates and glasses at her. All she could do was drop to her knees and cover her head. It was two hours before she heard from her husband and two of her daughters, then another three hours before she heard from her youngest daughter. She was unable to leave the house to try to find her family as the liquefaction and earthquake damage had rendered the streets impossible to drive on.

She had food and water supplies stashed away, but they were on the opposite side of the kitchen. It took her several hours before she was able to clear all the broken shards enough to enable her to get to the supplies: “I kept myself busy trying to clear a path through the rubble so when my family got home we could at least reach the food and water.” It was another month before Anne and her family had power and water again.

Another Christchurch resident, Tania Gilchrist, lived on the opposite side of the city. She was thrown across her lounge before the shaking subsided. Her first action was to locate her children. A friend was able to get her across town to pick up her younger daughter from school. Eventually she heard from her son that he was fine. Her elder daughter, who should have been at work or at her house in the centre city, was actually out in the country instead — meaning she was safe from harm. Tania then headed to Dunedin to stay with family for a week while things settled down in Christchurch. The most important thing to her was the comfort and safety of her family: “It was a matter of tracking down the kids; I left the mess in the house.”

In spite of the earthquakes, a great sense of community and support developed because of the events that followed. Tracey Johnstone reported that both of her sons did their best to help others. Her elder son drove all over the city to take friends home from university, while her younger one stopped to pick up a stranger who was desperately trying to get to his child’s school. Many Christchurch residents had to deal with no power and no water in the following month. Anne reported that her husband sorted out a large 500-litre tank on the back of his trailer, went to a friend’s house to fill it with water from their artesian well, then allowed the whole neighbourhood to take advantage of it. Tracey also reported people setting up generators so there was some limited access to power when they would otherwise have none.

Canterbury University students were not exempt from the impact of the earthquakes. A former Canterbury student said that he struggled with study because many of the lecture theatres were now unusable, “meaning [they] were forced to use tents or go to other campuses.” Every time there was a large aftershock, classes would be cancelled so the safety of the buildings could be assessed. Another Canterbury student, Mat Daniel, also said that in the first few weeks, “lecturers often didn’t have access to rooms or equipment” that they required. This interrupted and inconsistent university year made it hard for students to focus.

The biggest obstacle in the way of people moving forward is the rebuild, restart, insurance aspect of the ordeal. Four years on from the initial damage to her home, Anne is still waiting. She has known that her house would be a rebuild for at least three years, and despite this she is still living in the damaged house. She is waiting on her insurance company to provide her with a new home. She said that “dealing with the insurance claim has been far more stressful than the thousands of earthquakes we experienced … It’s a different kind of stress, not of danger but of frustration and uncertainty.” Only in the last month have things slowly start to move forward with house plans. Anne said there was an 18-month period where she heard almost nothing about her claim.

Kelly and Matt, a young couple in Christchurch, are also enduring the long wait with insurance. They own two properties, the house they lived in and the neighbouring property. Both were badly damaged over the course of all the earthquakes, and they waited for a long time for insurers to acknowledge the damage to their property. A year ago they got lawyers involved in the discussion, but nothing has changed yet. Kelly and Matt have had their first child in the last year, and so are living at her parents’ house because they didn’t feel safe in their own home.

Talking Therapy is a counselling service in Christchurch. Experienced psychotherapist and counsellor, Mark Piercy, said that there are “a good number of people still seeking help.” According to Piercy, there are two main groups of people coming to them for help. The first group includes people dealing with PTSD, diagnosed or undiagnosed. Many of these people “will not go into tall buildings, or can get panicky if a truck goes past.” Some of these people may have seemed to cope well to begin with, “but have finally run out of ‘cope’ and previous mechanisms are no longer able to work.” The second group are people who are stuck in the repair and rebuild process with insurance companies without having made any progress. Piercy stated that “anxiety and depression are common” for this group.

Long-term stress causes people to have difficulty dealing with their surroundings. This inability to cope can come from PTSD or even just the long-term impact of having to deal with insurance and unstable surroundings. Long-term stress can be dangerous for your mind and body. Adrenalin and cortisol are natural stress hormones that are released when a person goes through trauma or experiences a threat. Adrenalin gives the fight-or-flight response; it mobilises stored energy reserves that trigger a short-term energy increase. Someone in adrenalin mode will be extremely focused on the problem at hand, and will struggle to stop or slow down. The body shuts down certain functions in order to go into this survival mode, meaning that it is not at all sustainable. With every new threat, more adrenalin is released, which means that the focus is always on the problem, and it’s almost impossible to see the positive side of things.

Cortisol, on the other hand, sets you up for long-term stress. Cortisol is released into the body after an adrenalin rush. It preserves the body’s resources and shuts down most functions not related to survival. While this is normal, excessive amounts of cortisol can leave people feeling emotionally numb, except for emotions like fear, shock and anger. People also experience an inability to take action, with little interest in social interactions. Cortisol affects the ability to problem solve and process complex information, so decision making is difficult.

Anne is experiencing the effects of long-term excessive cortisol. She finds it very hard to make decisions in her everyday life and had to leave her full-time volunteer job as a result. In the last year she has sought out counselling and support services, and is on her way to getting better. She is particularly shocked that while she has been in this state, she has had to make serious decisions about the rebuild of her home. She struggles to see the positive side of anything and struggles to see how her home will be okay or that the future is something to look forward to, a common attitude in those struggling in Christchurch.

Children aren’t safe either from the emotional impact of the earthquakes. Since the earthquakes, the number of stressed children admitted for mental-health treatment has doubled. The years of aftershocks and constant interruptions to normal routine have had a large impact on the children of the region. University of Canterbury Associate Professor Dr Kathleen Liberty is conducting an on-going study that examines five-year-olds starting school in eastern and southern Christchurch. The study has found that there may be as many as one in three children displaying symptoms of PTSD in the wake of the earthquakes.

Piercy said that moving on from PTSD is a slow and arduous process. Many people feel shame that they haven’t fully gotten over it yet, and others feel overwhelmed by the very feelings they are having. He feels that the best thing people can do for themselves is to take “time out for a coffee or a friend, exercise, and make time for small enjoyments and setting limits on the “have to do” list.”

Many University of Otago students have moved from Christchurch to Dunedin to escape the earthquakes and related damage or distractions. Bridget Harris said that she found the earthquakes were incredibly distracting for her while she finished up high school, and ultimately they helped motivate her to move to Dunedin. Other students found that upon shifting from Christchurch to Dunedin they were able to “focus on study” more because “Otago University had less distractions” such as the aftershocks, more earthquakes and all the related drama. However, some students decided to stay in Christchurch to study. Some found that the earthquakes had little impact on their study overall. Mat Daniel also chose to stay, in large part because he had already been studying at the University of Canterbury for a while and didn’t want to end established relationships with lecturers.

Urban decay is the term for when a city or parts of a city fall into disrepair and decay. This has not been seen often in New Zealand. However, Christchurch is now a prime example of this phenomenon. Through eastern Christchurch, especially, there are large pockets of badly damaged areas. This is where all the houses that fall into the “yet to be fixed or rebuilt” category are. Many of these areas make up the red zone. There are sinkholes and potholes in the roads, overgrown and forgotten lawns, empty homes with smashed-in windows and graffiti on the walls.

Even the Foo Fighters front man, Dave Grohl, commented on the red zone at the Christchurch concert on 18 February. He cycled right through the city, from the west to the east. He noted that the further he went, the more he saw these desolate areas, but he still felt that Christchurch was a “beautiful city”. There are several groups who are trying to turn the many red-zoned, empty areas of Christchurch into parks with a cycling and walk track running through.

At the moment, living near the red zone can be tough. Kelly reported that her cars have been broken into multiple times, and one was even lit on fire because people assume it’s all abandoned. Anne said that before the red-zone houses on her block were demolished, people would often break into the empty houses and damage them even more. It would cause her a lot of stress hearing people over the fence late at night, as she knew there should be no one there. People also treat the red zone as their personal dumping ground, leaving trash in the area because they assume that the whole neighbourhood is abandoned, when in fact there are still many people living in these areas, waiting for their homes to be repaired.

The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) is an organisation put together by the government to facilitate Christchurch’s recovery from the earthquakes. Part of its job is to clean up and do something positive with the red-zone areas of Christchurch. A CERA representative explained that there is a public engagement process where residents of Christchurch get to submit ideas for what they want to do with these areas. This process has already happened in the Waimakariri district, where “nearly 600 people contributed over 2750 ideas.” These ideas are now being processed and a plan will come out in later 2015.

However, because “the Christchurch red zones have much more complex infrastructure issues to work through,” it is going to take some time “before the public engagement process can begin.” CERA anticipates that they will be able to begin the public engagement process for Christchurch later in 2015, after these issues have been resolved.

In the short term, however, CERA say they are doing their best to clear the red zones of all dwellings — houses, sheds, garages, etc. By the end of February they will “have completed approximately 89 per cent (approx. 6,300) of the property clearance in the flat land red zone by the end of February, with the remaining 11 per cent (approx. 750 properties) to be completed by 30 June 2015. When it is able to, CERA removes the homes in clusters, so as to minimise disruption to people still living in these areas. CERA also spends in “excess of $3 million a year on maintenance of the Crown-owned red zone land,” which includes “regular mowing of lawns and weed spraying in order to keep these areas in a reasonably tidy state ahead of decisions about future use of the land.” CERA also provides a 24-hour security patrol and electronic surveillance in order to provide comfort and reassurance to the surrounding community.

Gap Filler is an organisation that has started to make a difference in town. Gap Filler aims to fill all the empty lots in the city centre where buildings once were with creative and community-focused things. Like a mini-golf course, for example, or a dance-o-mat or a book exchange. A lot of art work is showing up, slowly making the city a more vibrant and interesting place to walk around — rather than a depressing pile of rubble symbolising everything that once was.

Talking Therapy offers free earthquake-related counselling for those who feel they need it, and CERA has also put various support systems in place for people who require it. There’s everything from a social support line, to a support service specifically aimed at those struggling with getting their home rebuilt, to advisors available to discuss issues with the rebuild/repair process. It also offers help with getting temporary accommodation when needed. Several Facebook pages have popped up to act as support groups for those going through the various stages of rebuild/repair.

Despite the seemingly overwhelming negative impact of the earthquakes, what has become apparent is the new and supportive community emerging in Christchurch.