2 March 2011:
World Travellers Christchurch City shares a moment of silence and remembrance for the victims of the Christchurch earthquake with some of the fire boys at Harewood Firestation in Christchurch.
One week on, the whole World Travellers Christchurch team joined the country to observe two minutes silence for the victims of the Christchurch earthquake.
Speaking from under the Fire Service flag pole with the flag at half mast, World Travellers Christchurch City’s Managing Director, Larry Lumsden,spoke on behalf of his team, thanking the firemen for the incredible work that the fire service have carried out in the past week. “We’re in front of the Harewood Fire Station with 4 fire boys who have been in the thick of it.” says Lumsden. “Even the fire station has been in the wars. The fire boys have to park their fire engine outside because the station is unstable.”
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From the left, Mark Bain from Galileo, Robyn Davies, Kay Whiteford, Larry Lumsden, Amanda Storrier, Janice Davies and Karen Bradshaw with four of the Harewood firemen.
Lumsden had spent the morning accompanied by one of his team and a structural engineer picking up important documents from their damaged premises in the CBD, and spoke very emotionally of the devastation there. He likened it to a warzone, and was very pleased to be back at their new premises well away from the CBD, where they are fully operational.
1 March 2011:
As you are aware, last Tuesday afternoon we experienced a second major earthquake which has greatly affected Christchurch. I wanted to take this opportunity to keep you abreast of developments for World Travellers Christchurch City.
Firstly, all of us got out of the building safely. It was an absolute miracle that we were all in the office and not out buying lunch or shopping as would normally be the case. The office has taken a hit but it is sound enough to have withstood any major structural damage. We were flooded by burst water mains and liquefaction and it is unusable for the foreseeable future. The power, water and sanitation concerns will determine when the inner city can be re-entered and so in the meantime we have taken the view that Armagh Street is probably not going to be reoccupied for some time.
We have relocated all of our wonderful team to our inbound travel office, South Pacific Travellers World Ltd in Harewood. This office is safe, has power and water and we have space for everyone. We are next to the fire station at Level 1, 538 Wairakei Road and diagonally opposite Terra Viva Garden Centre and Café. We are fully operational; all electronic files and back-ups have been recovered and we have had access to airline reservation systems and online client files since the day after the quake.
We sincerely hope that you are all safe and comfortable for now. Inevitably some of you will have been closely affected and we are sorry for that. If we can help you in any way, then please contact us. We will be mobile and capable of coming to see you if you cannot get out to us.
Please bear with us a little longer as we make our way through the numerous lists of urgent work that need to be done in terms of staff welfare, client welfare and systems and communications.
Very best wishes to you all.