Men and boys at a temporary camp site on Marine Parade after the 1931 earthquake. Photos / Knowledge Bank
Men and boys at a temporary camp site on Marine Parade after the 1931 earthquake. Photos / Knowledge Bank
In 1931, on February 3, disaster struck Hawke's Bay.
More than 200 people died in an earthquake that shook the foundations of the emerging port city Napier and the burgeoning agriculture and horticultural centre of Hastings.
Families mourned the horrific loss of loved ones. Lives, homes and cities had tobe rebuilt.
An account exists of a woman, trapped in rubble, who was alive but could not be removed from the burning building.
A doctor made the humane and incredibly difficult professional decision to inject morphine into her scalp and euthanise her, before the flames reached her.
Truly horrific, but in 1931, an entirely justifiable case of assisted dying.
The earthquake was a natural disaster that contributed to making Hawke's Bay what it is today, particularly Napier which embraced the art deco architecture that was prevalent in the 1930s.
A view across Napier after the 1931 earthquake. Photo / Supplied
In 2022, as we face the tail end of the Covid 19 epidemic, it's appropriate to stop and consider to what extent Covid has been a disaster, given what our ancestors and tupuna faced in 1931.
Covid has not come without loss - ultimately people have lost their lives, but thankfully not in the numbers that we initially feared as the virus took a grip in our community.
Businesses have gone under, jobs have vanished, and thousands of dollars have been lost.
Ironically, wealth has spiralled for those lucky enough to own a home, and many of us haven't dared utter out loud what a "disaster" it would be if the housing market crashed. Now that would be a fine mess.
Because for many, it's been the only constant light in the dark tunnel we keep peering down in search of an end looming to this blasted thing.
And now we have Omicron.
"Stop scaremongering'' were the retorts of social media commentators who emerged just long enough from their Facebook echo chambers to blast mainstream media for reporting that modelling suggests there could be 15,000 cases of Covid in Hawke's Bay on the way.
What would you rather have? A warning based on sensible science suggesting "this is how bad things could get" or a health official shrugging and saying "nah, it's just a cold - she'll be right''.
Omicron, hopefully, is going to be about volume rather than debilitation. But we just don't know until we feel whatever the full extent will be, and so we continue to proceed with caution.
It was never a sprint, and hopefully we are cresting a hill in the marathon that leads to a not too distant finish line.
But today of all days, in Hawke's Bay especially, let's contemplate what a disaster is.
