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Joan Gerritse, being Dutch, did not grow up with earthquakes, but after living in New Zealand for 15 years she has tried to come to terms with them.
The manager of Gisborne's Portside hotel and apartments complex had just finished some Christmas shopping for her staff when Thursday's big shake struck.
Like any quake-hardened New Zealander, Ms Gerritse reckons she had a feeling something bad was going to happen in the minutes before 9pm.
Everything seemed to go still.
"For just a few moments I thought, 'This is not right'. That's when the building started shaking.
"I just flew to the doorstop."
Ms Gerritse says she could feel the quake growing in intensity as her first-floor room began to roll.
"It was just like being in a ship. It seemed to last forever."
As the shaking subsided, she got to her feet. That's when the confusion and shock set in.
"I just thought, should I make a cup of tea."
But within moments she was on her mobile phone, making arrangements. "I just went into the mode of organising everything."
Yesterday, Ms Gerritse was still trying to get the 64-room complex back into some kind of order, mindful, however, that insurance assessors still had to do their appraisals.
And they will have rather a lot of appraising to do.
Ms Gerritse said that of the 64 rooms, six remained out of order, though four were likely to be habitable "within four days".
The quake claimed about 50 wall- and cabinet-mounted televisions and a number of hot-water cylinders shifted, bursting water pipes as they went.
Her own room is on the first floor, "just above that big hole in reception".
Thirty-two rooms were occupied on Thursday night, with about 55 guests.
"They were all shook up", she says. "Many of them were tourists."
A number of the European guests - for whom earthquakes were a new experience - loitered outside, reluctant to return indoors.
One Swiss couple spent the night in their car.
Ms Gerritse was full of praise for the locals who had wasted no time in coming to help.
Fire Service officers and electricians arrived at the apartments within 30 minutes, she said.
Her staff, too, have been working tirelessly, cleaning up on the day they were to have had the staff Christmas party.
That has now been postponed and it remains "business as usual".
But that's what Ms Gerritse likes about her city - her home for the past two and a half years.
"When the going gets tough, they all chip in.
"That's Gisborne for you."
