Recalling his thoughts and reactions immediately following the traumatic event – which damaged about 40% of the port\u2019s wharves among the NZ$4bn (US$3.1bn) carnage across the Canterbury region – LPC chief executive Peter Davie says the immediate focus was staff safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce we had established that none of our team had been harmed, we turned our attention to resuming operation of our core services,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur engineers and maintenance staff were able to assess the port\u2019s infrastructure and facilities in a timely manner and, while the damage was significant, we were able to get core services back under way just a few hours after the earthquake.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce it was determined it was safe to resume work at the port, staff, including crane and heavy machinery operators, were given the option of going home. The combined effort of our 400-strong team meant the vital goods required by the city were able to get through to ensure local businesses could continue to trade as best they could.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Davie says \u201ccommunication was crucial\u201d to the recovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a need to talk regularly with all staff, our customers and the community about the state of the port and the work being undertaken.<\/p>\n
\u201cFollowing each aftershock our team had to carry out additional checks on the port and its infrastructure, and report back to key staff ensuring safety was the number one priority.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the week following the earthquake, LPC was consequently able to receive nine vessels, handle almost 7,000 teu and receive 29 trains carrying more than 40,000 tonne of coal, while its inland port facility handled over 1,300 units and carried out 277 repairs.<\/p>\n
Mr Davie heralds the \u201cincredible effort\u201d of his staff to ensure the port lived up to its role as the \u201cmajor trade gateway to the South Island\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of our team were working under extreme stress and dealing with their own losses – at least ten had their homes substantially damaged or totally destroyed.<\/p>\n
\u201cLPC would also like to thank the entire Canterbury community for all their hard work to help those in need during this difficult time. It is our strong community spirit and \u2018get on and do it\u2019 attitude that makes this a special place to live and work.\u201d<\/p>\n
With speculation LPC\u2019s repairs – for which it is insured – could run between NZ$50m to NZ$200m – Davie says the port is now focused on the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe carried out some urgent repair work in the days following the earthquake but the full repair and rebuilding of the wharves and infrastructure will be an exercise that could take years. Our focus now will be on rebuilding while minimising the impact on ongoing operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is my fervent hope that the earthquake we experienced was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It is something the people of Canterbury will remember for the rest of their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lyttelton Port of Christchurch (LPC) achieved a remarkable return to operations within mere hours of the 7.1 magnitude earthquake that struck just 40 kilometres to its west at 4.35am on September 4, 2010, writes Iain MacIntyre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-1705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oceania"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1707,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1705\/revisions\/1707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1705"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=1705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}