So I’ve been watching the news coverage about the Village of the Damned and now I see that extra police are needed to maintain order as opportunist criminals think about looting.
The city centre was shut to the public today and will remain closed overnight with police staffing cordons throughout the area. No licensed premises will be open in the CBD.
There is a formal curfew in place between the hours of 7pm and 7am that has been put in place to protect the public from falling debris. Anyone breaching the curfew can be arrested.
Mr Parker said he requested Prime Minister John Key ask the army to maintain safety and security and help the police over the next 24 hours.
Of course if you are able to protect your own stuff you don’t need the Police to come to the rescue. Bob Parker should also request a shoot on sight order against looters.
My official policy, should someone ask, would be for all registered members of gun clubs should be allowed to shoot looters with the shotgun of their choice.
The movements in the iPredict stocks for the Christchurch Mayoralty are interesting too. (MAYOR.ANDERTON down 20.33%, MAYOR.PARKER up 98.97%)
I reckon all Bob Parker needs to do now to win the mayoralty is to announce that he is going to halt campaigning so he can concentrate on re-building the city. Jim Anderton will look like the greedy old venal prick that he is by continuing on.
The law allows for the elections to be delayed up to 14 days in a rolling fashion in the event of a natural disaster. Since it is a postal ballot then Bob Parker would be best served by keeping the elections on and focusing on re-building the city and looking after its citizens and leave campaigning to the venal. He is guaranteed nationwide media coverage every day, speaking as Mayor of the city, from now until the foreseeable future, no one else will get a look in.
The cost of damage from today’s devastating quake could be as much as $2 billion, Earthquake Commission chief executive Ian Simpson says.
The EQC’s claims staff had been flat out taking calls today and there was no data yet on the number lodged, he said.
“It’s very early to start estimating the numbers so far,” he said.
“At a guess, and it is just a guess so far, we are looking at …around 100,000 claims in total from the event and the cost will be easily into the hundreds of millions of dollars just for EQC for the residential property… It could reach between one and two billion dollars.”
People who had private house insurance were automatically qualified for EQC cover.
So that idea of mine to sell the South Island would have meant that taxpayer would be at least $4 billion better off already if we had flogged it off years ago.
