Earthquakes Store provided a great service to North Canterbury

It was business as usual on Friday 3rd September 2010 for employees at Blackwell Department Store in Kayaboy.

The team was busy preparing for the spring sales, and on the regular Saturday the following day.

They didn’t know what would happen to their business in the next 24 hours.

The next morning store manager Andrew Blackwell is best described as “surreal”.

Supplied

Blackwell department store in Kayaboy has been in the same family for five generations. Pictured before earthquakes.

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The pre-dawn silence was halted by a colossal rumbling, a violent shaking, and an onslaught of devastation.

Blackwell checked his wife and three daughters (the older of them woke up to a birthday you’ll never forget) before driving through the liquefaction to get to the store.

He said, “It was still dark.”

“ I remember driving through the Black St, thankfully after all-wheel drive through all the liquefaction. ”

His father, David, tried to enter about an hour later, but by then the fluidization increased and his car was trapped on Black Street, requiring the Kayaboy Fire Brigade to take it out.

As day falls, the damage is very visible.

Karise Mountain / Stuff

The facade of the historic Kayaboye store was demolished on the day of the September earthquake.

The front of the original section of the store on the corner of Williamsburg / Raven Quay was severely damaged, while a portion of the upper floor fell into the basement, which was strewn with bricks and crooked ceiling iron.

“ I went through what was our back door, and the store was full of what I thought was smoke, but it was particles of very fine dust from all the plaster vibrating.

“I looked up and could see the stars in the sky as the bulkhead fell through the roof.

I thought “Okay we have a big problem.”

The concrete façade requires immediate attention, as it is cracked and looks precarious over the front of the shop.

Don Scott / Stave

There was a six-month wait until the February earthquake, which determined that rebuilding, not repair, was necessary.

“ It looked like he would definitely have hit the footpath if he was shaken again in aftershock. ”

Mayor at the time Ron Keating was on site, and he called the Dormer House from the Dormer builder, who was busy digging it down the road.

That afternoon, watched by a small crowd of onlookers, the famous façade was informally demolished and pushed to the storefront.

“I know it’s sad to see some people, but for me I was really involved with solving the problem, I didn’t think about emotion,” Blackwell said.

Over the course of the following week, even though the city seemed to be a war zone, there was determination to get up and run again.

He told Prime Minister John Key at the time: “We as a family are determined to continue.”

“ We have to think about the sixth generation, our children. ”

Only two weeks later, the business is up and running again, albeit in temporary rented accommodation.

Supplied

A new look Blackwell department store opened in 2014.

Although part of Raven Quay was considered secure enough, Blackwell said working on three buildings was a logistical nightmare.

The store area that did best in an earthquake was an extension that was built by local construction worker Jacques Turrell in 1956 to house carpets and upholstery.

When I spoke with the Blackwell family months later, Torell told them not to ask about the grounds because there weren’t any – which might be the reason for the earthquake resistance.

While the September earthquake hit Kayabwe hard, discussion of repair or rebuilding did not stop until February 2011.

After six months of negotiations with both insurance companies and the Historic Places Fund, the February earthquake decided that – a complete rebuilding was now the only solution.

“Owning a new building We knew we had to rethink the business a little bit – Sunday’s trading got out of the earthquake.

“While I definitely don’t want to go through the whole process again, [the rebuild] It was actually an enjoyable experience. ”

The new building officially opened on September 5, 2014.

Joseph Johnson / Staff

Prime Minister John Key stands outside the Blackwell Department Store in downtown Caiapoy in September 2010.

Director Michael Blackwell said the same day that the result was the culmination of “the absolute willpower of our family and our employees, backed by a huge community of support.”

The family-owned Blackwell Corporation has been in business since 1871, and is now in the fifth generation hands of Andrew and Michael Blackwell.

It has been on the Williams Street location since 1921 after moving from its humble beginnings as a general grocery store on Old North Road, to the location now occupied by Wylie’s Drapery.

The reconstructed store features two new retail spaces, an upgrade to the remaining spaces of the old store, and some rented retail spaces, including Coffee Culture Café, which has proven suitable for Sunday customers.

“We have gone forward as a company, not backward. And not just us, but the entire city.

“ Not that you would have thought it at the time, but the earthquake did a great deal to some companies, including us. ”

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