KEY POINTS:
Tills were ringing in Gisborne yesterday as shops reopened and the state of emergency was lifted.
Mayor Meng Foon declared at 5.15pm that the official emergency period was over and the Gisborne council would move into recovery mode.
Retailers in the central business area had already made a
headstart on sales recovery, opening along Gladstone Rd, the main street, at 9am.
The area, which had suffered the most concentrated damage, was buzzing with people - some for Christmas shopping, some for "earthquake discounts" and all for curiosity's sake.
The difference to Friday was marked. Then the precinct was deserted, with police cordons blocking access and emergency workers the only people to be seen.
Yesterday morning, crowds thronged the streets, peering into the handful of buildings which remained closed and blocked off.
Those buildings included the Bernina, Health 2000 and Whitcoulls stores, which suffered extensive damage. Both the Bernina shop and Whitcoulls carried red stickers, which said engineers had declared them too dangerous to enter.
In total, 23 buildings in the central area carried such stickers. A further 11 had yellow stickers, meaning owners can enter briefly to recover valuables.
One building expected to remain closed was the menswear shop Hallensteins. A corner of the shop had caved in and debris and stock lay scattered on the floor.
Staff and contractors had worked late into Friday night to have the store ready for business, testament to a citywide determination to overcome Thursday's 6.8 magnitude quake.
They started in the afternoon and by 10pm, builders were putting up a partition separating the damaged ceiling from the rest of the store.
Manager Lena Wilson, 55, said she had expected the store to be out of business for "a few days at least".
When the Herald on Sunday visited yesterday, Wilson was behind the counter, selling discounted stock to a stream of customers. "The public have been really awesome. It's been great to see everybody in here."
Nearby, at Westpac, the doors were open and staff were handing out lollies to passersby. The bank had been a few feet inside the cordon but was forced to remain closed on Friday while engineers carried out inspections.
The unusual Saturday opening, the manager said, was to allow customers to do the banking they had been unable to do after the quake struck.
Other businesses in Gisborne had also worked through the night to recover. At Portside Hotel, manager Joan Gerritse was already drawing up a plan to get the hotel fully operational just hours after the quake hit.
By yesterday evening, guests were checking into rooms that had been cleared and tidied, after engineers had given the building a clean bill of health. Carpets were drying after water mains burst, and the final job remaining was finding 50 televisions to replace those damaged in the quake.
While optimistic, retailers said Christmas shoppers did not appear to be making up for lost time.
Gisborne Luggage owner Diane Cousins, 49, said the impact of a day's closure had hit hard.
"We'll never pick up on yesterday."
The impact was clear in the value of Eftpos transactions in the wider Gisborne area.
The closure of just the central shopping area saw trading plummet 35 per cent. It was $1.2 million on Friday, against $1.8 million spent on the same day in 2006.
Across the city, stories were being swapped of near misses.
Diners at The Works restaurant across the river from the central area, had headed inside to escape rain when the quake struck, toppling bricks and mortar on to tables which would usually have been occupied.
At a nearby restaurant, patrons took refuge under tables while the quake sent a rafter crashing down in the space they had been seated moments earlier.
Mayor Foon had high praise for the swift response of Civil Defence staff, allowing the retailers to reopen quickly at a critical time of year.
