Good politicians show their leadership skills in crisis management

John Key Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker review the damage as they attend the scene of a burning building in Manchester Street. Photo / Getty Images

They say that in politics timing is everything.

In earthquakes it is too.

Prime Minister John Key responded to Canterbury's crisis quickly as has Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker, offering that most vital of commodities - reassurance.

Most Canterbury folk have spent the past two days saying how lucky it was that it happened at 4.30am.

If there can be a lucky disaster, then this is one - with minimal human loss.

The ones who have been hardest hit by the earthquake are the ones who feel the luckiest.

George Redmond of Courtenay with his 35 tonne silo smashed on to the ground and wheat spilling out; Graham Stapleton wondering how the collapse of his 136,000 litre water tank will affect his pig farm; and Allan Rhodes, the father of Xavier who had a miraculous escape from death when their house was totalled.

The Champions Canterbury awards for excellence will go ahead on Thursday at the Christchurch Convention Centre with a 1000-seated dinner.

Mr Parker's first advice was for people to stay home while the damage and loss of life was assessed.

People may have largely heeded his warning to keep their cars off the road in the city.

But curiosity and the need for people who have shared a traumatising event to seek each other out prevailed. And many people went walking.

In the countryside, the camaraderie embedded in residents' DNA kicked in fast.

The brilliant sunshine of Saturday afternoon made the morning's devastation seem surreal.

John Key was on almost the first plane to land on an almost perfect Saturday after the airport opened at 1.30pm.

He had a flyover of the city before facing the cameras to say he was there as a sign of solidarity.

They were the most important words in his press conference.

This is his first test in a big natural disaster. It shouldn't be hard - he has good instincts .

So did [former Prime Minister] David Lange, according to his top civil servant Gerald Hensley who said he was brilliant in a crisis.

In the aftermath of Cyclone Bola, Lange and Hensley were returning from their flyover to Gisborne in a chopper with food parcels and saw a house that had been cut off from civilisation.

Lange ordered the helicopter to land in the nearest paddock and presented the homeowner with a food parcel.

The astonished housewife who answered the knock was wearing a short pink nightie and gumboots and burst into tears when she opened her door to the PM - as you would, either from shock or mortification.

The only tears I have seen in two days were just a choked up moment for Jilly Deans as she reflected on her nieces and nephew returning home from overseas to say farewell to the wrecked historic homestead they grew up in.

Whingers have been given no sympathy in this disaster. So far nobody has been to blame and everybody has been doing their best.

The hard part starts now and much of it will be about how and when the relief and repairs are made and who provides the best leadership.

Timing will be everything.