Message for those waiting for car from CBD

Police have a simple message for those people who are waiting for news of their cars trapped inside the Christchurch central business district.

"Please don't just wait. Check the status of your vehicle. It could be waiting for you to collect," said Senior Sergeant Bruce Adams.

Owners are asked to check the status of their car via the same process used to register it with police through the vehicle finder page on the Christchurch Earthquake section of the police website. http://www.police.govt.nz/christchurch-vehicle-recovery

The vehicle recovery team has now retrieved over 4200 vehicles from the Christchurch CBD trapped since the February 22 earthquake. The team is now down to the last of those cars able to be retrieved and will soon be winding the operation down.

"We said we would recover all of the vehicles that were able to be recovered and we have got a huge number of cars out, thousands actually. Now we are trying to get those last cars that are the really tricky ones to extract.

"Some are in buildings that have structural damage so the ramps are not able to be used. A number are in a one building that uses a lift system for the cars but as the building is in the CBD there is no electricity so the lift can't be operated and we have had to think about how to get around this. Some are in buildings that are damaged in parts but are ok in other parts, and some are in areas with quite a lot of flooding.

"There has been quite a number of different scenarios that we have had to contend with and it hasn't been simply a matter of whizzing in and driving the cars out," said Senior Sergeant Adams

"This has taken a collective effort using the best brains of engineers, electricians, council staff, builders, Defence staff, New Zealand Rescue Team, and New Zealand and Australian police to devise solutions for getting some of the cars out."

This has involved building new ramps, shoring up those that are still relatively in tact and made able to be made safe, rigging up generators to buildings to provide an electricity supply, hoisting containers by cranes onto buildings and then loading them with cars and then bringing them back down for unloading, devising technical IT solutions to keep track of all the cars in the CBD and linking them to their owners and the status of whether they have been repatriated with their owners.

"We've also been very fortunate in that we've had a group of IRD staff who have been loaned to us to help out and they have been fantastic, couldn't have done without them," said Senior Sergeant Adams.

"It's certainly been an interesting and unusual job for police to be managing but really rewarding to be able to get owners reunited with their cars. Like most of us, lots of their important possessions were in those cars and they really need them to get around so it has been great to be able to do this."

Senior Sergeant Adams says police hold about 250 sets of car keys from owners still waiting for their car and he is keen to see this number reduce significantly in the coming days.

"As I said though they are the really tricky ones to get out now so we are not expecting to be able to get hundreds a day as we have been.

"But the public can be assured that we are making every effort and not just giving up because these cars are proving to be extremely difficult to get out. Every car that can be got out will be got out if we can come up a solution for how to do that.

"But please do check on the status of your vehicle as we have several hundred in the yard awaiting collection and we are coming to the end of this operation."

Today the team have been retrieving cars from the Crown Plaza after being able to sort out flooding that was hampering the efforts to get the cars.