Ever the professional, my fellow columnist Joe Bennett, who usually occupies this space on a Thursday, was on the phone not long after the quake struck.
He would not be filing.
He had no electricity.
He had almost finished the column but had probably lost it, he said.
As we were speaking, his dog went a bit queer.
I could hear Joe calling after him.
He said he would ring me back.
It was another aftershock - "set the dog off again", he said a few minutes later.
As if the sudden vigorous shake of the 12.51pm quake was not sufficient, Joe, who lives in Lyttelton near the epicentre of the Christchurch earthquake, knew it was a rough one when his dog took off in terror.
He found him at his neighbour's place, where a heavy old stove had been turned on its head by the force of the quake.
"There are a lot of buildings down in Lyttelton," he said.
"And there are a lot of people in severe shock.
"They're wandering round like ghosts. You ask them, 'Are you all right?', and they just want a hug, really."
Joe's own home appeared to have only minor damage: movement around the windows, loose bricks, cracks in the mortar.
But the earthquake had dislodged a series of large volcanic rocks from the hills around the port town, and sent them rolling down the hillsides.
Many buildings had been severely damaged, including old stone buildings that had survived last September's quake.
"A lot of people are out on foot talking to one another, swapping stories," he said.
He could see a church that was half demolished and several other landmark buildings that had collapsed.
"The Volcano is gone; the Lyttelton Hotel, a facade has fallen off the building next to it and flattened a car ...
He recited a litany of all the old structures that had lent the old port town its charm and character.
Many of them were now good only for the bulldozer.
Another he said had peeled "open like a doll's house", without walls or roof, so that the furniture and contents were all starkly visible from the road.
"It's huge ..."
And he wondered where the money would come from to rebuild.
The effect on business would be catastrophic.
The town would not be the same again.
Over the hill in Christchurch, people were coming to the realisation their city would never be the same again, too.
And as the day wore on, trembling and shaking its way into night, how true that was to prove.
If the original 7.1 force earthquake on September 4 had proved remarkably benign - striking in the early hours of the morning while the streets were deserted, scarring the inner city but leaving much of it intact - this one, while smaller in scale at 6.3, was possessed of a brutish, unforgiving force.
It shook buildings off their foundations, collapsed others, tragically trapping and crushing people beneath the tumbling rubble, tossing others across rooms as if they were rag dolls.
At the Press building, my alma mater and a grande old heritage dame, tucked into one corner of Cathedral Square, parts of the roof caved in.
Journalists and other employees - between 150 and 200 of them - hurried out on to the streets.
Some were trapped.
Erstwhile ODT reporter Glenn Conway took a knock to the head but was otherwise unhurt.
South Island regional manager Andrew Boyle, another former colleague, led a search mission for trapped colleagues on the top floor.
Yesterday, regardless, The Press - with assistance from Fairfax stablemate The Dominion Post - had a 24-page edition covering the earthquake on the streets.
Remarkable in the circumstances.
By yesterday morning, too, we learnt four had been rescued from the building, one person was dead and further fatalities were expected.
Over at the collapsed CTV building, news came of 15 people brought out alive - hopes cruelly dashed when an hour or two later the report was discovered to be false - and one or two from the ruined Pyne Gould Corp offices.
As I write this, another long day in the newsroom stretches ahead.
Blank pages stare pointedly, expectantly, at us.
By midnight, they will resonate with the full horror of the calamitous events in Christchurch.
There will be searing tales of survival, of miraculous escapes, witness accounts of heroic endeavour, and the rising toll of tragedy: in lives destroyed, property lost, and hopeful futures dimmed, at least for now.
There are days when it might feel better to be a fireman, or a surgeon, than a journalist - and this is one of them.
Simon Cunliffe is deputy editor (news) at the Otago Daily Times.
