The earthquake and some aftermath...
I don't even remember sleeping too much last week. It was just one of those weeks that flies by, we had so much planned everyday and I spent between 10-12 hours Monday through Friday at the hogar or an event or on a field trip with the girls, by the time I got back to my apartment Friday night at 7pm I was exhausted. I wanted a drink and some friends. After eating some delicious watermellon during the day, I came up with the ingenious idea to make watermelon and vodka drinks in my apt and chill out on a very hot friday night in Santiago. I walked to the closest fruit stand, bought a watermelon, popped into Lider and got a bottle of vodka (only 3 mil...6.00 but pricey for me!). I was walking home with my ipod on ,when all of a sudden crash...the bottle of vodka broke through the bottom of the cheap plastic bag and started soaking the cobblestone street of providencia. I yelled my worst spanish swear words and stalked home carrying the incredibly heavy watermelon.
Maybe it was a sign to come...
Everyone left my apt. at about 2am after feeling just as out of it/sunburned/tired from the week as I was. I thought about calling my friend Cassie who has started a new job this week and moved to NYC, but figured it was Friday night in NY and she would not be home, so instead I finished off the vodka drink I had, climbed into bed and put my laptop on some old episode of the office, at 2:45am my phone rang, I rolled over and shut it off, not caring who it was, I was sound asleep.
Maybe I should have answered it...
It was 3:30 in the morning I found out later when I suddenly woke up with a throat full of panic, I couldnt tell if I was dreaming, in my dream I was on a ship and a huge wave had crashed over us and the ship was going under. I opened my eyes but there was no light, pitch black, blacker than normal and I wasn't dreaming. My entire body was moving, my bed was moving, the next seconds (90 I have read) blur together in a state of panic. My bed was violently moving across the floor and I heard horrific noises coming from outside my bedroom door, its got to be an earthquake I thought. I knew Chile had earthquakes I just had never felt one. I jumped up from my bed just as it slammed into the oncoming ward drobe that is normally on the opposite side of the room. I fell. There was things everywhere, I started yelling help. I think in english, as I couldn't even remember how to speak spanish that night. Where was everyone, what was happening, I kept thinking. I managed to get to my bedroom door and with several hard tugs pulled it open. What I saw and felt then just got so much incredibly worse. The entire apt was moving. It was like someone picked up the building and decided to go for a run with it, I was being thrown right and left and when standing again I put my hands on either side of the door panel and started crying and screaming. I was screaming my roommates names over and over again, wondering where they were and if they were alive. It was so loud I couldnt even hear my own voice, glasses were breaking, furniture moving, the ground sounded loud, then suddenly my bear feet started to get wet. Where was the water coming from? I thought. I was standing there on the hot summer night in a tank top. My legs were getting wet. I thought then, ok, this might be it.It wouldn't stop, the building was going to collapse. I couldnt get to the front door, there was too much in the way, and I wasn't thinking, but as the apt violently swayed from side to side and the windows started smashing in, I realized I might die.
Then it stopped. Suddenly everything was still, something smelled awful in the apt and it was pitch black, I ran to my roommates room and tried to open her door but it wouldn't open, I was screaming their names, but heard nothing. Someone started pounding on my front door. My neighbor had a flashlight and was hysterically crying, take this, take this, where's lucille? she asked me. "I dont know, I dont know, what happened," was all I could muster in spanish at the time. Together we slammed our bodies into Beryl's door and managed to open it. Shining the light onto the bed we saw nothing but a bookshelf and broken glass. I started to enter the room and something sharp hit my foot, I went back for a pair of sneakers. We checked the room, she wasn't there. We went to Francisco's room, and the same, chaos but no body. What's that smell I kept asking?
She left the apt to go and check on her friends and I went to find my flashlight, I threw my camping bag on my bed and rummaged, instincts started to set in, it was pitch black, the city was in a black out and I didnt know what was happening, I grabbed my head lamp and my mase. I grabbed my keys and put on a pair of sweatpants. I walked outside. I wanted nothing in the world then but to see a familiar face. I started walking along the park to the nearest road but it was so incredibly creepy I kept stopping and taking a breath. I couldnt see my hand in front of my face. I didnt know which street I was on. A man approached me and asked if I was trying to escape. Maybe he was being nice, but he scared me. I pretended not to understand him and headed back to the apt.
I climbed back up the 7 flights and passed a few people in the stairwells crying, what do I do? I kept thinking, calm down Meghan, make a plan. I went back inside and realized I never checked Lucille's room, I headed towards the kitchen, when I shown the light into the room, I stopped dead in my tracks. Everything was broken, I looked at a 6 inch high pile of broken glass. I pulled up my pants and started walking through, the smell was getting worse. I got to her room but the washer had moved out from the wall and was blocking my path. I shown the light over the top and into the room. No one. Thank god I thought, but where was everyone?
I checked the time it was 4:30 in the morning, I tried every five seconds to use my phone but there was no signal. There was nothing I could do I started to realize. Then the apt shook again. I ran for the doorway. STOP IT. I kept thinking, stop it, I don't want to die right now. My neighbor came back in and said that the gas was leaking, she tredged through the broken glass and shut off the water and gas. She asked me why the hallway was flooded, I gave her a blank look. Somehow another hour passed in which we assessed damage, the doorman came up with a massive generator light and started showing me the cracks in the walls, made a joke about everything being broken and suggested I leave the apt due to the gas and water leaking, the cracked walls and broken glass. I think he mentioned something about replicas but I didnt understand. I thanked him and shut the door. The shock started to wear off, I was suddenly freezing and starving. Maybe I acted like a child then, maybe I just realized there was nothing left to do, I found a blanket and another sweatshirt, climbed on top of the couch that was now in the middle of the living room and sat in a ball with the blanket wrapped around me. I got out my laptop and desperately tried to find internet, phone, something. I realized how loud my heart sounded, I wanted to talk to my mom. Somewhere around 6:30am and what seemed like an entire lifetime passed, I drifted to sleep.
It was 7am when my parents called me. I could not understand how my dad was calling me, how he knew that a few hours ago my life turned upside down. They were hysterical, I started describing what happened and in his calm voice, I hear, "pack a bag meg and get out of the apt. now. You dont know how bad it is, just please get out." So I did. Apparently still not thinking I took a bag and put one pair of underwear, my toothbrush, and ibprofen in it. I put on a pair of jeans and my heaviest fleece, forgetting it was the dead of summer. I walked outside then and just started walking. It was surreal. There was a lot of traffic but no buses. I joined the massive amounts of people walking, no one was talking, some people were crying. Everyone seemed to have a suitcase. Where are you going I kept thinking? Am I missing something? People were crowded around the church that had caved in.
I walked the 30 minutes to my friend's apt in the center of the city, once arriving and realizing there was no electricity, I pulled out my handy flashlight and started the 15 floor ascend. I knocked on her door and finnally breathed when she opened the door. A familiar face.
We were all fine. We spent the day calling and finding everyone we knew. I returned to my apt around 4pm to assess the damage. There was another small earthquake and I felt like I was going to throw up. I left. I went to my friend's apt that was not damaged at all and stayed for the weekend. I took a hot shower, and laid down in his bed, I let him hug me and fell asleep, comfort finally. We got up and started watching CNN on the internet. Unreal. Santiago was not the heart of it, we watched then in silence of the people who did not get out alive.
Sunday morning I woke up to another replica. I opened my eyes, looked at my friend sleeping next to me hoping he felt what I felt, but he was sound asleep. Breathe Meghan, its ok. I felt tears in my eyes but felt silly for being scared so rolled over and tried to make sleep come. Instead I relived all the moments in my apt again and stared at the white wall. It's over and you're fine I repeated to myself.
Everyone in Santiago had a different experience. We all felt it and we all had moments during the 2 minute earthquake wondering if this was it. Some people's houses were ruined, some people didnt escape the rubble, several were displaced from their homes and yet others didnt break a plate. All weekend I tried to act normal when I felt sick inside. I wanted to cry but felt bad for feeling that way. My house wasnt trampled, I was alive, my friends were alive. It was going to be ok.
Monday night I returned to work and went to the house of my english clients at 7pm. We spent the two full hours talking about the earthquake, after telling them what happened and how everything was ok. My students told of their trampled businesses, sleeping in the park all weekend, breaking into their neighbors apt where an infant was trapped inside, toppled garages and cars, and then the one that finally sent me over the edge. Her friend has a house in Pichulema, she woke up to the earthquake and went outside, her neighbor looked at her and said, "we have to run now, the water is coming." So she ran, no car, no belongings, just actually running for her life. Daniella describes this story in great detail and I feel the tears coming. We had planned on going to Pichelema this weekend, yet with my busy week at the hogar decided not to go on Friday afternoon. She says when her friend went back to the house after the earthquake and the water had subsided, she walked over bodies everywhere. She says she will never return to this house again. I cried. I sat in my english class and the tears that were there all weekend, and the fear, and the panic and shock came out. I took the bus home after class, thinking the entire way of the events that could have happened, I was sad, I was exhausted, my head was pounding. The earthquake has stopped, but my tears finally came pouring out.
Maybe it was a sign to come...
Everyone left my apt. at about 2am after feeling just as out of it/sunburned/tired from the week as I was. I thought about calling my friend Cassie who has started a new job this week and moved to NYC, but figured it was Friday night in NY and she would not be home, so instead I finished off the vodka drink I had, climbed into bed and put my laptop on some old episode of the office, at 2:45am my phone rang, I rolled over and shut it off, not caring who it was, I was sound asleep.
Maybe I should have answered it...
It was 3:30 in the morning I found out later when I suddenly woke up with a throat full of panic, I couldnt tell if I was dreaming, in my dream I was on a ship and a huge wave had crashed over us and the ship was going under. I opened my eyes but there was no light, pitch black, blacker than normal and I wasn't dreaming. My entire body was moving, my bed was moving, the next seconds (90 I have read) blur together in a state of panic. My bed was violently moving across the floor and I heard horrific noises coming from outside my bedroom door, its got to be an earthquake I thought. I knew Chile had earthquakes I just had never felt one. I jumped up from my bed just as it slammed into the oncoming ward drobe that is normally on the opposite side of the room. I fell. There was things everywhere, I started yelling help. I think in english, as I couldn't even remember how to speak spanish that night. Where was everyone, what was happening, I kept thinking. I managed to get to my bedroom door and with several hard tugs pulled it open. What I saw and felt then just got so much incredibly worse. The entire apt was moving. It was like someone picked up the building and decided to go for a run with it, I was being thrown right and left and when standing again I put my hands on either side of the door panel and started crying and screaming. I was screaming my roommates names over and over again, wondering where they were and if they were alive. It was so loud I couldnt even hear my own voice, glasses were breaking, furniture moving, the ground sounded loud, then suddenly my bear feet started to get wet. Where was the water coming from? I thought. I was standing there on the hot summer night in a tank top. My legs were getting wet. I thought then, ok, this might be it.It wouldn't stop, the building was going to collapse. I couldnt get to the front door, there was too much in the way, and I wasn't thinking, but as the apt violently swayed from side to side and the windows started smashing in, I realized I might die.
Then it stopped. Suddenly everything was still, something smelled awful in the apt and it was pitch black, I ran to my roommates room and tried to open her door but it wouldn't open, I was screaming their names, but heard nothing. Someone started pounding on my front door. My neighbor had a flashlight and was hysterically crying, take this, take this, where's lucille? she asked me. "I dont know, I dont know, what happened," was all I could muster in spanish at the time. Together we slammed our bodies into Beryl's door and managed to open it. Shining the light onto the bed we saw nothing but a bookshelf and broken glass. I started to enter the room and something sharp hit my foot, I went back for a pair of sneakers. We checked the room, she wasn't there. We went to Francisco's room, and the same, chaos but no body. What's that smell I kept asking?
She left the apt to go and check on her friends and I went to find my flashlight, I threw my camping bag on my bed and rummaged, instincts started to set in, it was pitch black, the city was in a black out and I didnt know what was happening, I grabbed my head lamp and my mase. I grabbed my keys and put on a pair of sweatpants. I walked outside. I wanted nothing in the world then but to see a familiar face. I started walking along the park to the nearest road but it was so incredibly creepy I kept stopping and taking a breath. I couldnt see my hand in front of my face. I didnt know which street I was on. A man approached me and asked if I was trying to escape. Maybe he was being nice, but he scared me. I pretended not to understand him and headed back to the apt.
I climbed back up the 7 flights and passed a few people in the stairwells crying, what do I do? I kept thinking, calm down Meghan, make a plan. I went back inside and realized I never checked Lucille's room, I headed towards the kitchen, when I shown the light into the room, I stopped dead in my tracks. Everything was broken, I looked at a 6 inch high pile of broken glass. I pulled up my pants and started walking through, the smell was getting worse. I got to her room but the washer had moved out from the wall and was blocking my path. I shown the light over the top and into the room. No one. Thank god I thought, but where was everyone?
I checked the time it was 4:30 in the morning, I tried every five seconds to use my phone but there was no signal. There was nothing I could do I started to realize. Then the apt shook again. I ran for the doorway. STOP IT. I kept thinking, stop it, I don't want to die right now. My neighbor came back in and said that the gas was leaking, she tredged through the broken glass and shut off the water and gas. She asked me why the hallway was flooded, I gave her a blank look. Somehow another hour passed in which we assessed damage, the doorman came up with a massive generator light and started showing me the cracks in the walls, made a joke about everything being broken and suggested I leave the apt due to the gas and water leaking, the cracked walls and broken glass. I think he mentioned something about replicas but I didnt understand. I thanked him and shut the door. The shock started to wear off, I was suddenly freezing and starving. Maybe I acted like a child then, maybe I just realized there was nothing left to do, I found a blanket and another sweatshirt, climbed on top of the couch that was now in the middle of the living room and sat in a ball with the blanket wrapped around me. I got out my laptop and desperately tried to find internet, phone, something. I realized how loud my heart sounded, I wanted to talk to my mom. Somewhere around 6:30am and what seemed like an entire lifetime passed, I drifted to sleep.
It was 7am when my parents called me. I could not understand how my dad was calling me, how he knew that a few hours ago my life turned upside down. They were hysterical, I started describing what happened and in his calm voice, I hear, "pack a bag meg and get out of the apt. now. You dont know how bad it is, just please get out." So I did. Apparently still not thinking I took a bag and put one pair of underwear, my toothbrush, and ibprofen in it. I put on a pair of jeans and my heaviest fleece, forgetting it was the dead of summer. I walked outside then and just started walking. It was surreal. There was a lot of traffic but no buses. I joined the massive amounts of people walking, no one was talking, some people were crying. Everyone seemed to have a suitcase. Where are you going I kept thinking? Am I missing something? People were crowded around the church that had caved in.
I walked the 30 minutes to my friend's apt in the center of the city, once arriving and realizing there was no electricity, I pulled out my handy flashlight and started the 15 floor ascend. I knocked on her door and finnally breathed when she opened the door. A familiar face.
We were all fine. We spent the day calling and finding everyone we knew. I returned to my apt around 4pm to assess the damage. There was another small earthquake and I felt like I was going to throw up. I left. I went to my friend's apt that was not damaged at all and stayed for the weekend. I took a hot shower, and laid down in his bed, I let him hug me and fell asleep, comfort finally. We got up and started watching CNN on the internet. Unreal. Santiago was not the heart of it, we watched then in silence of the people who did not get out alive.
Sunday morning I woke up to another replica. I opened my eyes, looked at my friend sleeping next to me hoping he felt what I felt, but he was sound asleep. Breathe Meghan, its ok. I felt tears in my eyes but felt silly for being scared so rolled over and tried to make sleep come. Instead I relived all the moments in my apt again and stared at the white wall. It's over and you're fine I repeated to myself.
Everyone in Santiago had a different experience. We all felt it and we all had moments during the 2 minute earthquake wondering if this was it. Some people's houses were ruined, some people didnt escape the rubble, several were displaced from their homes and yet others didnt break a plate. All weekend I tried to act normal when I felt sick inside. I wanted to cry but felt bad for feeling that way. My house wasnt trampled, I was alive, my friends were alive. It was going to be ok.
Monday night I returned to work and went to the house of my english clients at 7pm. We spent the two full hours talking about the earthquake, after telling them what happened and how everything was ok. My students told of their trampled businesses, sleeping in the park all weekend, breaking into their neighbors apt where an infant was trapped inside, toppled garages and cars, and then the one that finally sent me over the edge. Her friend has a house in Pichulema, she woke up to the earthquake and went outside, her neighbor looked at her and said, "we have to run now, the water is coming." So she ran, no car, no belongings, just actually running for her life. Daniella describes this story in great detail and I feel the tears coming. We had planned on going to Pichelema this weekend, yet with my busy week at the hogar decided not to go on Friday afternoon. She says when her friend went back to the house after the earthquake and the water had subsided, she walked over bodies everywhere. She says she will never return to this house again. I cried. I sat in my english class and the tears that were there all weekend, and the fear, and the panic and shock came out. I took the bus home after class, thinking the entire way of the events that could have happened, I was sad, I was exhausted, my head was pounding. The earthquake has stopped, but my tears finally came pouring out.
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