The Quake, day 1

At 3:34 this morning, Nick and I were asleep in bed when we awoke to a slight swaying of the building. We immediately thought it was just a normal tremor, but when it didn't stop, we became worried and got out of bed. We started to walk out to our living room to make sure the big things were ok (we did not realize the magnitude of it yet) and at some point it became clear that we wouldn't be able to walk any farther. It was probably the most terrifying moment in my life. For 90 seconds, our 10th-floor apartment swayed back and forth , the ground emitted a loud, pulsating noise, and glass and dishes fell throughout our apartment, shattering immediately. The electricity flickered on and off and eventually faltered completely. I was screaming for it to stop, because it felt like it never would. 90 seconds is an amazing amount of time. An Armageddon-style movie in a theatre with the volume turned all of the way up would not do justice to the terror at that moment. I will never forget it.

When the shaking stopped, we were left in our apartment without lights and with broken glass covering most of the floor. We had to make do with the light from our cell phones and one small headlamp. I lit one candle but had to keep it with me in case of another strong quake to prevent a fire. We heard helicopters flying all over above and sirens in the street below. We couldn't find the cats, but there was so much stuff everywhere that they could have been anywhere. Eventually they turned up-- Mister crouched under the bed and Shady inexplicably standing on top of the TV stand, behind the screen.

Aftershocks continued to rattle us while we were in the dark, but we stabilized everything we could to prevent more damage. We tied the cupboards in the kitchen shut and laid the computer on its side so it wouldn't fall. Somehow both the flat-screen TV and the kitchen cart with pottery special to us were ok-- both were on wheels and just sauntered themselves across the livingroom, meeting in the middle. We took many photos of the damage and began to clean up, since we had nothing else we could do at that time. I will post pictures of the damage as soon as I have a stable internet connection (right now I am working off a slow cell signal).

Unfortunately, we had two friends on an airplane at that exact moment coming to visit with us. We had a week of fun and relaxation planned after several months of non-stop work. I tried calling the airline when we reached Nick's grandmother's house and a working phone line, but no one seemed to know anything. We called family members in the US to inform them of the quake and let them know we were ok, and also to enlist their help in locating our friends.

Somehow in the midst of catastrophe it can be hard to really gauge the magnitude. We thought the plane might be landing. We thought everything was more or less ok in Santiago. We thought by daylight that things would start to return to normal.

Many hours later, we finally located our friends. Unfortunately they were unable to land and eventually were sent home. We are extremely sad that they are not here for a variety of reasons.

We spent the day cleaning up and trying to get some rest because we had only a couple of hours of sleep before the quake. I found it impossible to sleep, though, because every time I would start to drift off, there would be an aftershock and I would wake with a jolt, terrified that it was happening again.

At this moment we are gathered at Nick's grandmother's house along with his sister, who has been in town and is now stuck here for the foreseeable future. We are trying to figure out how to get to the farm, where we hear the damage is considerable. However, many roads and bridges are impassable and we are unsure when or how we will get there....

...this is all so, so surreal...