Shana Bearden

Sunday, 2-28-19 1pm Dallas time From Santiago Chili
I somehow got the hotel internet working for a few minutes so here is the down and dirty. On Friday night or early saturday morning actually, I woke up at just about 3 am because the tv was left on and Brad`s favorite movie, Big Fish, was on TV. As the credits were rolling, suddenly the cable went out and then in about 10 seconds the electricity went out. I thought someone had hit a transformer. Then a low rumbling began and my bed started swaying strongly. I have lived through two other earthquakes, including one where people next to us died when the building collapsed, so I knew right away that it was an earhtquake. I yelled at Brad who was very asleep and then grabbed him off of his bed and he became angry because he didnçt understand what was happening. I dragged him to an archway in the hotel room which had a huge concrete beam above it. It was totally dark but I remembered the beam because we had been talking about earthquakes that day with our interpreter and I figured that was the best place to be. By the time we got under the beam, the crescendo started. It sounded like a train was in the room and what little I could see of the room in the dark, the square room became rectangle, then a trapazoid and furniture, beds, chairs, desks lamps etc were flying all over the room. The other two earhquakes I experienced were a 5 and 6, this one made them look like childs play. At times, the floor moved up and down probably 2 feet. The building was creaking and growning and the crashing around us made it sound like the building was falling. The shaking kept building and building until I reached up and touched the 24 inch concreat beam above me and could feel it bending and twisting in my hand like plastic. Plaster was flying all over the room and the noise was unbeleavable. The thing that scared me the most was I could not remember how many floors were above us since we were on the second floor. After about 90 seconds which seemed somewhat like 2 hours the wild shaking slowed and I had Brad make a run for it to the street. People in the hotel were screaming and crying so I went door to door telling people to head to the street. Most were confused but did as told and we eventally gathered togather almost all of the residents in the street for the night. I was really afraid of aftershocks which are sometimes worse than the original and we could not tell how damaged the hotel is in the dark. Most of the guests spent the night in the street and there were some kind of funny stories. One latin male I woke up and told to go to the street was too drunk to understand what was going on so I had to help dress him and lead him to the street. To say that everyone had a fitful night is an understatement. We have continued to have aftershocks every couple of hours and some of them are very strong. The city has shut down and even though we are in the modern financial district and didnt suffer too much damage, getting food and water has been a real challange. we just found a corner market that opened fór the day and there was a wild rush to buy food and water. There is talk of a cholara outbreak in some outlying areas so water is suspect. This super busy town has become a ghost town and all that we meet on the streets now are foriegners and a few bank guards. All the cultural attractions are closed and there is nothing to do here so it is boring and other countries have bent over backwards to help their citizens but not the USA. We are largely in the dark here because of the langage problems and no cable to the hotel but I just got word that riots have broken out because of looting and the military has been called out to control it. People are starving because the stores and restaurants have all been closed since the quake.
The airport was largely destroyed and only emergency planes are allowed in. They are saying it will be closed for at least 5 days now but it could be weeks before regular flights start so we have decided to make a break for it along with a number of other brits and aussies.
We are going to take a van for about 10 hours to a town in Argentina where our master carrier, TAM airline- the brazilian national carrier, is bending over backwards to help its passengers. Right now if we can get to Mendoza Argentina by 10 am on Tuesday, we will have a flight to Buenas Aires and then to Sao Paulo and then to Miami and they will not charge any extra for the extra legs required. Not so for American Airlines who is trying to gouge stranded passengers by charging up to 5,000 per person for flights back to the US. I hate that airline.
Anyway, we are living on aftershocks and have been able to get some food and water and we will start our trek home tomorrow with the long van ride through the Andes mountains. There is a lot of concern about the conditions of the roads and possible banditry thru the mountains but we will just have to see how it goes. Hopefully, we will be home sometime Wed or Thursday if all goes as planned. I am really concerned about the aftershocks here because they are getting worse all the time.
Thanks to Brad who has been a brave and courageous trooper who helped take care of the other hotel guests and has used his blackberry to help out a lot of stranded visitors and to April, Wes and Chrissy who have been really helpful in arranging our exit stratagy.
Thanks for your comments and I dont know when I will be able to check in next. Verrrrrrrrry interesting end to this trip. Shana always said if there was an adventure to be had, I would find it. I am about ready for this one to end.
Jim

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 28th, 2010 at 12:58 pm and is filed under Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.