E a Rt H qU aK e - The Morning Of...

The day before the quake, we all were busy with activity due to my parents being with us. Their trip was winding down and dad and I were excited about our plan to play a round of golf the next morning. We all went to bed with the anticipation of our last full day together.

3:33 AM - Kristi and I were woken up by what sounded like two freight trains speeding past our house on both sides. Still a bit groggy, I immediately walked down the hall from our bedroom. My instincts we screaming "tornado", but Kristi knew immediately that it was an earthquake AND IT WAS A BIG ONE. It felt like our whole city was on top of a huge bowl of firm Jello. The only thing close to that feeling, was when you would walk through a "Funny House" at the fair. But this time it wasn't funny and it was my house!

While I stumbled up the stairs to check on the children, Kristi stayed close to Lukas' crib in our bedroom. After a minute of severe shaking, Kristi yelled from downstairs that everyone needs to come downstairs right away, to be ready to get out of the house if it would start falling apart. She was looking desperately for the keys to the front door. The lights didn't work and Lukas was in her arms. My parents got out of bed and we all made it downstairs into the main living room. The first quake lasted around two minutes...but it felt like forever. There were several other aftershocks in the following hours.

I will never forget the sound of the earthquake. Sounds of the whole house creaking, tiles in the backyard falling and breaking, it sounded like the roof was caving in. Just to give you a sense of what the earthquake sounded like watch the short video below of a similar (but weaker) quake that happened in southern Chile in 2007. Listen to the sound from 0:15 point on.




Come to find out later that most of the crashes where caused by my bookshelves and books falling in my office upstairs.

We are thankful that I didn't leave my laptop on my desk (as I sometimes do) that previous night. One bookshelf fell on my desk, right where the laptop usually sits. Our printer was spared as well.

While the earthquake caused much disorder in my office and in our pantry, there was NO DAMAGE to the structure of our house. The first floor is made out of SOLID cement (with re-bar), and the second floor is made out of mostly wood (which gives more during heavy earthquakes). The picture above was taken a day after the earthquake.

Our stacked wood pile in the back yard was a mess.

The above and below images came from THIS interesting link that I found on the Chile earthquake. Click on the link above to see these pictures in a bigger size. The epicenter is pointed out with a red star. Can you find Temuco in comparison? The city of Concepción and Constitución were the hardest hit. Can you find those two cities?

Our family huddled in the living room for the rest of the night. My mom kept the kids in good spirits by singing and reminding them of God's protection and power. Our electricity came back on after an hour. We were able to watch a bit of news coverage until 6 am. We didn't get a lot of sleep that night. Around 10:30 am, our water and lights were cut off for the rest of the day (Sat. Feb 27th).

Come back for the next post that will show pictures of what Temuco looked like the next morning after the quake.

The following is a short video from the first TV news reports shortly after the earthquake on Feb 27th.