Calexico Roadtrip Part II: the 7.2 earthquake

The other three's perspectives:
John's
Lauren's
Luis'

After crossing the border, we picked up a few more items on Calexico's main street before heading home. By this time, most of the stores were closing anyway.

We were walking past the clothing store Benzene and Lauren asked John whether he wanted to go in and check it out. He thought about it and replied, "I do like their stuff...but no." We pondered on the decision as we strolled past the windows. My mind mulled on whether John's tone. Was he being sarcastic? Then, a rumbling and shaking broke me from my thoughts. The next all happened within 40 seconds even though it felt longer.

At first I dismissed it. Then I looked up and saw the two storeys worth of window panes shaking and bouncing light like they don't normally do. That was when my brain decided it was officially an earthquake and a strong one at that. My mind immediately flashed back to elementary school earthquake education to seek cover. No desk or anything to hide under. Fine. Doorway. Nope. Or arch. I see arch. Move sideways a foot or so. Now I'm under arch. Wait. Reservation. Why? Sheets of glass still shaking. Not good. Need to move somewhere else. I looked in the streets. Vision only a half step behind a still-forming mental checklist. No tall buildings. No tall trees. No power lines directly overhead. With the last check complete. (At this point, the brain no longer formed words. Concepts flashed one after another. It barely even bothered forming pictures.) I immediately moved to to the middle of the street. I hear Lauren behind me. I reached for her, grabbed her arm, jacket, hand, I don't know what, and took her with me.

The four of us stood in the streets, breathlessly waiting for the shaking to end. It felt like only the concrete beneath us was solid. Whatever was beneath the concrete behaved like a liquid and was strangely not holding still. I knew I was not moving, yet everything was else was. Alarms went off. People clustered. Glasses crashed. We waited.

When the shaking finally abated, I laughed in relief and bear-hugged Lauren, glad that everyone I cared about right then was okay. In that moment, L ran back in to Benzene to check everyone got out of the store. John followed. I hesitated before walking back and anxiously waited under that archway. He appeared a few seconds later with another man who thought his daughter was inside. He found her outside waiting and ran to hug her.

With everyone together again, I took stock of the scene around. People still gathered in the middle of the street. A few women cried. Many were still hugging their loved ones. Everyone seemed dazed and shaken up by the whole ordeal, including us.

The fateful store.

As we walked back to our car, we took a few pictures of the damages to the shops that lined the street.

 JC Penny's

Our parking spot. Thankfully, nothing hit the car.

Luis' home.

His aunt was home alone. The gigantic TV moved. Paintings skewed. Mirrors fell. The thing lying diagonally is a picture wall. On the most left-hand side were pictures and figurines. Most pictures fell also, except for the one of me and Luis in the picture frame from Hawaii.

Even though the power was out and water leaked in the bathroom, the important thing was that everyone was alright.

Luis took off with John to check on his friend's grandmother. Lauren and I stayed with his aunt and rode out the ensuing aftershocks.

We tried checking for emergency supplies as far as El Centro, but everything closed, we weren't the only ones with the same idea.

After coming back from the fruitless trip, we decided to head back to SD with still an hour of sunlight left. Just in case the earthquake shook loose some rocks that blocked the freeway, we will have time to act accordingly.

Instead of taking the scenic 98, we just took the 8. On the way up to the mountains, we had to slow down. It turned out a ditch formed on a small bridge over a finger of Sunbeam Lake. Luis later found that a section of the 8 had to be closed because the bridge later collapsed.

A few things I learned from this whole experience:
1. As soon as possible, Luis and I are going to put together an emergency pack with 15 MRE's, 3 days worth of water, candles, matches, lighters, utility knife, flashlight. Just for starters.
2. Luis is crazy. I can't believe his good Samaritan instinct told him to run in to a store right after an earthquake. At this rate, he just might die before I do.

In laughing about the whole crazy experience, we came up with a theory of why females have a longer life span than males. During the earthquake, both Lauren and I thought about each others' safety and knew in the back of our minds that the boys will be able to take care of themselves. We grabbed each other and went to safety and didn't really think to check on the guys, assuming they followed us. While after the whole thing was over, Luis ran back in to a store, putting his own safety at risk.

Looking back, we were incredibly lucky. Yes, we chose this day to come to Calexico. However, we crossed the border about 10 mins before the earthquake hit. I don't know how long it would have taken us to come back if we just decided to keep walking a bit longer. We left and drove past the ditch on the 8 before it sank and that section had to be closed.

Everything turned out well. Quite a road trip and Easter Sunday.

And random Butters picture. I gave him a haircut last week. He had been playing with Mona the whole day, so excuse the unbrushed look.