Dean Moore is an American living in Chile who wrote these emails to his daughters on the mainland and on the Big Island.

Monday, March 1, 2010

We’ve been through hell.

In my 67 years, no experience like that before.

We jumped out of bed … got into the closet thinking the roof might collapse. Everything on the closet shelves came down on us … we were shook sideways VIOLENTLY … didn’t think we would live through that.

They say it shook continuously for 45 seconds but I’ll swear it was more like 2 minutes and we were screaming … we didn’t think it would stop.  We were being shoved against the closet shelf edges, etc. I should say slammed against.   I’ve never been that shook up before … ever. Now it is Monday afternoon and the aftershocks are still continuing … one about every 15 minutes or so that we can feel … it’s kind of like the chair under us is wobbling or something … sometimes the windows rattle.

We are sleeping outside in our tent … we are both scared to sleep inside yet.

Our house is basically OK but sustained some minor damage – I estimate less than $1,000 to repair it.

Ceramic wall tiles were broken on the interior walls in almost every room and crashed to the floor … also all glasses and dishes etc were thrown outside the cabinets to the kitchen floor and shattered … broken glass everywhere. Bottles of vinegar, ketchup, soy sauce … everything thrown out of closed cabinet doors and busted on the floor.

No power yet … we’re on solar power. And we use out generator in the evening before bed, then I get up and turn on the battery (solar backup) system about 3 a.m. … this keeps our deepfreezer and refrigerator running fine. The phone service, and Internet, just came back on minutes ago.

Thanks for being concerned about us. Cellphones and our fixed phone were all out until minutes ago.

Love, Dad and Clare

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Tuesday morning … we are still without power.

Running on solar and/or generator at times. We are still feeling aftershocks every little while.

We live near the city of Chillan … it’s NE of Concepcion … we are about the same distance from the epicenter of the earthquake as is Concepcion. Actually Chillan is closer – exactly 100 km from the epicenter of the big quake, Concepcion is 115 km.

It was very horrible here. We are still feeling aftershocks every little while … they are expected to continue for a month or longer. But we are OK. We have plenty of food – to last months if necessary. Because roads and highways  and bridges are out, there will be big problems with deliveries of food, fuels, etc. There may be martial law -there is already a nightly curfew in Concepcion.

We live at about Km. 18 right near the highway … the highway that runs between Chillan and Coihueco, at the little community called Talquipen.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

People in the states are not getting the whole story of this Chile earthquake. I have DirecTV here, so I have the advantage of being able to watch the local coverage, plus the coverage by CNN and FOX.

On the first and second day after the quake, CNN had almost continuous coverage of the two largest cities here (only), and FOX had very little coverage which is understandable because FOX isn’t really a news network anyway, but a commentary network.

There are five major national TV stations here in Chile, and four of these have had continuous coverage of the quake and the destruction every day and is continuing. What we are seeing on all four of these national Chilean stations is the real destruction…..there are many towns and small cities that are completely destroyed.

CNN of course cannot possibly have reporters and correspondents in all these places, so you are not seeing any of this coverage in the states. There is total destruction in many areas. They look like war zones or worse. The news reporting is continuing on these four stations without any commercial breaks. There are still many small towns and cities that are inaccessible by road because of the quake, and they are getting to them by helicopter as fast as possible.

From what I’m seeing, the Chilean government is even underestimating the amount of the destruction. Today is our fifth day since the quake, and we still don’t have electricity. The power company will not even take my name or account number, but instead they are giving a general message to all callers that all workers and repairmen are working 24 hours per day and they will get to everyone as soon as possible.

One thing is good….the aftershocks are now fewer and lighter, maybe we feel one every three or four hours instead of every 15 minutes. We are still sleeping in our tent outside in a clear area….Clare is still afraid to sleep in the house.

At 2:44 PM local time, or 17:44 UTC, we had another aftershock..a 5.9….that one scared us again….we ran outside but there was no damage here. They actually issued another tsunami warning but I understand now it was a false alarm!

Thursday, March 4, 2010

It’s now been six days since the big quake here in Chile, and we are still without electricity. I have called the local electric company multiple times but all they will say is they are working 24 hours per day and will get to us as soon as possible.

The aftershocks are continuing and now I understand they may continue for months. This morning at 6:03 AM we had another one that measured 5.1 and was very near the original epicenter. Last evening there was a 6.1 near Valparaiso, and we felt that one also. But these aftershocks are very mild compared with that big one last Saturday.

Yesterday, I drove into Chillan hoping to buy some grocery items. First I went to the big new Lider supermarket — this is the chain recently bought by Wal-Mart. But they had all gates closed and locked and were being guarded by armed military men. Then I went to the big Jumbo supermarket and they were open and the parking lot was almost totally full. I managed to buy a few packages of butter, a few liters of milk, and people were grabbing everything off the shelves throughout the store. The butter and milk were gone just minutes after I got mine. There was no sugar at all, no flour at all, no bread of any type, no bottled orange juice, so I didn’t manage to get many things on my list. All 39 checkout lines were operating and even with that I had to wait in line about 30 minutes just to check out.

About 80% of the service stations in Chillan were closed and barricaded. I managed to find one of the remaining few on the outskirts of town with only a short line and bought diesel fuel for our car, and as luck would have it, when my tank was almost full, the diesel stopped flowing….they ran out of diesel fuel. Fortunately my tank was almost filled completely.

Our power came back on about 45 minutes ago (about 6:00 PM local time!) That’s the longest (6 days) I’ve ever been without power in my life to the best of my knowledge.

Friday, March 5, 2010

We finally got electricity again late yesterday evening and since the aftershocks were reducing in strength and frequency, we decided it was safe to start sleeping in our home again instead of the tent.

But we were shocked this morning before daylight when the house started shaking again about 6:20 AM. That was a 6.3 and about the strongest we have felt since the big one last Saturday.

Then at 7:31 we felt another one, not quite as strong but closer to us. It was a 5.1. Then as I’m typing this…I just to run outside again….about 8:47 AM we felt another strong one….shook the house, windows rattled, and my wife was outside and we both felt the ground shaking quite strongly under our feet. We will be so happy when these aftershocks are over.

We’re hearing on TV this last one minutes ago at about 8:47 AM was 6.8 magnitude. This is scary. You could physically see our house shaking. So, unfortunately for us, it seems these aftershocks are really earthquakes themselves, and are continuing and maybe even increasing in intensity.

This latest 6.8 quake in red on the USGS map below is right over the area where we live. It will only take a slightly stronger one to knock out our electricity again. We hope that doesn’t happen. Also, a stronger one could also cause more serious damage to our home. We are concerned.