Day One in the "Disaster Zone"

Again, I've stayed up past my bedtime.... I have to get up in 5 1/2 hours, so this post will ACTUALLY be short (unlike the first).

Yesterday, we met with two structural engineering professors from the Catholic University in Santiago. This meeting was really helpful-it was great to get a scientist's opinion on the situation. Also, these guys had some great data and hard numbers for us. For lunch, we went to a "German" restaurant, where I got a Churrsasco Italiano (Italian meat sandwich). Basically, it was freshly grilled thin strips of beef on an Italian style bun topped with avocado and tomatoes. Delish!!!

After lunch, we went on a tour of some of the damaged areas in the outskirts of Santiago. We saw some damaged office buildings and got an impromptu personal tour of a damaged hospital. The gentleman who showed us the hospital took us to areas that were cordoned off, and gave us lots of very valuable information about health services immediately after the quake. We hadn't arranged anything with the hospital, and he still took the time to show us around for 25 minutes! Almost every person I've come into contact with here has been incredibly generous with their time, and very very nice!

For dinner, I had an appetizer with raw tuna, Chilean sea bass ceviche and panko crusted seared salmon-all were excellent! I went to be around 1 AM and had to get up at 5 AM--hence no entry last night!

Today, we met up in the lobby in 5:30 and made it to Talca, Chile by 9:45 AM. "We" included 23 of us (our group, our 2 drivers, and 2 translators), who all fit in two 12-passengers vehicles. We had a meeting with 5 various officials from the Maule region of Chile, one of the two hardest hit regions (we will visit the other, the Bio Bio region, starting tomorrow).  The meeting was very helpful-these people had enough connections and were high up enough in their jobs to be able to give us a ton of data and information that we likely wouldn't have been able to get elsewhere. We all had lunch together at our hotel (I had salmon w/ mashed potatoes and a salad of fresh veggies), and then all of us plus two Chilean Red Cross workers headed out towards the town of Constitucion.

We stopped at a "village" of temporary houses (called Mediasaguas) built on the outskirts of the Constitucion. There were about 60 150-200 sq foot cabins that were built by the military shortly after the quake and tsunami. I spoke with one family who had 7 people (parents plus 5 beautiful little girls) living in one small two-bedroom cabin. There are many of these villages throughout the damaged areas. When peoples homes were completely destroyed, and they could not rebuild, the government built these villages to house people. It is really mind boggling for me to think of the daily comforts we have (running water, heat, a toilet inside our home, etc), when these people, who have already lost so much, have none. We were at the camp for about 2 hours and gained a lot of insight as to what really happened and who responded in what time period to the people most affected by the tsunami and earthquake. I will never forget my time with them, and hope that we ALL can be as compassionate and caring as the people I met today.

We moved into the city of Constitucion, where we saw a lot of damage from both the earthquake and tsunami. In the town, the tsunami came onshore where the Pacific Ocean meets them mouth of the Maule river. Many homes were severely damaged or completely destroyed. We saw foundations of homes with the only thing still standing being sheared off rebar. It got dark around 6:30, and we met with provincial fire chief, who became chief when the prior chief was killed in the earthquake. He was the only on duty fireman in the city (they are all volunteers), and was killed when a wall collapsed on him during the quake. The new chief gave us some very important numbers, and one of the most clear time line of events we've heard yet.

The drive back to Talca was about 2 ours, and we had dinner at 9:30 (yummy chicken with leeks and potatoes au gratin). I'll try and post pictures tomorrow, but now I've really got to sleep. It's been a humbling, tiring, eye-opening, and long day. It's also been a very good day, where I have witnessed the incredible compassion of people who lose everything and still find a way to help others.

We leave for Concepcion (and a few other towns) in the morning, and will be staying in Concepcion until Sunday. I'm guessing we'll have internet, but we'll have to see!

Again, thanks for reading my (not so brief) post...