Well it's been a crazy week on our little island, as we experienced one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded in the Caribbean. On Tuesday, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck us just after 2:00 pm, and reports indicate that we've had about 17 aftershocks since. Everyone is a little unnerved to say the least, but amazingly, there was minimal damage for such a large quake, and no major injuries were reported.
Three days post, everyone is talking about where they were when the earthquake hit. There are incredible stories of divers experiencing the earthquake 50 feet under the sea, people walking down stairs that were swaying from side to side, and even people who had the unfortunate experience of being on the toilet when the quake struck!
This was my experience:
I was in a meeting with other Specialists at my assigned school in West Bay. The meeting wasn't going particularly well, and I'm not gonna lie, the thought "I would do anything to get out of this right now" went through my head! I experienced a sudden sharp pain in my hand and shouted "ow!" out loud in the meeting. My colleagues looked to me to see if I was okay. The pain stopped and about 3 minutes later I felt a rolling sensation in my stomach. The table began to clatter. The walls began to shake. The glass door began to rattle. My mind did not process what was going on until one of my coworkers yelled, "It's an earthquake! Get under the table!" I leaped under the table and gripped the floor with my fingers. The rolling was not stopping. One of my colleagues was talking the entire time, providing a minute to minute commentary, "This is an earthquake. This is not ending. Oh my god...it's not ending! Oh God this is a very big earthquake!" The door to our conference room was made of glass and I could see Teachers and students running across the grass - as the earth was still moving. "They shouldn't be running!" shouted a colleague and got up to tell them to duck for cover.
I remained on all fours under the table, feeling as though I was going to throw up when I noticed that I was now the only person remaining under the table. "It's over, Kirstie," said my Ed Psych Bud, Stephanie. "No! it's still shaking," I replied as I felt the ground continue to move. "No it's just your body. It's ok." I tried to move. I really did. But I was frozen in place. I felt paralyzed. And I realized, as I gripped the floor with my fingertips that there were tears streaming down my face. I guess where most people's body's go into "flight" or "fight" mode, my body opted for the much less popular "freeze" mode. As I wiped the tears from my face, I could hear Stephanie searching around in her purse - later I would find out that she was trying to find me a Xanax! (now that's a good friend). Once I got my shit together and realized that I could move, I got out from under the table and knew that our first priority was tending to the 600 students at our school.
It was complete chaos. We had never participated in earthquake drills before. The students somehow (thankfully) all ended up convening on the school field. Students and Teachers were crying, praying, hugging, and panicking. I put on my best calm face and started chatting with frightened students, "Wow! that was something. Don't worry, we are all safe!" A rumour had spread in about 1.2 seconds that Jamaica had fallen into the sea due to the earthquake, and since many of our children have family in Jamaica, students were bawling and screaming, "My family is dead!" I assured the kids
For a few minutes, I felt as if everything would be fine. It looked as though our school was still standing. A quick glance indicated that no one was hurt. Evan had messaged me, "I'm Ok. Are you Ok?" But then a colleague quietly whispered to me, "There is a tsunami warning."
Shit. A million questions went through my head. How much time do we have? Where do we go? What do we do? How high could this wave be?
My colleague urged me to get to Evan, as I knew he and the pets were alone in our ground floor condo, a mere feet from the ocean, with no vehicle to escape.
I quickly got in my vehicle and turned on the radio. An emergency broadcast message aired over the stations, "An earthquake has struck the island. A tsunami wave is possible. Go inland and go vertical. Get to higher ground."
"Get to higher ground. Get to higher ground." I kept repeating these words in my head.
We live on a flat island where the highest elevation is about 50 feet above sea level. What did this mean? Where the hell was higher ground??
I quickly messaged family and let them know that we were okay and were seeking "higher ground." My mom called me and we were both choking up a little over the phone, but I assured her that we would seek safety.
When I arrived at our condo, I found a very cool and calm Evan, who had obviously not just been surrounded by 600 frantic people! He even took the opportunity to video the earthquake! We packed up the pets and got in our vehicle, really not too sure where we would go.
As we began to venture out of our West Bay neighbourhood, it was apparent that everyone had the same idea. The streets were gridlocked with traffic. At this point, the emergency broadcast said "A wave has been generated. Go inland. Go vertical."
Vertical? Stop using words that do not help us! We sat, mostly unmoving, in bumper to bumper traffic for nearly 90 minutes. Reports were coming in from family that a wave was expected to hit Cayman at 1930 UST. What was UST? What time zone was that? Did we have hours? Did we have minutes? I kept looking out the window to see if a wave was coming towards us. All I could envision were the horrific videos of the tsunami that struck Thailand many years ago. I remember thinking, "If a wave hits us now...all of us...every single person their car is going to drown." The animals were eerily quiet in the backseat and Evan was trying to distract me with a story about a dog...or something.
Suddenly the emergency broadcast message chimed a new message, "A tsunami wave is now unlikely. Continue to move inland." I looked up to the sky and noted helicopters circling above the sea - apparently the police had dispatched them to see if a wave was coming, and thank God, it was not.
At that point, Evan and I decided to turn around and head home. We had traveled less than 10 miles in 90 minutes, had a quarter of a tank of gas, my phone had died, and we really had no set destination in mind.
When we returned to the house I checked in with all my family, went straight online to educate myself about what just happened (isn't it incredible that we maintained a wifi connection through all of that), and devoured a glass of wine. My nerves were shot. I began to wonder if I had imagined the entire thing.
That was definitely one of the most frightening events I have ever experienced. In hindsight, I think what scares me the most is the fact that no one knew what to do. I had no idea what to do during the quake (Do I get in a bathtub? Go to the basement? Get in a doorway?) Our school didn't know what to do. The emergency broadcast that was issued didn't provide much information, other than words that ensued panic. I found out later that a tsunami would have hit us 26 minutes after the quake. 26 minutes. Most of us didn't even know about the tsunami warning at the 26 minute mark! You are told to evacuate buildings post earthquake in case of structural damage, but then told to head to the highest floor in case of a tsunami? And what if this would have occurred in the night? It would have taken much more time for anyone to report online what was happening. Thinking about how this event could have easily had much different and disastrous outcome is absolutely chilling, and has been keeping me up at night.
Since the event, life is going on...as usual...sorta. We were back to school two days after the event. Most of our kids are pretty resilient and didn't seem bothered by the event - many of the adults, on the other hand, are experiencing heightened anxiety. There was very minimal structural damage, which is incredible given the 7.7 magnitude of the quake, and gives me confidence that "hurricane standards" of buildings obviously must meet "earthquake standards" as well. My colleagues who were present in our meeting that day are joking that my body predicted the earthquake, given the sudden pain and outcry of "ouch!" just minutes before. I'm trying to figure out how I can harness this "skill"?? and maybe get my own show on TLC as the "earthquake predictor" Ha!
If something like this ever happens again, we need to be better. As adults in charge of frightened children, we need to maintain calm and order. Our schools need to practice frequent earthquake drills and be better prepared. The information that is being dispensed to the public needs to be more detailed. Everyone needs to have a earthquake, and subsequent tsunami plan, as we now know that a tsunami warning will almost always follow the earthquake.
I am extremely thankful that our resilient little island bounced back in record time. I'm very thankful that we are all safe and that I have the opportunity to blog about it!
Cheers friends!
