Lessons Learned from Chile

An apartment building in Conception

On February 27th, 2010, Chile suffered an 8.8 magnitude subduction zone earthquake.  It's epicenter was offshore about 200 miles south of Santiago.  Here in Chile it is called Terremoto de Maule. Depending on where you were, the earth shook violently for 3-5 minutes!  It caused a large tsunami that inundated some coastal towns and left others untouched. Chile has large earthquakes all the time; the worlds biggest earthquake was in 1960 in Chile, it was a 9.5 magnitude.  Thus, Chile is fully aware of the dangers and as prepared as you can get.  The potential in Oregon is for a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami is expected. The last earthquake Oregon experienced was 300 years ago and the only record is from a tsunami in Japan that could be traced back to an earthquake in Oregon.  Having not experienced an earthquake in modern times and only recently understanding the potential, we are not prepared. Except for recently built infrastructure, our buildings, bridges, shipping ports, airports, energy network and water systems are not up so earthquake standards.

A bridge collapse that isolated a village

Scott spent most of his time talking to ministers from various infrastructure systems and learned so much about the interdependence of these systems and will be developing a report about his findings.  As for me, I talked to several people and listened to Scott after his visits. My thoughts are not necessarily technical, but more general and personal.

First, no matter how prepared you are, you will never be prepared enough.  This is NOT an excuse to skip preparing for an earthquake, but more to say that you can never be prepared enough.  The earthquake itself is traumatizing and causes a lot of stress.  I imagine post traumatic stress syndrome is rampant after an earthquake.  Often the men were away or called away to help.  Families needed each other; sisters moved in together, kids moved in with their parents, whatever it took to not be alone.  Some people who lived in Santiago left for the countryside, others who lived on the margins of Santiago temporarily moved into the center of the city where systems were restored more rapidly.  Communities along the coast were completely cut off and without outside help for a month.  People were dependent on local cooperation to survive, they helped each other and sometimes traded what they had whether that was generator power, water or food.  The best therapy for the stress was reaching out and helping others.

Tsunami inundation was devastating

Bar none, the biggest problem was the lack of electricity.  No electricity means no communications, no cell phones, no water, no fuel, no security, no ATMs, no money and no open stores.  Near the epicenter, security was a huge deal with looting completely paralyzing the town of Concepcion.  It took the government a week to mobilize troops in the hardest hit Concepcion.  The lingering stress in the city is very evident.  Small stores had to close because of the lack of electricity and security.  Large stores like the Walmart supported Lider had generators and could stay in business.  This shifted people's buying habits from mom & pop stores to large retail outlets.  When security and power came back, habits had been changed forever and many small businesses went under.

The next most severe consequence was the loss of roads to collapsed bridges and landslides.  Secondary, small roads became critical. One things that really helped Chile in this respect was that utilities and the government streamlined the contracting process so that repairs could be done quickly.  Typical procurement processes might take six to eight months, but the streamlined processes allowed utilities to contract in a matter of weeks.

Today in Chile, the earthquake is history and one is hard-pressed to see remaining damage. We revisited the locations where the above pictures were taken and struggled to see remnants of the earthquake. This is tribute to this wonderful country and the resilience of its people.  I hope that Oregon will pay attention, that people will prepare for an unknown and seemingly unreal disaster and that when it happens that they reach out to each other and pull together.

Now we are off to the States for 10 days and then on to New Zealand to learn from their experience!