I just wanted to give an update on the Chilean earthquake. The epicenter was 70 miles from Concepcion, the city where the mission offices were located. Tome, the city where I served for seven months was one of the closest cities to the epicenter. It is about 60 miles from the epicenter. I have heard from many friends in Santiago, Vina del Mar, and Valpariso who are all okay. They did not have power or water for quite a while but they seem to all have it back within 24 hours of the earthquake. These cities are about 300 miles from the epicenter.
I have tried many many times to contact people in Tome but cell phones nor landlines are working. I am horribly worried for their well being based on the news I have heard and what I know of the geography there. The town next to Tome is reported to be 85% underwater from the tsunami. The town across the bay from Tome (Talcahuano) was confirmed to have had a 2-3 meter tsunami do major damage. I have not been able to verify that Tome was hit by a tsunami but it undoubtedly was.
Above is a picture of Tome that was taken in 1997/1998. I don’t know how well you can distinguish the altitude. The area with white houses and dirt is where I lived. It is a neighborhood built on a very steep slope. I am extremely worried about this neighborhood because I think that the steep slope makes it especially vulnerable in an earthquake. You can see the ocean below. The whole downtown area of the city is just above sea level and if a tsunami hit then houses, a friends apartment building, grocery story, government buildings, etc, etc would have been affected.
Lebu is another pueblito that I am very worried about. It is also low lying on the coast. I have not yet heard from anyone there. I can’t remember how far the house where I lived was from the ocean but I think that it is far enough that it would be safe in case of tsunami, much of the town however would not be. It is also a small town where there would be a lot more houses of adobe then in the larger cities. The adobe homes seem to have been the most dangerous. I’ve heard nothing from Quirihue but it is also a very small town with many adobe homes. It is probably 30-40 miles from the epicenter.
I have heard news from Chillan, the first city I served in. It sounds like everyone in the ward I worked in is safe, however there are some people who have had significant damage to their homes. For some reason Chillan does not seem to be as strongly affected as other cities in the area. It is only 60 miles from the epicenter.
This is a typical adobe building in Quirihue. It has no support and would easily fall in an earthquake. If I remember right this is the house of Jose.
Solange & Jeffeey Nico
In early December I started doing CrossFit at a friend’s gym. One of the things that we do every workout is pull ups. He has bands that help support your weight. Even with that pull ups are challenging and it was hard for me to fathom the day that I would be able to do a pull up like I could do in elementary school. On Wednesday’s I go to recess with my Kindergarten kids and I always try a pull up on the playground to see how I am progressing. When I tried today I was astonished as my chin crested the bar. When I got to CrossFit tonight I was anxious to see if I could do a pull up from full shoulder & elbow extension. I was again excited and astonished as my chin crested the bar. I was able to do seven before my muscles fatigued.
My first pull up!
This was five days ago using the band when I thought that it would still be months before I could do a pull up without the support of the band.
This is a sample of one of the workouts we have done. We did 5 rounds of 1) floor wipers (bench press 65# and then touch feet to each side of the weight bar 5 times) 2) static lunges with 25# overhead 5 times with each leg 3) 5 pull ups. You try to do the workouts as fast as you can and I did this one in 12 minutes.
We started out the new years by snowshoeing up on Mt Rainier with some friends. We had to put chains on the car to get up to the trailhead I knew the forecast called for snow but it was just ridiculous when we got up there. We went out anyway on a well marked trail to make sure we didn’t get lost. After about 50 feet we were off the trail anyway and playing around in the deep snow. We ended up staying out about two hours. When we got back to the car we were pretty wet (snow here is not the dry stuff we grew up with) and the kids were done and cold. It snowed well over 4 inches while we were out on the trail. As always I had a great time and the kids tolerated it. :) I wish the weather would have been better but we did have fun. We were wondering our friends are converts to snowshoeing or if they are cured of it!!
We had Kristie come up to Washington so she could take pictures of our family snowshoeing on Mt Rainier. We realized after we got back that there wasn’t a single picture of Kristie on our trip. We had another fantastic day on the mountain even though the weather ranged from mostly poor to downright bad. Even though the weather wasn’t great the mountain was quiet and peaceful with a few inches of new snow on top of a hard snowpack. We ended up covering about 1.5 miles before we stopped to rest in a cove of trees and never got going again. The kids had a ball playing in the snow for the hour we rested and then we headed back to the car and a little bit of sledding before it got dark.
We didn’t build this snowman but took a picture anyway.
A group picture without Kristie.
The kids playing in the snow.
This picture is taken post snowshoe trip. We found a snowsuit for Lucy and it was so cute that we had to try it on her. This will enable her to get down and crawl around in the snow the next time we go!
