When the world crumbles: Living through two major earthquakes in Mexico

It was almost midnight on September 7 and we were watching a movie in our fifth floor apartment building in Mexico City. Bundled up on the couch, we suddenly felt ourselves and everything around us rocking. "Do you feel that?" Jared asked, wondering if he was the only one who felt like we had moved from solid ground to the sea. We looked at each other and knew immediately that it was not in our heads. It was an earthquake and we needed to get out of the building immediately.

In a split second he grabbed the apartment keys to unlock the door and I instinctively grabbed my phone. As soon as we started racing down the stairwell, the lights flickered and then went out. If it weren't for the flashlight mode on my phone, we would have been left to fumble our way down five stories, and in an earthquake, every second matters when evacuating a building.

Everyone was in the street in their pajamas. Some were barefoot. We waited outside for the shaking to stop and it wasn't until we returned to our apartment that we started getting news about what had happened. A massive 8.2 magnitude earthquake had hit off the coast of the southern state of Chiapas and was felt as far as Mexico City. Texts from panicked family members woken by news alerts trickled in. We called them to let them know we felt it but everything in Mexico City was fine. It was the biggest earthquake either of us had been in (spending lots of time in California, we'd been through a few small ones) and our adrenaline was racing. "Wow," we thought, "so that's why we see those green 'Punto de Reunión' earthquake meetup signs everywhere."

Less than two weeks later on September 19, we had just entered the Museo Dolores Olmedo and were in the first exhibit when the projector began to tremble. Thankfully, we were on the first floor of the building and the exit was right there. We ran outside and the museum staff gathered us and counted to make sure all visitors were accounted for. People around us started checking their phones and some began crying. Jared and I, however, were left in the dark because our phones only work with WiFi. We knew another earthquake had hit, but to be honest, it felt less scary than the first one because we were able to exit the building so quickly. After about 15 minutes of waiting in the museum's courtyard, the staff informed us that the museum would be closed until further notice and that we could leave. "It was that bad?" we ignorantly thought.

We left the museum and started walking around Xochimilco, and slowly the pieces came together. There was no electricity, everything inside store windows was scattered about the floor, and the Red Cross was treating people in the park. Quickly realizing that it was a lot worse than we'd originally thought, we knew we needed to get home immediately. But that was going to be a problem.

The metro and light rail were down. Buses and taxis wouldn't take us home because the bridge connecting Xochimilco to Tasqueña (the metro station that led home) had collapsed. Luckily, I speak Spanish and was able to confirm with government employees what our options were to get home: walk. We were eleven miles from our apartment with a nearly dead cell phone and only a handful of cash.

We left the government building and picked up our speed. It was going to be a long walk home and we'd be lucky if we made it before nightfall. And then we heard a whistle. A man from the government office was waving us back. He didn't know how close to city center he could take us, but he offered to drive us as far as he could. I cried, and we gratefully accepted the offer.

We listened to the radio the entire two and a half hour ride and it was the first news reports we were hearing. A 7.1 magnitude earthquake devastated Mexico City. Buildings had collapsed. Names of the dead and missing were being listed. Our neighborhood, Escandón, was among the worst hit along with Condesa, Roma, and Del Valle.

Thankfully, we came back to an intact apartment building. When we saw our housemate, we hugged and cried. We were all okay, but the city was not. Buildings around the neighborhood were brought to dust. Hundreds were dead and many more were missing.

Immediately, people began organizing themselves to dig survivors out from the rubble. Electricity was down, so people brought food from their fridges to feed volunteers and those whose homes had been destroyed. Volunteer medics set up clinics in parks to treat the wounded. We'd never seen this level of natural disaster before, but we also had never seen so much compassion among people.

Living through man-made or natural disasters is something we all potentially face. But experiencing this kind of horror while traveling is something entirely different. For one, you may not speak the local language, making everything more terrifying because you don't understand what is happening. You may also be cut off from communicating with friends and family back home to let them know you're alright. Because we didn't have a local cell plan and since WiFi wasn't working without electricity, we weren't able to talk to our families until the following day. Thinking of them panicking not knowing if we were dead or alive made it impossible to sleep.

It also changes your relationship to a place. Up until that day, we had a relatively basic relationship with the city. The earthquake changed that. It brought us together with locals as we arranged caravans of donations of medical supplies, food, and clothing for shelters and clinics. We checked in on each other and comforted one another when symptoms of PTSD emerged. It'll take a long time to get the city back on its feet, but we'll get there together.