27-FEB-2010 Vespucio Norte 23,
CC BY-SA 2.0,
I was in Chile in 2010 to look at corn plots in Rancagua. In the middle of the night my room started to shake - but it was slow and at first I thought, "what are the people next to me doing?" Then it sped up and got strong enough that I could hear glass breaking, ceiling tiles falling down. The mini-fridge pulled away from the wall and walked across the ground. I sat in the doorway of the bathroom while the water splashed out of the toilet and thought - I could really die.
Then, spent the rest of the week worrying about how we were going to get home and looking at corn plots. Restaurants were closed, gas was rationed, power was out, cell service was poor or nonexistent, the airport was closed, and there was some real damage - old buildings downtown, some of the older bridges and overpasses, a huge storage tank of wine broke near the farm spilling thousands of gallons of red wine. People died.
There was a surreal moment when we were driving and there was a film crew along the side of the bridge filming the collapsed older bridge next us. That is the image that was shown on TV - not the new bridge engineered to withstand a 9 point earthquake. It would have been a better story to me to show both bridges - one made to withstand the stress and one that did not. Buildings like my hotel were built with earthquake dampening features that made them safe even with strong stress.
The coverage of covid19 reminds me of that. It was both true that the earthquake had big damaging effects, and that the country was resilient and prepared. Both things were true. The same here. We can withstand this, but only if we take in that whole picture. I was really impressed with how the Chileans I worked with dealt with the aftershocks and the aftermath of the earthquake. They helped each other, they cleaned up, they waited in line, they rebuilt with stronger and better bridges. They didn't freak out. They knew this was a risk and knew that it probably would happen again.
We can do the same here. Quarantine will end, the disease will probably come back or there will be a different one. How do we look around - see who needs our help and what institutions need to be rebuilt on a better foundation? If we do that, then we will be prepared. I have seen a number of posts on all sides about how wrong the quarantine is or how the federal government screwed this up or that. In reality - we need to keep track of what we did wrong or right, but it doesn't do any good to be angry about it. Of course we didn't handle this right. No one involved really has done this before. What I am most interested in is how do we clean up from this mess and then get ready for next time.
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