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With seven cats in the house and more strays outside, Woods was first and foremost concerned for the animals she cares for.
“As soon as it ended, I began running through the house gathering up cats,” said Woods, a former Olympia resident who now lives in Temuco in southern Chile.
She is one of several people from Western Washington who survived the magnitude-8.8 earthquake that rocked Chile. The catastrophe and their concern for family and friends rattled them all, but all said Monday that they are fine and safe on the third day after the quake.
Woods runs Paqaris Safe Place Cat Sanctuary, where she takes in abandoned and injured cats as well as strays.
“I sort of go on automatic pilot in caring for the cats,” she said. “I don’t remember a whole lot of how or where I found them all. I just started cramming cats into the cage.” Woods and her cats weren’t hurt in the quake, but she says they were shaken emotionally.
The hospital in Temuco had serious damage, and many of the city’s roads were damaged. She had to deal with water, electricity and phone problems.
“I’m pretty much a basket case, mainly because my house won’t quit shaking and I know I have to keep these kitties safe” Woods said. “It was absolutely the most horrifying experience of my life. I hung onto the door knob and wall and prayed over and over, ‘Jesus, make it stop.’”
South of Temuco, in Pucn, John Dentler was asleep in his apartment when he felt the quake.
“It was the longest earthquake I’ve ever been in, and I lived in California for a few years and experienced quite a few earthquakes,” said Dentler, who lived 20 years in Gig Harbor as a lawyer before moving to Chile.
He’s now the general manager of Troutlodge, a Sumner-based company that produces salmon and trout eggs and fry.
Dentler’s neighbors have family in Concepcin, the large city closest to the epicenter. The family made contact for the first time Monday night.
Dentler said he tried to help his neighbors get to Concepcin, but they were able to reach their family members only by phone.
In response to the plight of Chileans such as his neighbors, Dentler and his workers are trying to organize a food drive in Pucn so they can send a truck of water and nonperishables to Concepcin.
The truck will leave when there is enough fuel to get it to Concepcin. None of the stations in Pucn had gasoline Monday.
Back in Washington state, Lena Hoeflich, a Seattle University sociology student from Whidbey Island, feared for friends in Santiago, where she studied from last August to December.
“I was worried about my friends down there, but I heard that it didn’t affect Santiago too badly, so I didn’t worry as much,” she said Monday. “I had a bunch of people call me and ask if I was still in Chile. And they asked about my friends there.”
Hoeflich was able to talk to a good friend in Santiago for the first time Monday night. She said she was relieved to talk to her and know that she was all right.
Also in Santiago, Nico Cortes closed his eyes when the earthquake shook him and his family on the 15th floor of their apartment building.
“When the wall next to us began cracking, I thought for a second, ‘This is it,’” he said.
Cortes, now in college, spent his senior year at Stadium High School in Tacoma from 2007 to 2008. He was without an Internet connection for more than 48 hours and had no way to let his friends and host family in Washington know he was OK.
Now that things have settled down, Cortes said he was just glad his family was all right and that he can reach his connections in Tacoma.
“I really thought we weren’t going to make it,” he said. “Good thing I was wrong.”
Derek Lactaoen, 20, is a 2007 graduate of Gig Harbor High School. He is a student at Pontificia Universidad Catlica de Chile in Santiago.
