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Pacific Northwest native in Mexico recounts latest earthquake

By Ranji Sinha, KIRO 7 News

Volunteers and rescue workers search for children trapped inside at the collapsed Enrique Rebsamen school in Mexico City, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017. The 7.1 earthquake stunned central Mexico, killing more than 100 people as buildings collapsed in plumes of dust as rescue efforts took place at the school in southern Mexico City, where a wing of the three-story building collapsed into a massive pancake of concrete floor slabs killing scores of students. (AP Photo/Gerardo Carrillo)

By Ranji Sinha, KIRO 7 News
A couple with roots in the Pacific Northwest now living in Mexico have been separated as two major earthquakes have hit the country.
The first was on Sept. 7 and was off the west coast of Mexico while the latest hit Tuesday. During both quakes, Ron Grant and Catherine Droden were separated by thousands of miles.
The couple have roots in the Northwest; Grant says he lived in several areas across the region growing up.

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KIRO 7 spoke to Droden after the first quake and with her husband Grant via Skype after this latest quake.
Grant says Skype was the only communication method that was working for him late in the day Tuesday as the effects of the Mexico City quake were felt across Mexico.
Even though Grant's new home is in the region near the Mexican city of Oaxaca, he feels like his perspective is up close and very personal, especially with this latest quake causing tremors in his area.
"There were people in the streets for about an hour or two afterward. They just didn't go back into building so people are shook up,” Grant said.
Grant admitted that earthquakes are common in Mexico -- many of them measuring around 5.0 on the Richter scale -- but these latest quakes were well above that median, with the latest quake measuring  7.1 on the Richter scale. (new paragraph here)
 “People are on edge. They were outside quickly and didn't want to go back inside,” he said.
Grant says floods across Mexico have been a major problem before the two earthquakes. “This flooding season was quite bad -- 17 people have already been reported dead, so community resources are already stretched pretty thin,” he said.
He added that both of the recent earthquakes pale in comparison to quakes in Western Washington.
"The thing about these two earthquakes compared to anything I experienced in the PNW is that they were long. I stopped counting at 100 for the one on the 7th, today I got to 30.” Grant says the common standard for earthquakes he’s experiences is anywhere from five to 10 seconds.
Grant wasn’t the only person who spoke to KIRO 7 on the ground from Mexico.
Victor Martinez spoke to KIRO 7 via Skype after he was connected to us by World Vision the Christian Humanitarian group headquartered in Federal Way.
Martinez is in the Mexico City area and says he didn't hear sirens, so he fears some people had no warning when buildings came down. “I have never felt something like this before even though we had an earthquake last week,” he said.
On this day in 1985 another deadly quake hit Mexico -- KIRO 7 crews were on the ground covering the devastation up close.
Roberto Dondisch -- with the Mexican Consulatein Seattle -- says that history has stuck with anyone who grew up near Mexico City.
“When you live in Mexico City … since you’re a kid you learn how to deal with earthquakes. You know that earthquakes happen, you know what to do. You’re always preparing for the big one. Today, the big one hit," Dondisch said.
Catherine Droden spoke to KIRO 7 after the first major earthquake earlier in September and said she got the news of that Sept. 7 quake from her husband, people she knew in Mexico and through social media.
“Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, (I) started getting these texts from my husband (saying) 'We're OK!' I'm like, OK? Why would you not be OK?” Droden said.
 Droden said she had flown back to the Pacific Northwest for a monthlong trip to visit family. She received another text from her husband saying he had felt the latest quake.
Grant says his wife is slated to fly back to Mexico on Sunday, but he's uncertain what will happen. He said another friend was trying to fly out of Mexico City and was ready to leave when the quake hit. The airport was damaged and flights were canceled.
“I might be a little concerned that the airport operations will be a little disrupted” he said. Grant said he had not received any alerts for cancellations or delays for his wife’s planned travel. Droden also said that she had not received any information about her flight.

Cox Media Group

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