CHS grad describes quake aftermath in Chile
<p>Phil Giesen, a 2003 graduate of Coeur d'Alene High School, visited Chile's Torres Del Paine National Park in January. Giesen, who moved to Santiago, Chile, last May, gave a firsthand account of Saturday's 8.8-magnitude earthquake.</p>
As Phil Giesen made his way toward the door of a club in Santiago, Chile, last weekend, the world began to shake.
The 2003 Coeur d'Alene High School graduate, out with a large group of friends in Chile's capital city, found it increasingly difficult to walk as everything around him convulsed.
"Pieces of the ceiling began breaking off and falling on us, and many people panicked and started rushing for the exit," Giesen reported in an e-mail interview.
A 2007 graduate and former member of the football team at St. John's University in Minnesota, Giesen grew up in the Coeur d'Alene area. His parents, John Giesen, a retired orthopedic surgeon, and mother, Helen Talkington, live in Hayden.
The 24-year-old moved to Santiago last May to teach English.
The magnitude-8.8 quake struck early Saturday, just hours after midnight, its epicenter near the city of Concepcion, 200 miles southwest of Giesen's home.
In his apartment, on the 15th floor of a Santiago building, there are large cracks on the walls and ceiling. The rumbling was strong enough to move the refrigerator and knock bottles off shelves.
"I felt very lucky that nobody I know personally was seriously injured or killed in the quake," Giesen said. "A group of my friends were camping on the beach, and they had an altogether different experience."
A tsunami wave lifted the campers' vehicle, and carried it 300 yards, completely destroying the car.
Although buildings, churches, highway overpasses and the airport in Santiago were heavily damaged, Giesen said there are many areas in and around the city that appear to have gone unscathed.
"In the south the situation is very different, with many people resorting to looting in order to get milk for their children," Giesen said. "As far as we know in Santiago, the situation in Concepcion ... is really terrible. Thousands of people homeless, without the ability to get clean water and basic food items."
The situation improved somewhat on Wednesday, as Chile's military finally rolled out a massive humanitarian aid effort four days after the quake.
The Coeur d'Alene native was able to lend a hand Tuesday to a volunteer organization, Un techo para Chile (A roof for Chile). The group normally helps provide housing for low-income families throughout the Andean nation.
"With many older homes in Santiago collapsed, many people need help," Giesen said. "Although the buildings are very basic, the families are very happy to get a roof over their heads so they can look to rebuild their own homes when they are able."
Living through the quake has been a sobering experience for Giesen.
He has a renewed appreciation for Coeur d'Alene, "where we don't really have any natural disasters to speak of."
"There is a lot of work yet to be done in order to rebuild Chile to its former state," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.