Brain shuts down
I can’t imagine the devastation. I think I’m glad I can’t. My brain just shuts down when I try.
I have a reference point, of sorts. I was in Guadalajara for the Mexico earthquake of 1985. We weren’t even scratched, but I remember the blank and shocked faces, the whispered awe, the quiet terror of people with friends and family in Mexico City and no way to find out whether they were safe.
(Every phone line was dead, every broadcast tower down… we ended up standing in a four-hour line to send a telegram to family in the States. Which got out of Mexico within hours only to be delayed for several days in New York…)
And this quake, by all accounts, orders of magnitude worse. I don’t have room to imagine it.
I wish I knew who is providing communication, there. Human contact. It doesn’t seem as important as food and water, but I still wish I knew, and could contribute.