Mexico City quake dredges up memories of 1993

As a boy, I was fascinated and horrified by news on the television about tornadoes in the Midwest, typhoons in Asia, flooding in India, and especially earthquakes around the world. I remember being glued to the set when the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City killed thousands of people and feeling deep sorrow for the victims.

Having grown up in northern New Mexico at the base of the Rocky Mountains, the only natural disasters I ever witnessed were blizzards and a little flooding. I always wondered what an earthquake experience would be like. In 1993, I finally found out.

At that time, I was managing New Mexico’s first foreign trade/tourism office in Mexico City, which I helped to establish for Gov. Bruce King. As was usual, I had been summoned to testify in front of the New Mexico Legislature’s Border Development Committee, which was meeting in Las Cruces, to update the members on my progress. Being extremely busy at the office, I decided to take an early morning flight from Mexico City to Juárez, cross the border in a taxi and have one of my colleagues pick me up and drive me to the hearing. I did my testimony and then did the whole process in reverse late that afternoon. I arrived back in Mexico City around midevening.

Needless to say, it had been a long day, and I quickly took a taxi to my apartment in the Zona Rosa District, which was near my office, to rest. Not 10 minutes after having arrived at my place, a group of my friends called and urged me to meet them at a Zona Rosa bar for a drink. I tried to beg off, but the bar was only three blocks from my apartment and I knew that they would call me every 15 minutes if I didn’t put in an appearance.

The cantina was modeled after an old hunting lodge, with mounted animals on the walls and a long bar with a brass railing running along its length. When I arrived, my friends ordered me a tequila, and I sat down to tell them about my trip. I had sipped about half of the tequila when I started feeling dizzy, as if the room were spinning. I looked at the wall and a moose was nodding its head up and down at me. Startled, I quickly stood up thinking I was so tired I was hallucinating or that I was going crazy.

I looked down the bar at my friends, who were staring back at me with their mouths open. I looked down to see the brass railing on the bar undulating up and down like a snake. Suddenly, somebody yelled, “Temblor!” which is Spanish for earthquake. Instinctively, all of us ran out into the street to see that hundreds of other people had done the same.

We stayed outside for what seemed like forever, with people running back and forth in chaos before police gave us the go-ahead to go back inside. I went home shortly thereafter and slept nervously that night as a series of small aftershocks rolled through the city. The next day, the news told of several people who had been killed by falling debris or who had been run over when they ran into the street just like we did.

I had several impressions of my first earthquake. I didn’t realize that stronger quakes are accompanied by a noise that I thought sounded like a runaway freight train. It is a surreal feeling to be standing on earth that is moving — nothing that a carnival ride can replicate. It also made me realize how vulnerable Mexico City is, being located near plates in the earth that are constantly moving and having been built on the drained lakebed of ancient Lake Texcoco. The evidence is all around the city. The Palacio de Bellas Artes, which houses some of the nation’s art treasures, tilts crookedly because of settling, as is the case with many historic buildings in the city. Walking in my apartment made people feel tipsy because the floor was uneven, the result of earthquakes and shifting earth underneath.

The experience made a connection in my head about the aftermath of the 1985 quake in which many businesses, in search of more security, packed up and moved out of Mexico City to places such as the state of Queretaro, three hours north and which today has one of the most thriving industrial bases in Mexico. The aviation industry and other large global firms such as Kimberly Clark all decided that being outside of Mexico City was a safer bet.

I also recalled walking in the downtown plaza area shortly after arriving in the city to live and seeing empty lots with bricks, steel, and boards piled up. I asked one of my Mexican friends if a downtown renovation was underway. He looked at me curiously and said, “No, these are remnants of the ’85 temblor.” This was six years after that quake had occurred, making me realize that rubble can take months or even years to clear.

So, when the Sept. 19, 2017, earthquake struck the interior of Mexico, killing hundreds of people, 32 years to the day of the 1985 quake, I was transported back to 1993, even though that was a minor quake compared to the other two.

Experiencing such a devastating event will make a lot of people and businesses decide to move to safer ground, especially if they have suffered severe losses. However, in rapidly expanding Mexico City, which is one of the world’s largest

metropolitan areas, many more people will move in to take their place.

In my experience, Mexicans are extremely resilient people who bravely face hardships with dignity. Older Mexicans can rattle off disasters by the year, and they persevere. But for me, the mystery and curiousness about earthquakes is gone, and I am grateful to be back in my Southwest U.S., happy to let prospective companies know that we are relatively free of major natural disasters and a good place to establish a business.