Baker woman knows Chile, quakes

Johnson was at her home in Baker City Saturday morning when she learned that another quake had devastated parts of her native country just a few hours earlier.

“It was very disturbing,” said Johnson, who moved to Baker City in 1979.

She was getting ready to drive to the Boise area to visit friends.

Johnson telephoned to tell them she was leaving.

They asked: “Have you heard the news?”

Johnson had not.

She switched on her TV and tuned in CNN.

The collapsed buildings shown on the screen reminded her of what she saw one day in May, almost half a century ago.

Johnson was 12 that day, May 22, 1960.

Suddenly the chandeliers began to sway.

And furniture slid across the wooden floors.

It was the strongest earthquake ever measured — 9.5 on the Richter scale.

The apartment building survived the shaking, and so did Johnson’s family.

After learning Saturday morning about the 8.8 quake, Johnson thought first of her many relatives who still live in Santiago: her sisters, Luisa Gonzalez and Graciela Gonzalez, her brother, Miguel Gonzalez, and several nieces and nephews.

Johnson tried to get through to her siblings through Skype, the Internet phone/video service.

“All of the calls were dropped,” she said.

Next she posted a message on her Facebook account, asking for any information.

The only response was from a friend who lives in Santiago.

Johnson said her friend sent her a message describing “a nightmare.”

The friend, who lives in an 18-story building, wrote that she was afraid the building would collapse.

But it stood.

On Sunday Johnson reached her cousin, Ximena Joslyn, by cell phone.

Joslyn and her husband, David, live in Virginia, but they own property in Chile.

Ximena was vacationing at a resort south of Santiago, about 60 miles from the epicenter, when the quake struck.

Johnson said Ximena tried to get out of bed.

“But the shaking was so hard she was thrown back onto the bed,” Johnson said. “It was like being on a small boat.”

The one-story building Ximena was staying in was not damaged.

As of this morning Johnson had not talked to any of her siblings in Santiago.

They all live in the same section of the city, she said.

Johnson said her cousin’s husband, David Joslyn, was staying in a motel in Concepcion, near the epicenter, when the quake hit.

He was traveling to meet Ximena at the resort, Johnson said.

The windows broke in David Joslyn’s room, but he was not hurt, Johnson said.

His car sustained some dents, however, when part of a wall collapsed in the underground garage where he had parked.

On Sunday David and Ximena drove back to Santiago along the Pan-American Highway, Johnson said.

The highway was cracked and buckled in places, and one bridge had collapsed.

The quake devastated sections of Santiago where most of the buildings were of older, British-style construction, Johnson said.

But newer buildings — many of which were built after the 1960 quake and designed to withstand powerful shaking — were unscathed.

Johnson said Ximena told her that in some areas of the city, “you couldn’t tell anything had happened.”

In the Joslyns’ apartment, which is in a newer building, glass picture frames and some tiles had fallen, but the building was not damaged.

Johnson said Ximena told her that both electricity and water were off.

While she waits for Chilean officials to restore landline phone service, Johnson said Ximena’s cell phone will serve as her link to the country.

Johnson said she did speak briefly Sunday night, by landline, with a high school friend who lives in Santiago, but the call was cut off.

Johnson works for the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest.

She moved to Baker City with her husband, Charlie Johnson, a Forest Service plant ecologist who died in March 2007.

The couple met when Charlie Johnson was working for the Peace Corps in Chile in the late 1960s. They were married in 1969.

The younger of the Johnsons’ two daughters, Melica, is a reporter for KATU Channel 2 in Portland.