Earthquake! The floor beneath my feet swayed. Split-second decisions needed to be made.
"Esta temblando!" There's an earthquake!
My brain struggled to understand what was happening as I felt the floor beneath my feet sway. I steadied myself against my dining room table. Split-second decisions needed to be made.
It didn't shake for long, a matter of seconds, maybe. By the time I got to my daughter's room, it had stopped. I quickly but calmly swooped up my 5-year-old daughter, who had stayed home sick from school Wednesday and was watching "Bluey" on her iPad. Carrying her, I walked toward my desk and grabbed my cellphone. I then turned and walked toward the front door of my third-floor apartment while snatching my purse, which was slung over a dining room chair; I grabbed my keys next to my door. Now that the building was no longer shaking we needed to get downstairs, out of the apartment building and onto the open street.
She asked me what I was doing and I told her we were going to play a game. Worrying her wasn't going to make anything better for either of us and I needed to maintain control. Because she was lying down in her bed, she didn't seem to notice the shaking. I, on the other hand, was standing in the kitchen and felt everything.
Yes, it was a massive earthquake
A 7.6 magnitude earthquake hit Mexico's central Pacific coast at 1:05 p.m. local time, with its epicenter 23 miles southeast of Aquila near the boundary of Colima and Michoacan states and at a depth of 9.4 miles. Its effects were felt all the way across to the other side of the country on the Gulf of Mexico, where I am, and even as far away as Colorado.
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This is the third major earthquake to hit Mexico on the same date, Sept. 19. Previous quakes devastated the country on this day in 1985, killing up to 10,000 people, and again recently in 2017, when about 370 died.
A professor in the state of Jalisco posted a video on Twitter of pickups rocking back and forth. "Never in my life have I seen an earthquake of this magnitude," he said. "Everything literally moved."
This time there are, so far, few major reports of damage. One person has been confirmed dead. Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum tweeted that there were no reports of major damage in the capital, either.
The scary normal of earthquakes
There are a few natural events that I have experienced in my 38 years that make me feel a nauseating pit at the bottom of my stomach. Earthquakes are one of them.
When I lived in Mexico City, they were a relatively common occurrence. My partner and I had a backpack that hung next to the door with passports, cash, a dog leash, water bottle, chips, a change of clothes and keys in it. Whenever we heard the sirens that would alert us that an earthquake was seconds away we would grab the dog, the backpack and run down the stairs and out the door before the shaking started.
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Back to gathering my daughters
As soon as I got down to the street with my daughter, I started getting messages from my kids' school that everything was under control, that they had moved the children outside but that we should pick them up because some of them were very upset. I imagined my oldest daughter, who is very sensitive, was probably crying.
I went to text my partner, a urologist, but then remembered that he had surgery scheduled, and that the surgeons don't leave the patient's bedside when there's an earthquake. The technicians, interns and nurses can flee, but the residents and the attending surgeon stay by their patients' side until the quake is over and the patient can be safely moved out of the hospital.
My family is thankfully all OK.
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This isn't over, yet
Everyone who has lived through an earthquake knows that the first quake isn't always the worst one – others can hit in the coming hours or days. That's what happened in 2017, for instance, when the first earthquake hit on Sept. 7 and killed 98 people. But when the second quake hit on Sept 19, nearly 400 died.
For my family, we are going to try and be as ready as we can for any big aftershocks. I have my backpack with provisions and passports, a change of clothes and some money. I will explain to my daughters why we have to be ready and how we plan to be safe.
And like so many before us who have come close to disaster, or have lived through it: We will go on with our lives.
More from Carli Pierson:
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Carli Pierson, a New York licensed attorney, is an opinion writer with USA TODAY, and a member of the USA TODAY Editorial Board. She divides her time between the U.S. and Mexico. Follow her on Twitter: @CarliPiersonEsq.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Massive 7.6 earthquake in Mexico sent my building shaking
