September 19 started out as a tranquil, but eerie day in Mexico City. The sun rose at 7:24 a.m.

over the Popocatpetl volcano and

onto the homes and offices and workplaces of the citys nearly 8.9 million residents.

That Tuesday morning, commemorations were being held throughout the city. It was the 32nd anniversary of the 8.1 magnitude
earthquake that killed more than 5,000 people in Mexicos capital in 1985, causing 412 buildings to collapse and more than $3
billion in damages. Mexican law states that all schools and public institutions are required to hold earthquake safety drills every
September 19. Some places choose to practice their safety drills earlier in the morning to avoid interfering with their work or school
days, while others participated in the national earthquake drill scheduled for 11 a.m.

Just after 1 p.m., my uncle ngel Jimnez was walking to the local market to buy some fresh produce. He pulled out a note on his
phone to double-check his grocery list before turning it off to conserve the remainder of its low battery life. As he put his phone
away, a peculiar thought popped into his head. If an earthquake ever happened again, I dont care what happens to me. Id be OK
knowing my wife and two kids are safe.

It was a one of those crazy thoughts, Jimnez says. It was one of those things you feel silly for even allowing it to pop into your
head. At the time, I didnt think of it as a premonition.

At 1:14 p.m. the supermarket started shaking. Initially the shaking didnt scare ngel. Mexico City is in a subduction zone, which
means the oceanic Cocos plate is slowly sinking under the continental North American plate, making Mexico prone to earthquakes.
On February 5, 2012, a 4.8 magnitude earthquake shook Guerrero, Mexico, 218 miles from the nations capital. On May 6, 2013, a
4.1 magnitude earthquake struck Puebla, Mexico, 82 miles southeast of Mexico City. Earlier in the month, on Sept. 7, a deadly 8.1
magnitude earthquake hit offshore Chiapas, Mexico killing at least 90 people and damaging hundreds of homes and buildings.

Although earthquakes dont happen every day, ngel and the people of central Mexico are familiar with slight tremors. ngel is
blind, but he doesnt use a walking stick, nor does he have a service dog. He didnt think running out of the market would be a wise
idea if he couldnt see where he was going, so ngel held onto one of the counters. He wanted to take cover under the counter, but
his muscled, 5-foot-9-inch frame couldnt fit. At first ngel thought something was wrong with the counter, as if something was
loose.

It felt like a light tremor, then there was a sudden jerking pull, ngel says. Within a matter of seconds the shaking turned from
innocent and forgettable to forceful and historic. It would be hours before ngel would learn that the shaking came from a 7.1
magnitude earthquake about three miles northeast of Raboso, Mexico, 70 miles southeast of Mexico City.

As the shaking intensified, ngel had flashbacks to the devastation that occurred 32 years ago. Hed been here before.

***

Up north in Dallas, Texas, Jose de Jess Jimnez, ngels older brother and my father, was sitting on his cream-colored couch
watching coverage of the 1985 commemorations in Mexico City while he folded some laundry. When he was finished, Jose de
Jess (who goes by Jess) put all of his clothes into a basket and walked upstairs to his bedroom. He looked back at the coverage
from the staircase. The video of the 1985 earthquake looked different. The images were cleaner with better color and focus
modern. It took a second for Jess to realize that what he was watching were no longer images from the past, but the present.
Mexico City was shaking again.
He immediately called ngels apartment. There was no answer. He tried again, but again there was still no answer. He tried his
brothers cellphone, but the call went straight to voicemail. With each attempted call, every ring only heightened Jess concern. He
called his sister, Lolis, in San Luis Potos, 259 miles northwest of Mexico City and well out of harms way. Lolis had managed to
get in contact with ngels son, Christian, who said that his mother, Gina, and his sister, Cynthia, were all accounted for and safe.
But they couldnt get a hold of their father, and they didnt know where he was.

Jess concern turned to worry, then anxiety, then a full on panic. Where is my brother? Is he OK? Is he safe? Panic turned into
borderline hysteria.

My mother, Juanita, said shes never seen her husband so distraught beforenot when his father died, nor when his mother died.
The earthquake triggered memories of the 1985 earthquake, something that Jess struggled to put behind him for years. His wife
says when they married in 1990, it was not uncommon to wake up to her husband having night terrors set off by memories of the
earthquake.

***

On the morning of Sept. 19, 1985, Jess had been sitting down eating a breakfast prepared by his mother: two eggs over-easy with a
glass of orange juice. He was about to take a sip of his juice when he suddenly felt nauseous. The night before, he ran into some
friends on his way home from class, and joined them for a caguama (a 32-ounce bottle) of Corona. He hadnt finished the entire
beer so he didnt think he was hungover, but he wondered whether his drinking the night before could account for the nausea.

It was then that he realized his third story apartment was shaking, and what he was experiencing wasnt a stomachache, but an
earthquake. Within a matter of seconds, he saw the exterior walls of his apartment starting to crack. Books slid from the shelves.
Framed pictures fell to the ground. He knew it was too late to run downstairs. He grabbed his mother, hugged her, and leaned
against an interior wall.

Although it felt longer, the shaking had only lasted a matter of seconds. When he felt the coast was clear, he examined the damages
in their home. A wall had cracked wide enough to see outside. He peered through it, and saw that power lines in his neighborhood
were down, and neighbors had gathered in the street.

Jess took his mother by the hand, and they carefully stepped down the spiral staircase in their building. Once they were outside,
Jess couldnt believe what he saw. His apartment building was now tilted at an angle, leaning against a neighboring building. But
he didnt take much time to stare in awe. He looked for one of his sisters who lived in the same building until he discovered she was
safe. Jess also wanted to find ngel, but he assumed his brother would be OK. ngel was a Paralympian, and he was spending the
morning at track practice with other blind athletes led by coaches and trainers who were there to assist them. Jess knew that with
the trainers on hand, ngel would be fine. But now he desperately wanted to find his aging father.

Knowing his mother was safe, Jess started running. He ran nearly one mile to the closest metro station and hopped on the first train
that arrived. Jess and his father worked in the same office building in downtown Mexico City, where Jess feared the worst of the
damage would occur.

The metro line he rode was above ground, which gave him a chance to see glimpses of the initial destruction. Entire skyscrapers had
collapsed. Smoke billowed from buildings. There were fires burning throughout the city caused by gas leaks. The train made it only
three stops before service was suspended.
When Jess stepped off the train, the downtown he had known the day before was no longer there.

It looked like a war zone, Jess says now. It looked like something out of a movielike a missile had just hit Mexico City.

As Jess walked to his office building, he saw medics carrying bloody bodies. He didnt know if they were dead or alive, nor did he
want to know. Every body he saw heightened his fear of what he might see when he arrived at his office. He wanted to believe his
father was fine. He didnt want to imagine the worst.

When he finally arrived at his office, he saw that several of the buildings glass windows had shattered to the ground below. He was
about to go inside when Jess found his dad sitting on a bench outside the building, nonchalantly chatting with a coworker as if half
of the city of Mexico wasnt lying in ruins.

Papa! Papa! Jess screamed as he sprinted toward his father. Are you OK? Are you hurt?

Im fine, Im fine, his father calmly told him. Everythings fine.

Jess took a deep breath for the first time since the earthquake had hit and felt wave of relief. His dad was safe. His family was safe.

The feeling was momentary. Jess looked down the street from his office building and saw that a building on the corner had
collapsed, and another building further down the street had also fallen; there were students in that one.

Jess and his father looked up at their office building, then back at the ones that no longer stood. They each said a silent prayer. The
earthquake had spared them.

***

For ngel the shaking on Tuesday felt like it lasted for an eternity. The shaking was so intense, he knew that if he hadnt held onto
the counter, he would have fallen. He didnt think he would make it out of the store alive.

The shaking lasted about a minutea long time for an earthquake considering that the average timespan for an earthquake is about
10 to 30 seconds.

ngel Jimnez, present day. (Photo courtesy of the author)

When the shaking finally stopped, ngel took a moment to compose himself and let go of the counter. People were screaming in the
market.
My son! My son! I need to find my son, one terrified mother yelled as she ran out.

The owner of the shop was inconsolable. When ngel realized how frightened everyone was, he refused to let fear set in. Despite
his disability, he felt compelled to guide others out of the store.

Everyone, out! he ordered. Stay calm. Although he had no authority over anyone, he did have experience, and people listened
as he reminded them to watch for broken glass and debris.

When everyone was safely out of the market and on the street, ngel started laughing. None of this had been funny, but he laughed
out of nervousness. He didnt know how else to react. He couldnt believe this was happening again.

I didnt see anything, ngel says. But I felt it. I could hear the ground move. When someone loses their sight, other senses
improve. The sound was the worst. I could hear everything falling.

Turning his phone off didnt help ngel save any battery power. His phone was completely dead now, and he had no way of
reaching his family. Meanwhile everyone was trying to get in touch with him.

ngel took the metro to his apartment. What is normally a 15-minute train ride turned into 45 minutes as a fearful and cautious train
conductor slowly inched the train along the tracks. In total, it took ngel an hour and 30 minutes to get home. ngel was fine, but
nobody knew that.

Sitting on the sluggishly moving metro, he recalled the morning of the 1985 earthquake. He and his running team had been
practicing timed 400-meter sprints. He remembers there was something about running against the clock that was satisfying and
strangely peaceful.

In that moment, everything felt orderly and in its place, ngel says.

Rounding out the second 100-meter segment of one of his sprints, ngel suddenly felt dizzy, as if his blood pressure had spiked. He
felt like he was running in place, and then as if he was jumping in place. He didnt understand what was happening until one of his
coaches yelled, Its an earthquake!

ngel stopped trying to run and listened to the sound of trees snapping. He says even though there were other runners and coaches
there, he had felt alone, but he knew he was safe.

I was at a track on an open field, ngel says. Unless the ground started separating apart below, I would be fine.

As he made his way home from track practice that morning, ngel began to realize the gravity of what had just happened.
Sidewalks were completely deformed, shifted, or sunken. Some buildings looked deflated, others were piles of rubble.
Thirty-two years later, the walk home for ngel wasnt too different. The damage of the 7.1 magnitude earthquake wasnt as
ruinous as the one in 1985, but he experienced familiar feelings of shock, fear, and hopelessness.

When he finally got home, ngel returned to a dark apartment lit only by the sun that peered through the windows. The power was
out, so he still had no way of contacting his family to let them know he was safe. But within the hour, his son, Christian, arrived to
find that his father had been fine all along.

After the earthquake hit, two hours and 30 minutes passed before ngel got in touch with the rest of his family, who quickly relayed
the message that he was safe via texts, Whatsapp, Facebook messages and phone calls. The message made its way from Mexico
City to family in San Luis Potos to family in Dallasa 1,126 mile-long sigh of relief.

***

Jess and ngel catch up once a week, normally on Sunday evenings. They usually talk about sports and other current events.
Theyll talk about how well the Los Angeles Dodgers (ngels favorite team) are doing, and theyll talk about the Texas Rangers
(Jess favorite).

But on one of their weekly calls a few weeks before the earthquake, wounds that never truly healed took the center of conversation.

They talked about how much life had changed for them after that September day in 1985. At first, the changes were really more like
inconveniences. Jess and ngel moved halfway between Mexico City and Puebla because their building was deemed unsafe. Their
parents temporarily moved to San Luis Potos, before moving there permanently. Jess office building was also declared insecure,
so he and his coworkers were relocated to another office an hour away.

They considered themselves lucky because other people slept in the streets. They were alive; they had somewhere to stay; and all of
their family was safe. So many others werent as fortunate. Although the Mexican government said more than 5,000 people were
killed by the earthquake, Jess and ngel believe the death count was significantly higher, refusing to trust a government with a
history of corruption and lying. Jess thinks the death count was around 100,000. ngel believes it was closer to 200,000. For
weeks, Jess and ngel say it seemed like they saw body bags and makeshift coffins lining the streets downtown.

The incessant reminder of death and despair left lasting wounds on the Jimnez brothers. Neither could sleep for weeks and even the
slightest sudden movement was enough to worry them.

By the spring of 1986, Jess had left Mexico City. His decision to leave was partly due to fear but also because of concerns for his
aging parents safety. At the time, Jess worked for the Mexican government, which had set up resources, including travel and
moving expenses, to allow anyone who wanted to relocate to a government office outside of Mexico City. Jess sister, Lolis,
already lived in San Luis Potos, and his brother, Nan, had just started building a house there.

Jose de Jess Jimnez in 1994 (Photo courtesy of the author)

What are we still doing here? Jess asked his mother and father. His parents were easy to convince to leave, but ngel wouldnt
go so easily. ngel had a community of other blind people in Mexico City who had become his support group. He didnt want to
leave them, and he was concerned he wouldnt find the same help and support in San Luis Potos. And although it seemed like half
of Mexico City was destroyed, it was still his home, so ngel decided to stay.

It hurt Jess to leave his brother, but he wanted to do what was best for his parents. When Jess later moved to the U.S. in 1994, he
was still concerned for ngel. Before he moved, he offered his San Luis apartment to ngelrent-free.

I promise you that you wont have to pay a cent. Jess told his younger brother. ngel told him he would think about it, but he
still didnt want to leave Mexico City. Hes lived there ever since.

Jess and ngel are two out of 10 siblings, but the two brothers share a special bond. When they lived together in Mexico City,
Jess often guided ngel to new places in the city. Although ngel, who trained for the 1992 Paralympics in Barcelona, was fitter
and stronger than Jess, Jess still tried assist ngel with his workouts. Although ngel always refused the help of a service dog or
walking stick, he knew he could always count on his older brother.

Im sorry I didnt come get you that day, Jess told his brother on their phone call before the earthquake.

No, ngel said. You had to find Dad. I was fine. Im sorry, too. I should have left for San Luis with you. Life in the city was
hard after the earthquake.

***

As Mexico City begins to rebuild from last months earthquake, life will be trying for many residents. According to ngel, the city
looks as if everyone is on vacation. Normally the 6:30 a.m. train he takes to work is so full he has to wait for the next one, but the
train has been empty lately. Throughout the city, he says, people are scared, worried and on-edge.

After the 1985 earthquake, a 7.5 magnitude aftershock created more damage, bringing partially damaged buildings to a full collapse
and killing hundreds more. Residents are fearful of a similar aftershock occurring.

After the one in Chiapas, then this one, and now Oaxaca, when will it end? ngel says. Its like nature is punishing us.

For all of the fear and uncertainty looming around Mexico City, there is hope. Stories of children found and rescued from collapsed
schools, of regular citizens forming assembly lines to remove rubble, and of others cooking and delivering food for the search and
rescue workers are lifting spirits.

Thats how you can characterize us as Latinosand all mankind for that matter, Jess says. We help each other in times of need.
Mexico rebuilt once, and theyll do it again.