Episode 132: Natural Disasters....from Earthquakes to Tornados

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Paige: You are listening to “Coffee with Gringos.” I’m Paige Sutherland.

Ian: And I’m Ian Kennedy.

Paige: And so today we're going to have a little bit of a somber theme/topic—we are going to talk about natural disasters. Which, sadly as we all know because of global warming, climate change, whatever you call it, these are happening more frequently around the world and unfortunately, resulting in a lot of environmental destruction, a lot of pollution, a lot of lives being taken. So, it's something we can't not talk about but it, obviously, is a little dark of a theme, but me and today are just going to discuss the major ones, our personal experiences with them. So as always, listeners, if you get lost, check out that audio guide and transcript online at www.dynamicenglish.cl. Okay, Ian—natural disasters, fun stuff. So, the first one to kick us off, we just have to talk about because our listeners are mostly from Chile and that is earthquakes and tsunamis.

Ian: Exactly, Paige. Thanks for that. So, here in Chile, earthquakes and tsunamis are just a very typical part of life. It's pretty amazing because I'm from the Midwest in the US, where we don't have any earthquakes, and so when I came to Chile, experiencing the first earthquakes and tremors which are small shakes or smaller earthquakes that happen, they were so foreign and, to be honest, a little bit scary for me. Here in Chile, earthquakes have happened ever since the beginning of time. There are so many huge earthquakes that have occurred. In fact, the largest recorded in world history happened in the south of Chile in 1960 and ever since then, there have been some major ones ever since. Most notably, in 2010, there was a really big one. It was more than 8.0 on the Richter scale which is very scary, and luckily here in Chile, the buildings and the engineering is all structured to where it can withstand all of this activity. So, in other countries, maybe a 4.0 or a five might destroy buildings. Here in Chile, it takes something really huge—like a nine or at ten—to cause that kind of damage. So, like I said, people hear that feeling earthquake and they just carry on with their day like nothing's happening. But earthquakes can be scary because you have no way of knowing that they're coming. You can just be doing normal life and everything around you start shaking— the walls, the ground. It just really makes you feel the power of Mother Nature. And they usually last only ten seconds to thirty seconds or not that long but of course, time moves so slow and you feel things shaking around you and you’re kind of worried about what's going to happen. And what's dangerous about earthquakes as well is because of the movements that happen, it can cause a tsunami. Which for those of our listeners who might not know what a tsunami is, a tsunami is an enormous wave that comes from the ocean that comes from the aftershock of an earthquake. So, when the movements with the plates of the earth happen, this causes the tides of the ocean to come in, it really destroys coasts and people's homes on the coastlines and really causes a lot of deaths. Unfortunately, in 2010, that was the main reason for a lot of the deaths that happened in Chile with the major earthquake. It wasn't so much the earthquake itself but it was the tsunami that came afterward. So many people here live on the coast that they were so affected and sadly, more than one hundred people died due to this event. Earthquakes and tsunamis are a big part of people's lives down here in Chile and, of course, in other parts. But not so common for me in Missouri where I'm from and I don't think there are really any earthquakes in Boston either, right?

Paige: No, I would get made fun of by a lot of Chileans because when there was an earthquake, I would just go run. Like that's your immediate response is to flee, and Chileans are like, “Oh, chill out.” Yeah, it's just, I found earthquakes so unnerving because, like you said, you have no idea when they're coming and you have no idea how they're going to finish, so it was tough to judge what was serious and what wasn't. Because you're like, this feels like it's going on for a while. Should I run? Should I not? And that was always my panic when I was living in Santiago was the apartment would shake, the building would shake, and I'd look out the window to be like what are other Chileans doing? And everyone's just carrying on with their day and I was like, I guess this is okay. Something I did get used to growing up in Boston was blizzards. Blizzards usually isn't a natural disaster that takes as many deaths as an earthquake or tsunami does so I'm fortunate I live in a region that this is kind of the worst that we get. But it was funny living in Santiago because if it snows—which I don't think it did really much at all when I lived there—people have video cameras and are taking photos and it's such little snowfall where I'm from. Blizzards are common, which blizzards are just huge amounts of snow that fall, usually really fast winds, the temperatures are really low. But I'm talking snowfalls the size of an average male adult—very, very high, many feet of snow—where the power will go out for days at a time. You could be trapped in your building because there's so much snow that's outside the door.

Ian: I'm sure you're very used to it out there in the north. There’s so much snow and it's so cold that it's important to mention that I think blizzards can be pretty mellow or pretty severe depending on where you live if that's something that normally happens as well. So, for you to have a lot of snow it's like whatever this is Boston, it's cold, we get a lot of snow—people are prepared for it. But in other areas of the country, for example, just last month, there was a very severe blizzard that happened throughout most of the US but Texas, which is a state located in the South, for those who don't know, it was severely hit with this cold weather with lots of snow. And this is a place where typically they don't get this kind of weather, they're not used to this. So, people were losing energy, they didn't have energy in their houses, they couldn't stay warm. The whole state had problems with the energy grid, with food, with providing services for people. And so sadly there were some people who died due to just their state not being prepared for these kinds of events and kind of like you mentioned at the top of the podcast, these kinds of unexpected things are happening more and more because we're seeing with climate change. So further in the South, it's not so common, so you're having these strange events happen without even being able to predict it. So, it's a little bit of a wake-up call to some places like Texas, for example in this case but they can definitely be cold and severe. Got to be careful.

Paige: CWG officially has over one hundred episodes and we are among the “Top Podcasts in Chile” and that's thanks to you, but we are always working to grow our audience. So, make sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, Tik Tok, and even LinkedIn. But most importantly—rate, review and share us with all your friends, family, and coworkers. And if you want to take your English education to the next level, sign up for private or group classes at dynamicenglish.cl.

Ian: So, I'm from Missouri, and while in Missouri we don't have earthquakes or hurricanes, which we're going to mention a little bit later, we do have a pretty severe natural disaster that happens all the time, and these are tornadoes. And tornadoes basically are big wind storms that, when they generate a lot of energy and winds together, it forms sort of a cyclone. So, it's like a twisting cyclone, that goes through an area and just picks up and destroys everything in sight. Missouri is actually located in a part of the US that's called Tornado Alley, which makes up about four or five states in the South, where during the spring especially it's very, very dangerous and very common to have a lot of tornadoes. But for me, tornadoes are sort of like what earthquakes are for Chileans. It's just, I think what you're used to. So, for me growing up as a boy, it was very normal for me to see on the news that we would have storms coming, we would have a tornado on its way coming for the city. Typically, what you have to do is you need to get to the lowest point on the ground as possible. So, if you're in a house, you need to get to the lowest floor, so for a lot of people, that's their basement. Get down to the basement, get away from windows where perhaps broken glass can cause problems. So, it was very common for me as a little boy to have my parents come wake me up and say “We have a storm coming and we have to go take cover.” And strangely enough, in my parents’ home, there's no basement. They customized and cut a door into the floor of the closet so that if things get really severe, we could lift up the door and go underneath the house. Like actually go to the foundation of the house in case the tornado went right over us, so it was very common for us in the middle of the night to go down and take cover in the closet, maybe go under the house for a little while, and basically just ride out the storm, hope that nothing bad happens. And it's actually really common in most neighborhoods to have a really big siren that sounds an alarm to alert everyone, “Hey, there's a tornado coming: take cover.” Again, and just common for me, not so common for others.

Paige: Definitely not. In our region, lesser than a tornado, what’s common is a hurricane, and a hurricane is basically a very intense storm where the winds are really high, fierce rain, and so you see a lot of trees that are blown up from the roots, a lot of destruction on houses, cars. So, a lot of property damage that happens in these hurricanes, and there are death tolls, but generally it's because of the damage from properties. But no tornadoes—hurricanes are probably the worst we get in that in that kind of genre of natural disasters. Another one we have to talk about which unfortunately has happened all over the world, we had huge wildfires in the US and Australia, Brazilian Amazon, in Chile— wildfires are just increasing more and more and more with climate change. And Ian, you were just in the midst of one just a few weeks ago, right?

Ian: Yeah, you're right. It was my first kind of experience with a wildfire myself. So, I was with a few friends in the south a few hours in the south of Chile in an area for listeners who are from here and they know the area—San Fernando, down in the O’Higgins region—and we were staying sort of in a valley with a lot of trees and rivers and whatnot. But one day, we noticed the huge cloud of smoke coming up from behind the mountain next to ours—the hill next to ours—which is a telltale sign of a fire happening. So, we looked into it, and just over the corner there was a huge smoke cloud that was happening, and it went on for about, I'd say, three days, nonstop of just burning the fire. There were helicopters coming in all day, every day dropping water, dropping chemicals to try to put out the fire. We were pretty worried that we were going to have to evacuate, were going to have to get out of there because if it got more serious, it could burn all of the forests where we were staying. So, it was a little bit scary at first, and with some luck, a rainstorm came and really put it out after about three days. But, like you mentioned, this is something that unfortunately is becoming much and much more common in places like Chile, California, Australia, these places where we're seeing a lot of droughts and a drought is an extended period of time without rainfall. So, just think of really dry conditions in a lot of these places that are causing these fires. Like you mentioned, in the Amazon, millions of acres of Amazon burned just last year to this climate change and so I think this is another natural disaster that's giving us wake-up calls. Again, we see this much too often and unless we do something to change it, they're going to keep happening more and more every year.

Paige: For our last one, we started with Chile, we're ending with Chile. Something that really surprised me when I lived in Chile was that there are volcanoes. There are lots of volcanoes and they're active. I spent Dieciocho the last year I was in Chile in Pucón and the volcano there was at critical condition. I literally saw smoke coming out of it. You could see lava at the top of it and there were all these signs in the town that was like “Volcano Evacuation route” and the light was blinking because it was critical condition and I was like, “What will happen if this erupts? Like, what do I do? Where do I go? What's the protocol?” And everyone was so relaxed. People were like, “It’s fine, it's just smoking.”

Ian: And you were like, “Yeah, what about if there's lava? If there’s lava rushing at me, do I stay calm?”

Paige: I just I don't know if listeners or you, Ian, have seen “Dante's Peak”, but it's about this volcano that erupts and it just looks so terrifying and I just envision, obviously lava, spilling into the streets, but just this rush of cars and no way to escape because everyone is flooding to the escape routes. I don't know, I didn't sleep great while I was staying there.

Ian: Yeah, I imagine not. I bet you were afraid you're going to fall asleep and just get enveloped in the lava. It's very scary in that sense, especially for people like us. There are no volcanoes in Missouri, there are no volcanoes in Boston. So, we come here and you think, well shit, I need to follow the locals’ lead to figure this out.  It's like me for earthquakes, right? It’s the same with me here. I thought, wow okay—volcanoes. I'm just going to follow their lead because I don't really know what to do. But again, Chile is sort of a hotspot as we've realized for natural disasters. I think that's why the people here are so they're so nonchalant and they're very casual and I think they're very strong people as well because natural disasters have just always been a part of the culture and their history and so instead of being scared and curling up in a ball in the fetal position, they just say, “You know what? This is life. We've dealt with this before and we'll deal with it again in the future and we’ve just got to move on and stay strong.” So, I think it plays a big part into their personalities and their culture as well. They say here in Chile that about every ten years, more or less, there's a big earthquake. So, the last big one that occurred here was in 2010. So basically, that means we're due for another big one. My fingers are crossed that I'm in a safe place whenever that happens, that I'm not on the twenty-fifth story of a building. We don't know when it's going to come, but we have an idea that it could come.

Paige: What floor are you living on right now?

Ian: I'm on the fifteenth floor right now which is not super reassuring, but you know, like I said, the engineering is good enough here to where we don't have to worry about the building folding in half. I don't have to worry about falling to my death.

Paige: Yeah, that would be, Chile would really take the prize there with the social uprisings, Coronavirus pandemic, and then having a mega-earthquake. So, I hope scientists are wrong.

Ian: Me too.

Paige: So, listeners as we said, kind of a somber topic, but unfortunately, with climate change, things like this are just going to happen more and more, so it's good to know these words, what they mean because they're going to be part of the conversation and the news probably frequently over the next ten years. So again, listeners as always, if you get lost, check out that audio guide and transcript online at www.dynamicenglish.cl. As always, thanks for listening.

Ian: We'll catch you next time.

Paige: “Coffee with Gringos” was brought to you by Dynamic English, where you can learn English simply by using it. If you’re interested in taking classes or just want to learn more, go to our website at dynamicenglish.cl. Thanks for listening.

Key Vocabulary, Phrases & Slang:

 1.     somber (adjective): dark; gloomy; negative.

a.     The somber man entered the building with a frown on his face.

2.     to kick off (phrasal verb): to start.

a.     We need to kick off the meeting with a review from last week.

3.     Richter scale (noun): a scale of numbers used to measure the strength of earthquakes.

a.     The Richter scale was developed by Charles Richter in 1935.

4.     to carry on (phrasal verb): to continue.

a.     They carry on as usual even whenever there is an earthquake.

5.     aftershock (noun): a smaller earthquake following the main shock of a large earthquake.

a.     There was a serious tsunami that followed the initial aftershock.

6.     to flee (verb): to run away from a place or situation of danger.

a.     They decided to flee their homes in order to stay safe.

7.     unnerving (adjective): causing one to lose confidence or courage.

a.     It was unnerving to see the locals becoming nervous about the storm.

8.     mellow (adjective): easygoing; relaxed.

a.     The locals are so mellow about the weather even though I think it’s scary.

9.     wakeup call (noun): something that gives a warning for a change needed.

a.     The increase in natural disasters is a wakeup call for climate change.

10.  to ride out the storm (idiom): to survive a difficult situation.

a.     I just want to ride out the storm and get back to my house.

11.  fierce (adjective): aggressive; strong.

a.     The fierce winds blew as the tornado began to form.

12.  telltale (adjective): revealing; indicative.

a.     There were telltale signs of tornado damage as they entered the city.

13.  to evacuate (verb): to leave a place due to danger.

a.     The city needs to evacuate as soon as possible so they aren’t harmed.

14.  to put (something) out (phrasal verb): to extinguish something that is burning.

a.     The firefighters were able to put the fire out before the people needed to be evacuated.

15.  Dieciocho (noun): Chilean Independence Day celebrated on September 18th.

a.     I love celebrating Dieciocho with my Chilean friends.

16.  to erupt (verb): to explode, usually with lava, ash, and gases for volcanoes.

a.     The volcano erupted and ejected lava high into the air.

17.  protocol (noun): the established code of procedure or behavior for something.  

a.     The government has issued a new protocol for volcanic eruptions.

18.  to envision (verb): to imagine as a future possibility; to visualize.

a.     I envision a future with more disasters unless we make some changes.  

19.  to envelope (verb): to wrap up, cover, or surround completely.

a.     The town was enveloped in ash from the volcano.

20.  hotspot (noun): a place of significant activity or danger.

a.     Chile is a hotspot for natural disasters.

21.  nonchalant (adjective): calm; relaxed.

a.     The Chilean people are so nonchalant with earthquakes because they are so common.

22.  to curl up in a ball (idiom): to form someone’s body in a ball shape; to give up.

a.     We won’t just curl up in a ball and stop just because of some bad weather.

23.  reassuring (adjective): make someone feel better or more confident about something

It’s reassuring to know that engineering is very good in the country.