‘I don’t know what to do next;’ Ridgecrest residents find solace outdoors, at nearby parks
They slept on the grass in Freedom Park because they were too scared to go inside the Red Cross shelter in Ridgecrest’s Civic Center.
“We were afraid the shelter would fall,” said Antonio Ortiz, 35, who spent the night in the park in Ridgecrest with his extended family including his mother-in-law suffering from dementia. Any building with a roof that could collapse became a scary place.
Aftershocks shook residents here to their souls through the night as several scared families pitched tents, curled up on the dewy grass or slept in their cars. The same scene played out all over this desert community.
People were afraid of their own homes. They were afraid of falling trees and power lines. Some of them said they envisioned the earth opening beneath their feet to swallow them.
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After two major earthquakes, residents here found themselves suddenly afraid of pictures on the wall, water heaters, cracks in the pavement. Televisions became projectiles. Pots and pans flew out of cupboards.
Ortiz said he knew his family was in trouble when he looked at his car in the driveway.
“It was shaking like it would roll away,” he said.
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His children were screaming, as the next door neighbor’s home burned to the ground. His wife, Ruby, was making demands.
“She wants to move out of this town,” Ortiz said. But their family has been here for 20 years and they have no place else to go. They have two months of insulin medication for Ruby’s mother, Marta, and the Red Cross has been sending volunteers to check on them.
“I’m praying,” Ruby said. “I don’t know what to do next.”
At the other end of the park, Jamil Osmani and his wife, Hellai, had pitched a tent.
He was in the shower when the earthquake hit. He had to make a decision whether to run out of his townhouse naked.
He put on pants before he fled.
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Osmani was carrying his 2-year-old daughter downstairs when the shaking was at its worst. He was banging into the walls side to side.
“Our biggest concern was the building collapsing,” Osmani said. “That is, by far, the biggest earthquake I’ve ever felt. It sounded like a freight train rolling.”
Osmani shook his head and laughed at the coincidence of his personal situation.
“We’re in the process of moving to San Diego,” he said.
He can’t get there fast enough.
Joshua McGowen, 26, and Lacey Wells, 23, considered spending the night in the Red Cross shelter, but decided against it. They spent Saturday morning wrapped in blankets, huddling with their dogs, Snickers, Twix and Porky.
“I don’t know what I would do if I lost these dogs,” Wells said. “You can get trapped in a building. Out here, we can walk away and leave.”
Cheyenne Fowlkes, 25, was staying in the Super 8 Motel with her four young children when the shaking started. She said it sounded like the ceiling was cracking.
“As soon as it stopped, I grabbed the keys and slept in the car,” Fowlkes said. “But I don’t think I slept all night.”
She could have gone in the shelter, but she didn’t want to wake her children.
“They would start panicking,” she said.
Fowlkes doesn’t know where she will spend tonight. She’s going to take the kids to Stater Bros. to stock up on supplies.
It looks like they might be sleeping again in the car.
