Hi Chris. San Jose was indeed around at the time of the quake. My Aunt Lucy who was 6 years old at the time was living on Jackson Street when the quake struck. She remembered the noise it made before they felt it. It didn’t destroy the house, but it sure made a mess of it inside. They slept outside for 5 days they before they got up enough courage to spend a night in the house.

My Uncle Nataline was living in the area of Colima at the time of the quake. He was 12 years old at the time. He said he was getting ready to go to work when the quake struck. He said there was no sound, no warning of any kind before feeling the quake. One moment everything was peaceful and quiet and the next all hell broke loose. He said he wasn’t quite sure if he sat down on the ground because he couldn’t stand up, or if he was knocked down. Either way he couldn’t get up until the quake stopped. He said he prayed in both English and Italian for the quake to stop and when that didn’t work he started cussing at it in English, Italian and what little Portuguese he knew. He said after the quake stopped it was dead quiet for about a minute. Then you started hearing the cries and screams of people. He said he didn’t know which was worse. The sound of the quake as it was occurring, the silence right after the quake, or the cries of the people. He remembered all of it as if it was yesterday.

He worked at the docks as a fishmonger. He told me the day before the quake everyone there was smelling an odor of rotten eggs. They also saw milky white bubbles at the surface of the water near the docks. No one paid any attention to them at the time. Take Care…Don in creepy town