Degenkolb Chile Team 2 left the US from 4 different cities on Tuesday March 16 – Stacy Bartoletti from Seattle, Kent Yu from Portland, Daniel Zepeda from LA, and Mike Braund from San Diego. We all met up in Atlanta and flew from Atlanta to Santiago and then from Santiago to Concepcion. The travel was generally uneventful with the exception of very short connection times. 3 of the 4 of us ended up running through the airport ...
Concepcion
Bldg ID 3-13 Concepcion Hospital (36⁰ 49' 30", 73⁰ 02' 16") Three separate buildings, construction dates 1943, 1987 and 2009, make up the main buildings of the largest hospital in Chile. This 1000 bed hospital campus also has support buildings such as the central plant, dining building, MRI and miscellaneous small bungalows. When the earthquake hit, the hospital lost functions to radiology, central processing, ICU, and the boilers in the central plant. Unlike the hospitals in Curico and Talca, ...
Tsunami Damage in Talcahuano
On Friday morning we visited the small fishing community of Talcahuano that suffered severe devastation due to the tsunami. The town is not very far from our hotel. Even though we arrived almost two weeks after the earthquake and tsunami, the evidence of destruction is still pretty evident. Cleaning activities are proceeding but it will take a long time for things to get back to normal. It appears the water reached a level of 4 to ...
Bldg 3-13 University Andres Bello (36⁰ 46' 46", 73⁰ 04' 33") Four-story private university with one older wing and a newer wing under construction. On the picture of the model, it represents one half of the main wing and one half of the longest of three fingers. The rest of wings are yet to be built. The main entry has a large cantilevered overhang supported by concrete braces. There is a lot of mass at the cantilevers with ...
Hualpen
ESSBIO WASTE WATER TREATMENT PLANT (36⁰ 48' 21", 73⁰ 06' 19")
We arrived at the plant around 6 PM on Friday. The plant manager was very happy to show us the plant and the damage to his structures. The plant has two primary treatment tanks and three secondary treatment tanks. The primary tanks performed well and are fully operational. The secondary tanks failed and the contents spilled into the Bio Bio River. The failed tanks consist of four reinforced ...
Degenkolb Reconnaissance team 1 - Chile Earthquake 2010 Left to Right: Roger Parra, David Gonzalez, Anuj Bansal, James Liu
Video footage of city of city of Concepcion (below)
Video footage of demolition (below)