The whole house started to shake. It had begun.

At 11:23pm on September 24th, 2019, a 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck 70 kilometers north of Puerto Rico. Then the tsunami warning came on the QuakeFeed app.

We weren’t ready for the earthquake and we weren’t ready for a tsunami. In Camuy, 75 minutes from San Juan, we’d been preparing for Hurricane Karen. Despite the optimistic weather forecast, we’d wanted extra precautions after Hurricane Maria’s devastation.

But we weren’t expecting an earthquake.

We piled into the car and called neighbors to warn them as we followed the evacuation route up the hill.