Chile Forum

Ignite, I just PM you we got news on the people you are looking for.

As a word of solace to anyone looking for missing people, cell/internet access has been pretty spotty so far. We just got back internet access in Concon. Parts of Concon and Viña still don't have electricity, and that's not nearly the hardest hit area (I think we were down to 7.3 in the area). Prepaid cell phones can't be reloaded in some places, and even if you have credit left on your phone, getting calls through is very difficult (our experience those last two days with Entel and Movistar). SMS works better though, so try that. The most likely explanation for not hearing from someone is that they're fine but have a hard time reaching anyone. But it can be as simple as someone's cell phone battery being empty and no electricity at home to reload it.

Note for people who need to buy groceries in my area: Santa Isabel stores in Concon and Reñaca were open for business this afternoon (Sunday), but it's cash only. If you need cash, you can get it at Itau (Santander for instance is offline). You want to stock a bit of water ahead of the cuts (Gran Valpo/Quilpue/Villa Alemana) which are planned by Esval starting on Wednesday for 24-48 hours.

otravs glad you made it.

We got word that all long distance calls using ctc 188 carrier are free until midnight in Chile. They do not have international service last we checked from Temuco.

Good news: "no fatalities on San Pedro de la Paz"

This is going fairly good. Since we started this thread a few hours ago about half dozen family members have contacted us by pm, this thread, and direct phone call, and we have either found or made some sort of contact with most of them already. Temuco is an easy one for us, as we now have two of our drivers out and about and our communication lines are good. It is getting dark now, but we will keep working at it as long as we can.

I am calling in a few of my staff tomorrow so we can get more balls in the air at one time. Anyone looking for someone please keep posting or contacting us with the information. we are going to try and keep this going as late as we can tonight.

We just found two more people in Temuco in the last 15 mins, and passed along messages to the families. Everyone is fine.

Our cell phones seem to be able to reach phones in the south that people up north or outside the country can not reach in some cases. In fact, we are trying to setup a call between a family member in the U.S. on our vonage U.S. line over the internet and on our iphone to a local cell of their relative by turning on the speaker phone function on both phones.

I am sure if I had time I could figure out a better way to route that call, but for the moment it will have to do.

I am currently in the US and will be glad to relay any information back to relatives here (anywhere in the US or Canada) via telephone (my Skype account allows me unlimited call anywhere within the US and Canada).

TP

Found another one.

Thank YOU SO MUCH!! for the info Charles

I am looking for my brother, American. Justin Decker. He is in Concepcion.

Please PM or email me his details. Also, any possible leads such as friends and their numbers, address, and so on.

Our goal in the morning is to get a line direct in to Concepción to be able to pass messages and find people.

Well, people I have not really eaten today, it is late, I will try to check back later tonight however.

We managed to make contact with about a dozen people in the last couple hours for people outside the country. We even setup a rescue for one nun who has a driver on the way to pick her up, and we located another one that could not reach her family. Helping two nuns in one day has got to count for good karma somewhere.

We are going to try this again in the morning with our office a bit more operational and more staff. Tonight has been my wife and I working the phones, forum, and email along with some brave drivers operating in a disaster zone after dark (1 is still out on the road).