Amid the fleeing crowd, Evelyn Ford spotted Sheryl Finch and Yara Caldwell. Both women seemed to have sustained more injuries. As Sheryl fell into a massive, collapsed sinkhole, she desperately clung to a man trying to escape beside her, dragging him down with her.
Yara Caldwell stumbled and fell. Crying out her son's name, she reached out, hoping he would pull her up. The pale-faced boy glanced back at her, let out a sigh of relief as if a great weight had been lifted, and then disappeared into the crowd.
The earthquake lasted for twenty minutes. By the time Evelyn reached the small plain, the tremors had stopped. Many others who had fled there with her were kneeling on the ground, wailing. They cursed the black bears, cursed the earthquake, cursed the heavens, and cursed their own powerlessness.
