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Mostly Cloudy Stranded in Chile: East Rockaway resident's vacation turns into a nightmare
Resident trying to get back to New York through Argentina
“He’s trying to get home,” his worried wife, Pina, told the Herald. “He said they’re getting crazy there ... it’s getting worse, the looting ... it’s becoming a violent scene there.” Pina said she found out about the earthquake when family friend Joe Gannascoli texted her, asking how Oscar was doing. “Fine,” she typed back, puzzled. “Why?” When she turned on the TV, she realized that her husband could be in danger. “The not knowing was the worst,” she said. Oscar, a mechanic for Lawrence’s highway department for the past six years, lives with Pina and their two children in East Rockaway. He left the U.S. to visit his family in Chile on Feb. 16. His parents and three of his four sisters live in San Antonio, a Chilean port town north of Concepcion. The epicenter of the quake was 70 miles off the coast of Concepcion.
“Oscar was traveling south when the earthquake hit,” said Pina, who owns the Villa Maria Restaurant on Main Street in East Rockaway. “He was on a tour bus, traveling toward Concepcion, about a 10- or 12-hour ride.” She said that the bus tried to turn back, but a bridge it had crossed had collapsed. The tour company put Silva and the others up at a hotel near the capital, Santiago, but, Pina said, there is no clean water there for them to drink.
Her husband was born in Chile and came to the U.S. in the early 1990s. “Ironically, we met in a pizzeria,” said Pina, who opened her restaurant 10 years ago.
They have two sons, ages 5 and 3, who have spoken to their father on the phone. “They know that he went to see his mom and dad,” Pina said. “So for them, it’s not too scary.” She added that her older son knows that her father is in the same place as all the news broadcasts, but he doesn’t comprehend the seriousness of the situation — “thankfully,” she said.
Oscar managed to get through to Pina on his cell phone on Sunday, and said that everyone was trying to get to Argentina. “CNN is also reporting that all Chileans seem to be heading toward Argentina,” Pina said.
