On September 19, 1985, a powerful earthquake struck Mexico City and left 10,000 people dead, 30,000 injured and thousands more homeless. At 7:18 in the morning, the residents of Mexico City were jolted awake by an 8.1-magnitude earthquake, one of the strongest to ever hit the area.

On September 19, 2017, Puebla Earthquake struck Mexico with an estimated magnitude of 7.1, causing 370 deaths and over 6,000 injuries, as well as extensive damage.

On September 19, 2022, a 7.7 magnitude temblor with an epicenter just over 60 kilometers south of Coalcomam rocked central Mexico.

Why am I sharing this information?  When I arrived in Mexico this past Monday, I was told that the next day there would be the Simulacro Nacional, or national earthquake drill at exactly 11:00 a.m.  Little did I know that when I scheduled meetings in Mexico on September 19, 2023, there would be the Simulacro Nacional.

When I checked into my hotel, The Hilton Mexico City Reforma, I was told about the drill and handed a piece of paper explaining that if I was in the hotel at 11:00 a.m., that I would, if I chose to be a part of the drill, need to evacuate.  I did have a meeting during that time, so I was not going to be at the hotel.

I did not think much of it until the next morning, when my driver told me about the drill again.  Still not realizing the magnitude of the drill, as I was waiting for my colleague outside of the building we were about to go into, I saw a police brigade go by. There were several vehicles, some with officers wearing riot gear on the back of the trucks.  Again, I did not realize what they were preparing for.

In the office building I was about to go into, I noticed the security people were starting to put on bright orange and yellow vests.  Now, being in Mexico, and this was not a regular trip for me, I did not realize this was out of the ordinary.

It was time for our meeting, my colleague Maria showed up,  and we proceeded into the building.  At the front desk of this high-rise building we checked in.  We had to give them our driver’s licenses in exchange for the security badge to allow us to enter the building.  They explained to us (in Spanish) that they would hold onto our driver’s licenses until we brought back the badges when we were leaving the building.

We then waited in the lobby area off to the side for the person who we were to meet to come down to escort us up.   However …

By this time, it was 11:00 a.m., and the alarm sounded in the whole city. People from the building started to empty out.  It reminded me of a fire drill when I was in grade school, except this was businessmen and -women.   Maria and I exited the building along with the masses.

We watched as each company gathered together to make sure everyone was accounted for.  There were people holding up signs where each company or organization was to congregate. I looked across the city and saw that each building was doing the same thing.

There we waited. We spoke to the woman who originally checked us in, and she told us the drill would last about an hour. We soon realized that we would have to reschedule our meeting because we had to leave to get to our next meeting, which was across town.   There was just one minor problem. We still had our security badges for the building, and, yes, our driver’s licenses were still in the building, and no one was allowed back in, according to the woman who checked us in, who at this point was wearing an orange vest!

She assured us that they would be there when we returned.   Did I trust her? Did I trust that I could leave my driver’s license in a building in Mexico City and that it would be there when I returned?  Did I trust that I would make it back to the building before it closed? After all, I had to be on a flight the next morning at 5:30 a.m.  I also wondered if we would need our licenses to get into the building for our next meeting across town.  Well, what should I do? I simply took a deep breath, and we told the woman we would be back.

We drove across town; by this point the drill was over and we made it to the building where our next meeting was.  It was at Fiesta Americana’s corporate headquarters. We went to check in, and, you guessed it, the first thing they asked for was our driver’s licenses.  We explained what happened, and where our driver’s licenses were at the moment.  However, I did have my passport with me. Why? Why did I volunteer that information?   Again, I was thinking I just had to show it.  No, they needed to hold onto it while I was in the building. I had recently gotten a new driver’s license and still had my expired one with me,  so they took that one so Maria could get into the building as well.  They gave us badges and explained that when we came back down and turned in the badges, they would give back my passport and expired license.

No problem! Now my driver’s license was across town and my passport was being held. I was not feeling very comfortable,  but I decided to go with the flow.  We go to the floor that our meeting was on, and we checked in.  Ready for this.  When we checked in at the reception desk on the floor of our meeting, they took our building badges (which we needed to get my passport back and old license back) and gave us their badges.  Yikes!

We had a very nice meeting, I got our building badges back, turned our floor badges back, got my passport and old driver’s license back. Okay, one deep breath.  We drove back across town, went back to the original building, but the woman who checked us in who had our licenses was not there any longer.  But, thank goodness, there was another nice woman who helped us.  We turned in our badges to her and got our licenses back.  The moral of the story is, if you are going to Mexico and it has to be on September 19^th, just make sure you do not have to leave around 11:00 a.m. from a high-security office building because you may have to leave behind something important and trust it will still be there when you are able to get back to retrieve it!

Eli Shapiro — director of sales