When the Shaking Stops

Hermes Ruiz

CEO - OleWow

On August 10, the earthquake literally woke me up. It was my birthday. In Cali, as I ran out of the building, my brother was evacuating the University Hospital while walls were coming down, and my 13-year-old nephew was descending eleven floors with his dog as older adults fell on the stairs.

We all survived. Thousands of Colombians began a very different story that day.

The first hours revealed something worth remembering: when urgency became absolute, society responded without asking about politics, social class, or background. In some places, authorities even asked people to stop sending donations because there was already enough.

The institutional response was also remarkable, even with a newly inaugurated government. Colombia did not improvise its search-and-rescue capabilities that day. Before the earthquake, the country already had 23 nationally accredited USAR teams; USAR COL-1 had been reclassified under UN INSARAG standards and ranked among 59 internationally classified teams worldwide.

That matters because response capacity does not appear when the ground starts moving. It is trained, accredited, coordinated, and tested beforehand.

Solidarity can carry us through the first days. It cannot be the operating model for

reconstruction. After the rescue phase come displaced families, professionals without

offices, and businesses without revenue, burning through cash until physical damage

becomes permanent closure.

Colombia now needs the same kind of architecture for business continuity that it built for rescue: prepared in advance, verifiable, and designed before it is needed.

That system should already exist before the next disaster: record damage; verify it without erasing the affected person’s account; connect businesses with aid and financing; rebuild through traceable suppliers; pool purchases to reduce costs; and reconnect businesses with demand so they can sell again.

A chamber of commerce that knows how many businesses exist but not which are operating, what they need, or who can help them understands the registry but not the business fabric it represents. Its role should be to connect governments, funds, banks, insurers, suppliers, and buyers around that continuity.

We have learned how to find people beneath the rubble. Now we need to make sure their jobs, businesses, and assets are not buried afterward.

That will be the true measure of our preparedness when the shaking stops.