Wow, that is terrifying, and your recount of this reminds me of experiencing the eye of a tornado when I was a small child. I can remember how calm and nice the weather was for not even 3 minutes before things got worse all over again.
I am so sorry for the crisis going on there, and the damage is great, the recovery will be long and slow, but I do hope daily life starts getting easier soon.
Yes. I have been to many life and death situations before and I can tell you with all honesty that every one of those I can still recall. I guess situations like these really sticks in your long term memory to either traumatize you or to let you remember what happened so that such things can be avoided in the future.