‘We have nowhere to hide from missiles’: Former EWU coach begins regretting family’s plan to stay in Ukraine, but getting out is even harder now

Imagine the unimaginable.

You live in a fourth-story apartment on the lower South Hill in Spokane; let’s say it’s the Cooper George on Fifth Avenue, across from Deaconess Hospital.

An invasion from another country is underway, and you find your city surrounded, and no safe way for you and your family to leave. If Deaconess consisted of businesses such as a grocery store and pharmacy, they would be without power and somewhat risky to get to – provided they were open at all.

Enemy fighters, not passenger planes, fly overhead and drop bombs in the city just a few miles from you. Just down the street, near Interstate 90 and Division Street, a tank defending the city is hit and burns a market alongside it. It’s close, but you can’t see it – not even the smoke. Two days later, a blast you can’t see shakes the ground and building beneath you.

Behind your building is the wide residential area of the South Hill, but that is not targeted. You seem to be at the right place at the right time – so far.

You can’t see much out of your window, but you can hear it all, including bombs and fighting directly in front of you in the Garland District. Key buildings are targeted and demolished with missiles. Think of the beloved Garland Theater destroyed – just a week after people were enjoying films and eating popcorn.

And the sounds of war are coming from other directions as well – from areas in and around Spokane Falls Community College, and to the other direction, past Gonzaga and toward Spokane Community College.

Targets beyond that on the North Side, Spokane Valley and the West Plains are not spared. The destruction at the Spokane International Airport and Fairchild Air Force Base is only known via spotty media and social media accounts, some passed along by friends and family.

Military defense is limited, but those who are available put on a brave fight against the insurgence. They fight alongside proud civilians trying to save their livelihoods, and even their lives.

I-90, U.S. Highway 195 and other roads are clogged with people trying to flee. Trains out of the city are full, and not a ticket can be found. However, men as old as 60 are required to stay and defend their country.

And just over a week earlier, you had a honeymoon planned, but that’s been scrapped, perhaps along with ever again living a normal life. Nevertheless, you feel lucky.

That visualization is Chris Hansen’s reality in the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine. Watching. Waiting. Worrying.

The former resident of the Inland Northwest cities Spangle and Cheney calls Spokane his permanent home. Now, he’s in Ukraine with his new wife and stepdaughter, trying to make sense of the horrors of war.

Hansen and his wife were to depart for a honeymoon to Egypt on Thursday. Instead, they are now planning an escape – most likely via train through the West, through the besieged capital of Kyiv and on to another country. But the tickets for the passage are nearly impossible to get.

The brutal, relentless Russian attacks either come via air or from volleys of artillery just outside the city. Knock on wood, Hansen is safe as his residential area is not targeted. He says he’s not demoralized or discouraged, but knows that is the goal of the Russians.

“That’s what they are doing,” he says. “But for me it goes beyond that. There is a possibility we don’t survive if we stay. I think a plan to leave gives us a higher percentage to live.”

Hansen’s Thursday included more than 12 hours of attacks by the Russian army. But he said it didn’t begin until 10:15 a.m., presumably a pause while negotiations between the two sides were taking place in Belarus.

Very little was settled in that effort for diplomacy, but both sides agreed that a “humanitarian corridor” would be used to get families such as Hansen’s away from harm, multiple news agencies have reported.

One of Thursday’s big missile hits – the largest yet he’s heard – came about 2:30 p.m. his time. At the time, he didn’t know where it hit, but he believes he saw the devastating results in the center of the city via Twitter. No news agencies have reported such a hit, but the destruction in the city is so widespread, it would be hard to tell at this point.

“It was so big, it just shook this building from the ground up,” Hansen said. “Other blasts would shake the upper part, but this one shook the ground. It was so loud and violent that I had no idea where it hit. I ran to the window to see a plume or something, but it was out of my vision and I couldn’t see anything. It was weird.”

He said at one point it became quiet again and he had dinner, then a short nap turned into five hours. “I’m getting worn out,” he admits.

“I don’t see this city getting a break from the Russians from the bombing,” he says. “I think they are going to start moving the targets around, and one of these days it’s going to be this neighborhood. We have nowhere to hide from missiles.”

“What I felt today and saw on the internet, there’s not a building here nor our bomb shelter that would survive that,” he says, explaining their desire to now seek refuge in another country if they can get there. “As much as we love our tiny little fortress here, there’s no way. I would take this building over a tank any time, but what I saw dropped out of the air today, we’d be vaporized.”

He, his wife, Victoria, and her daughter Sonja have been holed up in the apartment for a week now, and earlier this week the two women made a brief trip to a grocery store less than a football field away for provision.

Hansen reported that credit cards may no longer be used at the store, so he’s happy he thought ahead well enough to stash away some cash before the invasion began. Bread and eggs are plentiful now in the apartment, but later?

Hansen watches daily as scores of Ukrainians go to an automated teller machine across the street to take out cash when it’s available.

He feels fortunate with the location of their home. The Russian border is 26 miles to the north of Kharkiv, and they live farther south, toward the city center. The international airport is about 5 miles away.

“If there was a location that I could be in, this is the area I would want to be and I’m very glad we’re here,” he said earlier this week. “The nearest target I can think of is a power plant, and that’s just at a mile to the east. There is nothing else – just grocery stores and apartments.”

By early Friday local time, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant was on fire after being hit in the latest Russian assault.

Just looking at the maps his family sends makes him understand fully the mission of the Russians in putting so much emphasis on taking Kharkiv.

“It’s a major hub – the second-largest city. You take everything from the Black Sea up through Donetsk and Dnipro, then Kyiv, and you’ve taken the heart out of this country. They are getting closer and closer, and that wakes you up.”