Day 1 Friday March 11, 2011
It was
graduation day. After the ceremony the
students had gone home early so only we teachers were left at school and
another teacher and I were talking to each other about the faculty party
scheduled for that night when the shaking started. I
instinctively took shelter in the doorway out of the teachers room. For the past year my rule had been that if
the shaking did not knock anything down, I would not worry. The first tremor knocked everything over,
including me. After the shaking ended I
could not move for a minute. The lights
went off. The shaking stopped and the
office was a mess but the building appeared to be undamaged. The principal came out of his office and
began to direct everything. I went back
to my desk to sort things out when the next tremor struck and one of the
Japanese teachers told me all had to leave the building so we ran out onto the
baseball field. It was snowing and I
hadn’t tried to get my coat. The shaking
continued. Some of the teachers got out
their cell phones and turned on a web browser or television in order to get the
news and we heard about the tsunami. The
teachers kept using a word I had never heard before but could understand that
translates to “great tsunami.”
We waited
outside for an hour while the shaking continued. Finally the principal decided it was safe to
go back inside and start setting up the gym to be a shelter. The other teachers told me I would be best
off if I went home and saw to my apartment, and check in at my neighborhood
shelter. I took their advice and drove
home. There were no functioning traffic
lights, but the roads were passable.
Traffic was a mess, compared to normal, but it worked. I could drive through. I got home without trouble. I went into my apartment to see the
mess. The building was undamaged, but
the shaking had thrown most of my things onto the floor. I put a change of clothes, a liter of water,
canned food, and a blanket into my large backpack and went out to go to the
shelter. I planned to walk but ran into
three of my neighbors, Irish engineers named Seamus, Damien and James. They were preparing to drive to the shelter
and invited me to go with them. The shelter
was in a public gymnasium a few miles up the road from my apartment. It had no working lights and very little
heat. So we decided we would be better
off camping in Seamus’ car in our apartment parking lot. At this point I attempted to contact my parents
to let them know I was okay, but I couldn’t get through on either my Japanese
cell phone or my blackberry. The Irish
all had iPhones that could get internet, and a car charger. Seamus lent me his iPhone to get on Facebook,
where I wrote “Im ok” in my status bar.
We listened to Irish news reports via internet. At that point the confirmed death toll was
around 20. I did not know the full
extent of the damage at that point, and believed the death toll would stay
low.
Aftershocks continued through the night, and until I left
Japan.
Day 2 Saturday March 12, 2011
We woke up around
5:30. There was a thin layer of snow on
the ground. The snow melted by
lunchtime. We decided to go look for
food and gasoline, and since nothing was open we went to the shelter to find
some of our neighbors who James had seen there the night before. The shelter gave us some bread and tea, but
not much since it had to be rationed of course.
There was no sign of our neighbors, so we went back to the apartment. Turns out, they had all spent the night in
their rooms. The Irish went searching
for more gasoline and food again. They
came back and reported that gasoline was currently reserved for rescue and
relief vehicles, but some convenience stores were open. It would have been my usual grocery day. I went scrounging for food with two other
Americans and found a Seven Eleven with a short line in front (Short being
twelve or thirteen people ahead of us).
Most of the convenience stores in town seemed to be open, with similar
rules. Four to six people could go in at
a time and buy one basket full per person.
So I stocked up on convenience store food: dried fish, beef jerkey,
potato chips, crackers and cup noodle (In the vain hope power would be
restored).
Cell phone
service was still out, but iPhones could get internet, if they had power. Early Saturday evening, Eric was recharging
his iPhone in my car and we tried to send e-mails to our parents. My car had the most gas, so we had designated
it the getaway vehicle. Eric got an
e-mail from a friend: “Don’t believe Japanese TV, the Fukushima power plant
exploded. There was a sound and a
‘blue.’” We (Ryan, Eric and me) did not
think it was safe in Osaki anymore and decided to flee north. Ryan thought we should try to get to an
American airfield in Aomori and beg for help there, and maybe go on to Sapporo
and try to fly home. We ran into our
apartments, grabbed some changes of clothes, our laptops, passports and all of
our food, piled into my car, and drove off into the night. I was having a panic attack. Ryan wanted to try to get to an American base
in Aomori and ask for help there. First
we tried to get to Morioka, a medium sized city north of us by highway, but the
highway was closed to all but relief vehicles.
So we drove north to Ichinoseki, a town on the prefectural line. Ichinoseki was a ghost town. Eric got out of the car to speak to a lone
old woman walking down the road. He
learned nothing. We turned back to a
road stop where Eric spoke to a man about the nuclear reactors, and learned
that there was an explosion, but the core was fine, and Osaki was far enough
from Fukushima. We turned back and spent
the night in our apartments. My
flashlight burned out that night.
Day 3 Sunday March 13, 2011
Cell phone
service returned that day, but it was another day of scrounging for food and
waiting in bread lines. Eric and Ryan
got a call through to the US Embassy, but got the answering machine. Mid-morning Eric, Ryan and I walked around
town to see any damage and what stores had reopened when we passed a friend of
Eric’s who advised us to look for small stores.
Osaki still had enough food at this point, but some of it was
rationed. Most of the grocery stores,
convenience stores, liquor stores and some hard-wear stores had reopened. I bought some fruits and vegetables, Ryan and
Eric stocked up on alcohol. They also
made contact with the US embassy, and learned that US Forces Japan had joined
the relief efforts in Tohoku and would be in Sendai the next day. But nothing else. While out searching for food, I ran into
Suzuki Hiroshi, an old man I used to play shogi with on weekends. Suzuki invited me to his house the next day
to play shogi. He told me that everyone
from the shogi club was alright. We
found Mr. Suzuki by an ad hoc cell phone charging station, but the station was
closing just as we got there. My bank
also reopened that day. Every
transaction had to be done the old fashioned way: on carbon paper and it worked
perfectly. Running water came back.
Day 4 Monday March 14, 2011
I spent
most of the morning playing shogi with Mr. Suzuki at his house, which was
completely undamaged by the quake. He
also had working gas so they offered me hot food and tea. I went home after lunch. By now cell phone service was partially
restored, but my cell phone was dead. I
had just enough energy on my blackberry to finally look at e-mail and facebook,
but only just enough juice to put one more status update. Ryan’s girlfriend Kumi lent me a car charger
that worked with my Japanese cell phone.
While I charged up the phone in my car I tried to check in with a few of
my friends and saw some messages from mom about her efforts to get in touch
with me or get help to me through her contacts everywhere. I finally managed to call my boss who told me
what the other Heart ALTs were doing.
While I was doing this three agents from the US Embassy arrived at our
apartment. They said they had not come
to rescue us, but only to locate Ryan, Eric and me. They said I was a “high profile case” and my
mom was absolutely distraught. The
embassy asked us to fill out forms giving the embassy permission to release
information about the three of us. Turns
out they had forgotten the forms, so we had to write out a letter giving
permission on his notepad. I also asked
if they could lend me a flashlight as mine had burned out. They had no flashlights or relief supplies of
any kind. I did give him information
about other American ALTS in Osaki. The
embassy also mentioned evacuation buses taking people from Sendai to Yamagata,
a city on the other side of the mountains that was relatively unaffected by the
quake. Ryan and Eric talked about
leaving. Suzuki-san came back while this
was going on to tell me about a cell phone charging station and invite me over
to dinner.
Gas
stations reopened to the general public that day, but had to ration fuel. Seamus said the ration was eleven liters per
car. The lines for gasoline stretched as
long as three blocks.
When I went
to sleep I got a phone call from Kamimura Satoshi, a GE employee who had agreed
to help me, through Rick D’Avino, a very good friend of my parents’ and an
important lawyer at GE. Satoshi told me
how I could get out of Miyagi, and about a GE lawyer in Sendai, Arikura Kaz who
could help.
Kaz’s
husband had been in Ishinomaki on business when the tsunami hit his
building. Kaz’s husband survived because
he was on the third floor. They were
reunited a few days later, when he found a car that could take him to Sendai. Satoshi told this to me. The Irish heard from their colleagues that
Ishinomaki’s shelters were ruined by the waves, and hundreds of people had to
stay in a department store called AEON.
Day 5 Tuesday March 15, 2011
Some
electricity returned to Osaki. ALPS got
its power back, but the engineers knew that ALPS’ facilities were too badly damaged
for any work to get done. Kaz called, and she explained that I could get out
through roads in the mountains heading west into the next prefecture, or go
into Sendai on Route 4 and take an evacuation bus to Yamagata. From Yamagata I could take a plane to Tokyo
or Osaka. I finally spoke to mom, who
told me to accept Kaz’s help and go with Ryan and Eric. I woke them up to talk about it and we
decided to make a run for it. At first
we thought we could drive to Yamagata airport and fly to Tokyo, but did not
have confidence that enough gas remained in my car for the trip, so we decided
to leave by way of Sendai. Eric, Ryan
and I each packed a bag and drove off with a few sets of clothes and our
laptops. Eric charged his iPhone as we
drove. The parts of Sendai we drove
through seemed mostly undamaged. Central
Sendai had working electricity, but most stores were closed and people still
had to line up outside of grocery stores.
Kaz met us in Sendai, outside a broadcast building used by NHK and NTT
Docomo. She gave us a map of the area
around Yamagata station and a map explaining how we could get to Tokyo the
roundabout way. Our plan A was to take a
bus to Yamagata, then a taxi to Yamagata airport and a plane to Tokyo. We left my car in Sendai in a parking space
by the prefectural office. On the bus
one of my middle school teachers called me.
My colleagues and students were all ok, but there were not going to be
any classes. I told him that I was
leaving Japan. We said good-bye on the
phone. He sounded a little sad. The three of us got to Yamagata without any
trouble, but at the airport saw that all flights to Tokyo and Osaka were booked
for two days. We went back into the city
and planned another way out, based on the information Kaz gave us. Our route was a bus from Yamagata to
Tsuruoka. From Tsuruoka we would take a
train to Niigata, and finally catch a bullet train to Tokyo, where Satoshi
would meet us. It was too late to do any
of that until the next day. At Yamagata
train station we charged our cell phones and Eric met a man who could get us a
room at the Yamagata Richmond Hotel. We
spent the night in Yamagata. Eric and
Ryan spoke to their parents and spent the night on the town. I spent the night in the hotel room trying to
get in touch with people. Everyone was
okay too. I finally got to Skype with
mom, my friend Wendy and even a reporter from CBS news.
Day 6 Wednesday March 16, 2011
We got up
early to stand in line at the bus depot.
It was snowing in Tohoku, but it was not too cold. We had to wait in line for about an hour and
a half, but we were able to get on a bus bound for Tsuruoka. In Tsuruoka we caught a train to Niigata. The weather and increased traffic from people
fleeing quake-affected regions slowed the train down, but the scenery along the
train tracks was beautiful. In Niigata
we transferred to a bullet train bound for Tokyo. Satoshi met us on the platform in Tokyo and
drove us to a hotel near his home. Tokyo
is normally very crowded. Not so that
day. Tokyo was, by it’s own standards,
practically a ghost town. There were
people outside walking around, and people driving but very few. Satoshi had not just booked any hotel, he
booked us a room in the Grand Hyatt Tokyo, in the heart of Roppongi. Ryan and Eric finished making travel plans
but I had one more problem. Before the
earthquake I planned to travel in Southeast Asia after the school year ended,
and had sent my passport to the Embassy of Vietnam to apply for a visa. I mailed my application to the embassy the
day before the earthquake. I tried to
get in touch with the Embassy of Vietnam to see about my passport, but could
never get through by phone so I gave up my passport as lost.
Day 7 Thursday March 17, 2011
I went to
the U.S. Embassy early in the morning to get an emergency passport. I expected the embassy would be crowded by
Americans in need of help leaving the country. The embassy application center
was moderately crowded, but most people seemed to be American families
establishing citizenship for their children born abroad. It took all day to issue the passport. I returned to the hotel around
mid-afternoon. Ryan and Eric had already
left. I finally arranged a flight to San
Francisco on March 19.
I arrived in
Philadelphia on March 19 12:00 AM EST.
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