Eastern Japan Earthquake | Friday, March 11th

I had just returned to my apartment after coming home from the convenient store. Billy was on his way to stay here for a week visit, so I needed to pick up some food to last us a few days. Around 2:45 had just finished eating my lunch when all of a sudden everything around me started shaking. I gathered a few important items, threw them in my bag and stood there waiting under my door jam. Up until this point, the biggest earthquake I experienced was that one back in 2000 or 2001. I don’t remember how big it was, but it was only like 20 seconds long. So after 20 or 30 seconds of this one, I thought that it would start winding down. But, as we all know, it only got worse. The sound of the earth rumbling and the squeaking coming from my apartment walls only grew more intense. Things started rattled off the shelf’s and banged on the ground, a couple of my shelf’s fell down, but those were all minor things. I was wondering about the condition of the studs and the floor joists above my head were handling all of the torque from the twisting of the apartment building. I was standing there and the sight of my interior walls swaying back and forth was a little disconcerting. So, with the possibility of my apt collapsing, I also began to worry about the huge concrete retaining wall cracking and that whole hillside come crashing through my apt window.

After three minutes of violent shaking and squeaking, it finally ceased. Looking back, I think the best way to describe the earthquake from my perspective would be similar to the sound of sitting in a runaway train, careening down the tracks. Extreme shaking and the sound of squeaking train cars trying to slow down on the tracks. Mix that with the feeling of riding in a small sedan going full speed onto a dirt road full of pot holes, making it hard to keep your balance as your being tossed back and forth in your seat…I think that would pretty much match my experience of standing under my door jam for 3 minuets, wondering if I would all of a sudden have to make a quick dash out of my apartment before it collapses on me or before I get taken out by the wall outside my window.

The first thing that I needed to do was to walk up to the church and make sure that everyone was ok, and to let others know that I was ok. Hiromitsu and his wife Ayumi met me as they were getting in their car to listen to the news reports. Being that the power was out, sitting in the car was warm and we could safely hear the news reports. There were immediate tsunami warnings. They initially reported a 6m tsunami, but that number was changed a number of times. As you have all seen the terrible video footage of the tsunami hitting eastern Japan, you probably have heard or figured out that it was a 10m tsunami. I later heard that in some places it was an astonishing 20m high. That is hard for me to even comprehend...all of a sudden the ocean rose 60ft? Unbelievable! After listening to a quick report about the earthquake. Hiromitsu, Joshua and I walked around the churches neighborhood to see if there was any damage, and to make sure that our church members were safe. Fortunately, and unbelievable, we did not find any damage, only things fallen over in peoples yards or in the road.

Well, as you might have guessed, the rest of my English classes were canceled and I was not going to be picking Billy up because all forms of transportation were shut down. As for Billy’s current where-abouts that afternoon?...I had no idea. I didn’t know if he had already landed in Narita, or if he would be diverted to a different airport. Like I mentioned earlier, the electricity, internet and phones were knocked out at the time of the earthquake so there was no way to find out what is flight was doing or for that matter, let family and friends in America know I was safe.

When it got dark, I took refuge at the Sasaki’s house where they fed me dinner and let me sleep on their couch. Being alone in these situations is not safe and not healthy for ones mind, as it was easy to relive the feeling of those frightening 3 minutes. The aftershocks and rumbling of the tectonic plates continued through the afternoon and into the evening. We had candles lit and sat around a wind up radio hearing about the devastation that was going on around us. Since I can’t understand Japanese, I really had no idea what was going on outside of Ayashi. All I knew is that the tsunami came and took out the airport…but I had no real idea of the result of todays earthquake. As we were sitting there listening to the reports I remembered that my friend Chikada has a pocket wifi devise. There was a minimal chance of it actually working since the cell phones weren’t working, but I thought it was worth a shot. I knew that this earthquake was big enough to make immediate news in Seattle, so I needed to let my family and everyone know that I was ok.

We were able to get a small signal, and I was able to get online. I immediately went to facebook and saw that close friends and family had flooded my wall with their prayers and thoughts. I was so touched by those that were thinking about me and saw the need to let people know that I was ok and in a safe place. At that time I was able to update my status and actually chat with my mom. I told her that I was ok, and that I was staying at the Sasaki’s. Then Billy popped on chat and I was able to talk with him. I found out from him that his flight was rerouted to Nagoya before it touched down in Narita. He was safe and in a hotel, but still had no idea how to meet up being that all transportation coming and going from Sendai was shut down. It was then that I took a look at the images that BBC had published on their website and share them with the eyes of those surrounding me. All of our jaws dropped and we could not believe that all of that devastation was going on 20 or 30 min down the road from us.

As we turned in for the night, it was difficult to get any sort of good sleep because it felt like the earth was shaking more then it was being still. At times I was not sure if it was my body trembling from being cold or if it was actually the earth trembling. Nonetheless, after the images that I had seen, I knew how lucky I was to have a place to sleep in, and was so thankful to have food to eat. Throughout the night we were woken three times by “big earthquake” warning alarms. Right when we heard these alarms we gathered are things and ran outside for safety. After all of that excitement, it was difficult to calm the nerves enough to get any sort of good sleep. Eventually by 5:00 am, the sun was starting to light up the inside of the house and I couldn’t sleep anymore.