Funnily enough, I was in the bathtub when the quake struck.
It was a lazy Friday. I had no classes, as it was the end of the year and most of the students were only going to school to attend their clubs. Therefore, I’d spent most of the day doing precisely nothing. I was taking a bath and reading and contemplating a run up to Maiya, the local supermarket.
When the quake hit, I was a little annoyed at first that my lovely bath had been interrupted. And then, as the quake got stronger and kept on going, I got scared. I grew up in Alaska and had just spent two and a half years in Japan; I know earthquakes. This one was different. A little voice at the back of my head started saying, “You need to get out. You need to get out NOW!”
I jumped out of the bath and toweled off before throwing on the clothes I’d been planning to wear—my old jeans, an Android t-shirt I’d picked up last time I’d been home in Alaska, white socks—and then, on impulse, grabbed my prescriptions. I shoved them, my cell phone and my Amazon Kindle (you have to have your priorities; mine are books) into a string backpack my sister Erin had sent me. It already had my wallet with my resident alien “gaijin” card, passport and bank passbook in it. Then I grabbed my coat and sneakers, locked my apartment, and joined the mass exodus as the tsunami warning sounded.
***
In early 2008, I was underemployed and frustrated. I had trained and worked as an English teacher, but I never felt like I was much good at it. Teaching was fine; it was coordinating the million little details any teacher must that I had trouble juggling. Classroom management, effective lesson planning, grading, classroom admin—I wasn’t handling it well, so I decided to try another career.
Unfortunately, the country was in a recession and there weren’t many jobs for people without experience. Aside from that, my heart was in teaching. I floundered for a few years, doing a little freelance work and a lot of temping.
Then a friend, Karyn Holt, sent me a link to Interac. Interac is, as they say on their website, the “leading non-government” employer of language teachers in Japan. Japan had always fascinated me, so I figured, “Why not?” and applied. It was, after all, the best parts of teaching (actually teaching) with few of the worst parts (everything else), as I wouldn’t be the main classroom teacher. A few screenings and interviews later, I was informed I had the job. In August 2008, I shipped out.
After my initial training in Tokyo, I was sent to Kamaishi City, Iwate Prefecture. I was thrilled to find out that not only was it a coastal city, but my apartment was just a stone’s throw away from the estuary where the Kasshi River met Kamaishi Bay. I’ve always loved the ocean, so my location was an extra bonus.
Kamaishi is a small, oddly-shaped city on the Tohoku coast. The city stretches away from the port in three “legs”; one wends west through a narrow river valley to the iron mine that gives the town its industry, one stretches south toward Ofunato, and to the north, the city encompasses the smaller communities of Ryoishi and Unosumai. The great bulk of the city is near or on the water.
I worked in both Kamaishi and the nearby town just to the north, Ohtsuchi. At various times, I taught at two high schools, three junior highs, and also volunteered at an eikaiwa, teaching adult community English classes. While it had its difficult moments (and its difficult students—no, Japanese children are not all perfect little always-respectful learning robots, but I’d have loved them less if they had been), overall, I loved my life and my work. I was learning Japanese and making friends, I was able to travel as far south as Hiroshima and as far north as Aomori City, and I felt like I was making a difference and doing something that had meaning. I was also learning about teaching itself in a way I hadn’t while getting my teaching degree.
Nonetheless, I missed my family. After two years, I decided to go back home to America when my contract was up. By that time, I’d decided to get my TESL certification and teach English as a second language. I was to finish my latest contract as of March 25th, and I had a plane ticket for the 26th. I was anticipating using my last weeks searching for jobs and packing up my apartment.
And then the earthquake struck.
***
Outside my apartment, people were leaving by car, by bicycle and on foot. I spotted a crowd of people making their way up a hill on the far side of the highway and figured they knew what they were doing. I hopped on my bike and followed them.
An official-looking man was at the head of the column, directing us up the steep road to a recreation center. It consisted of an office building, a gym and a big parking lot with a view of the bay. The workers kept us outside the building, and for good reason; there were strong aftershocks every few minutes.
From the parking lot, I could see the estuary, the port and the long spit of land ending in a pier that separated the two. The first thing that concerned me was that the river was running very rapidly out to sea. Usually, even during low tide, the river was sluggish where it met the bay. The second thing that concerned me was that it wasn’t the only thing running fast. Many of the larger fishing boats were absolutely speeding out of the harbor.
(A tip: If you’re ever on a boat when there’s a tsunami alert, do not try to return to land. The fishing boats were doing the right thing. Meeting the tsunami head-on in deep water is the best way to survive it, as the following days would prove.)
Perhaps fifteen minutes after we got to the rec center, the tide turned. Kamaishi has a very sheltered bay, with the deepest breakwater in the world. The tsunami couldn’t come in as the classic white-topped wave. But nothing could stop that much water.
The water began flowing back, reversing the river’s flow. It rose faster than I’d have thought possible. Soon, the pier was swamped. Those of us at the rec center watched helplessly as the water picked up an entire parking lot of cars on the pier and threw them into a building.
And the water kept coming.
It rose over the marina where the small fishing boats were kept. Then it swamped the area under the highway. Then it flowed into the parking lot of the keisatsu, or the main police station, just down the street from my apartment.
And it kept. On. Coming.
It threw the police cars into the keisatsu building. It began to hit houses, and the noise was indescribable as it lifted them off their foundations. It flowed across the highway and started rising up the hill we’d come up. There was a deafening crash as, across the bay, the derrick they used to load ships with Nippon Steel products was knocked down. Think about that: A derrick that regularly lifted tons of steel was no match for the tsunami.
The water had turned into some kind of malevolent beast. Some days later, I thought about the Japanese Godzilla mythos, how a creature rises from the depths of the sea and destroys whole cities on land. I can’t help but think I now know where that comes from in the collective unconscious of the Japanese people. They depend on the sea; they came across it to find their land, and many make their living off it.
But once in a while, the sea comes to take back from the land. When that happens, there is nothing anyone can do except run. The tsunami broke down seawalls and ignored breakwaters. Nothing could stop it. Nothing.
***
I couldn’t watch after a while. The power of it was too overwhelming, too frightening. Around me, people were crying and gasping and even wailing as they watched their homes washed away.
I still held a kind of dim hope that my second-floor apartment might survive, but I think I realized, even then, what a vain hope that was. I sat down on a curb and tried to call my company. My phone wouldn’t dial out. I tried friends in town. Nothing.
That was when I looked at my watch and realized that it would only be 9:00 or 10:00 at night in Alaska and Oregon, where my family were. Chances were very good that at least one of them would be watching news reports of a massive quake and tsunami in Japan. There was no way for me to tell them I was alive and safe.
The next few hours were a blur. At one point, an elderly man, soaking wet and bleeding from one temple, was brought up to the rec center. He hadn’t been quite fast enough and had probably been swamped by the tsunami a few meters from safety. As I later learned, he’d been far from the only one. Fortunately, there were a couple of paramedics on hand.
Finally, as the sunlight started to go, we were all ushered into the gymnasium. It had obviously been set up as an emergency shelter, because the staff began to haul out blankets, futon and tatami mats. They also brought out some kerosene heaters, though they didn’t do much good if you weren’t sitting close to them. Electricity had been knocked out by the earthquake, and we sat in the dark, trying to come to grips with what had happened.
That night ranks as one of the most miserable of my life. I huddled under blankets with some complete strangers. While I understand a lot of Japanese, I have trouble speaking it, so I couldn’t even talk to them. The gym was cold, I was cramped and uncomfortable, there was no food and little water and only one bathroom, people were talking and crying, there were small children and babies and even dogs making noise, and aftershocks rumbled through every few minutes. The gym was built very well; the lights on the ceiling didn’t even move. However, the roof was metal and rattled alarmingly.
After a while, the aftershocks stopped scaring me. “What more can they do?” I asked myself.
Myself, not being a very comforting sort of person, suggested they could bring down the gym or cause a landslide on the hill we were halfway up.
I managed to doze on and off, but kept waking with a stress headache and cramping legs. I’d get up and walk around, always keeping my backpack with me. Not that I’d ever feared theft in Kamaishi, but it was all I had left of the life I’d been leading there, and I didn’t want to let go of it.
As I walked, I heard a little from the battery-powered radios people were listening to. Fast, colloquial Japanese is hard for me to understand, but I could pick up city names: Sendai, Ofunato, Kamaishi, Miyako. All places I knew, and all places I had friends. All places along the coast.
Aside from my family, I worried most about my fellow English teachers. Nathalie, the only other American in town, lived near the port. I could only hope she’d been out at her school on the west side of town, or perhaps with her Japanese fiancé, who also lived out there. Sam from New Zealand lived farther inland, but if he’d been in town for some reason, he could’ve been hit. And what about Charles in Ohtsuchi or Bobby in Ofunato? Were they okay?
There were no answers, and wouldn’t be for days. All I could do for them was pray. And pray, and pray, and pray.
***
Sooner or later, morning happened. Some of the shelter workers brought in a little food. I gratefully accepted a packet of hot rice, a bottle of water and a piece of fruit, my first food since the previous day’s lunch.
Then it was time for me to consider my plans. The west end of town was far enough inland that I knew it was beyond the tsunami zone. I also had friends there: Pita and Megan Alatini from New Zealand, the captain of the Kamaishi Seawaves rugby team and his vibrant wife. If I could get out there, I thought, I’d be safe and among friends I could communicate with. I even let myself get optimistic about the electricity situation and the possibility of being able to reach my family.
It was with this in mind that I left the shelter, intending to ride my bike out. It was a great plan—for perhaps two minutes. My first indication that this might be more difficult than I thought was when I ran into my first roadblock: a house. The tsunami had parked it right across the road.
I considered the possibility of going back to the shelter. While I was safe there, though, it would take days, even weeks, to clear the roads enough for cars or bikes. Thus, I left my bike where it was, tucking the lock and key into one of the baskets and hoping it would find a good home, and I continued on foot.
The good thing about the hillside neighborhoods is that they’re cut through with small footpaths and stairs. A woman whose house missed destruction by mere feet was kind enough to direct me around some of the worst debris. Unfortunately, there just weren’t enough of these footpaths to get all the way down without having to pick your way through wreckage.
That was when Kazuki found me. He was a little old man in a work uniform and rain boots, and for some reason, he appointed himself my keeper. I was trying to find safe footing when he came up and asked where I wanted to go.
“Nishi,” I said, pointing west. I told him I needed to go to Matsukura, a district on the west side of town where the rugby club was located.
He looked at me, he looked west, and he looked at the debris. “Issho,” he said. Let’s go.
So we went. He helped me find safe footing as we made our way out of the neighborhood. We talked a little, he in broken English and me in my weak Japanese. I told him I was an English teacher, and he started calling me “Miss Katie,” the way my students did.
We finally found the main highway, and it was only then that I really got a look at how much destruction the tsunami had caused. Across the road was my own neighborhood, the place I’d lived for two and a half years.
It was unrecognizable. The dental clinic kitty-corner from my apartment complex—gone. The house across the street with the charming little family—gone. The nearby house with the friendly old man who’d once helped me repair my bike tire, where they grew gorgeous vines of morning glories every summer—gone.
My apartment—gone. The whole building had been smashed to bits and dragged out to sea, right down to the foundation. All that was left was muck.
That was when I started to sob. I’d cherished the idea of being able to find something to take with me, but there was absolutely nothing left of my home. I’d lost everything that wasn’t in my bag—clothes, electronics, books, everything. Worse, I’d lost the gifts I’d been given by my schools during my last days of teaching, the scrapbook my family had made for me when I first moved to Japan, all the cards and notes they’d sent me and I’d saved, the dish I’d wanted to bring home as a gift for my parents, my set of The Chronicles of Narnia I’d had since I was 11, the picture my budding artist of a niece had painted for me . . .
I turned away, still crying, and made my way back to my new friend. There was nothing else to do but move on.
To give a picture of the destruction, basically all of the wooden structures in the area were destroyed right down to the ground. Only the big, ugly, concrete-block apartments I’d been so grateful to not have to live in (my apartment complex was brand-new and modern) were left. Very little infrastructure in Japan is buried, so there were downed power lines and telephone poles lying across the road alongside uprooted trees. Salt-smelling mud mixed with debris lay thick on the ground. The houses and businesses that hadn’t been swept out to sea were mostly collapsed and spread across the roads.
“Taihen,” said Kazuki. It was a word I’d heard many times in the past day. I gathered that it meant something along the lines of, “too big,” “too much,” “overwhelming.”
“Taihen,” I agreed.
As we went on, Kazuki told me that he hadn’t seen his wife since the tsunami. My Japanese was inadequate to say anything to that, but I’d not sure any language could. Yet he was helping me, a complete stranger.
He appeared to be one of those people like my mother, a Person Who Knows Everybody. He greeted a number of people who were also making their way through the destruction. When he saw a younger worker wearing a similar uniform to his, he called over to him, saying he’d seen the younger man’s wife. The young man’s face lit up at the news, the first beautiful thing I’d seen since the tsunami.
We soon found that the only way to get across town safely was to walk the railroad trestle. It stretched from the railroad station at the center of town south and east and disappeared into a tunnel not far from where I lived. A service stair led up to it along the hillside. The stair was a bit rickety, but compared to walking through town? I’d take it. Kazuki and I joined a line of people using it to leave the badly-damaged east side of town.
The trestle itself was still sound, a testament to Japanese earthquake engineering. The tracks were in the center, and on either side was a concrete service walkway with high rails on the outside. It was, of course, out of service; after a quake of that magnitude, even areas that hadn’t been affected by the tsunami would have to be thoroughly checked out before the trains could run again. In fact, there were several places where the tracks had been wrenched several inches to one side by the force of the quake.
From the trestle, I had an unfortunately excellent view. Unfortunate because there was so much damage to the town I’d come to love. The Nippon Steel factory had taken severe damage, in particular. Because they shipped their products out from the port, they had a number of warehouses close to the water. None of them had survived intact. Debris choked the river. I couldn’t see the city center, but I slowly began to realize that it had to have been hit hard as well.
I started to think about the places in town I’d enjoyed. There was a bridal shop that displayed wonderfully overblown gowns in its window, with displays that changed every two weeks. There was a little restaurant with a friendly owner who loved entertaining foreigners, where you could get the best ramen in town. There was a kimono shop by a bus stop I’d frequently used, where I’d drool over the beautiful fabrics while waiting for the bus.
And then there was Mr. Sano’s store. It was an imported-liquor shop that also stocked some imported foods. Mr. Sano spoke excellent English and would happily chat with anyone who came in. Nathalie and I had persuaded him to bring in peanut butter when we’d first come to town and discovered it wasn’t available in local stores. I still don’t know what happened to him.
I also don’t know what happened to Kamaishi Kuristo Kyokai, the church I sometimes attended. I can only hope that it wasn’t badly damaged, and that Yanagiya-sensei, the pastor, and his family got out in time.
As Kazuki and I walked, he was still spotting people he knew. One of them had a car parked up beyond the tsunami zone, and Kazuki persuaded him to come with us and give the poor gaijin a ride out west.
I can’t overstate his kindness. He actually offered me his gloves at one point, thinking my hands must be cold. I showed him my own gloves, tucked into my pockets, and thanked him for the offer. It was a gesture that still touches me deeply.
Finally, we got to the station. Although it didn’t seem badly damaged, the parking lot was full of mud. A little ways beyond, right about the fish market, there was an abrupt line where the mud ended. That was where the tsunami had finally stopped—about a mile inland. The power of it took my breath away then, as it does now.
A little past the end of the tsunami zone, I finally spotted a friend. Eriko had been a regular attendee of my eikaiwa classes. Her English, though not fluent, was quite good, and she was so sweet and friendly that it was impossible not to like her. She was standing outside the building where the classes were held, and when she saw me, she ran across the street and gave me a big hug.
It turned out the building was being used as a shelter. Eriko offered me a place to stay, saying they had room and enough food. I told her I was trying to get to Megan and Pita, but that if they’d cleared out, I’d be back. She hugged me again, and I walked on.
Kazuki’s friend’s car was only a little farther, just across the river. I was amazed to see, as we walked over the bridge, that the tsunami had scoured the banks even higher than the river rose even in flood stage, and there was wood and debris up far beyond the tsunami’s stopping point on land.
On the far side of the river, we all piled into Kazuki's friend's car. I directed him out to the rugby club.
As we went west, the town began to look a little bit more normal, but the disaster was given away by several things.
First, there were no traffic lights or lights on any of the buildings, even the big, gaudy pachinko parlors. Electricity was out all over town. I found out later it was out as far inland as Morioka, Iwate’s capital.
Second, the army was headed in. They'd commandeered the main highway into town, and convoy after convoy was pouring in.
Third, there were lines of people standing outside every convenience store and grocery store. The stores were letting them in a few at a time to get supplies that were running out fast.
We finally stopped by the rugby families' apartments. I thanked Kazuki and his friend profusely, and Kazuki pressed a two-liter bottle of water on me before I left.
I don't know what happened to him. I pray he found his wife and that they're both safe and happy. How often do you see such kindness and charity to complete strangers? I'll never forget him.
***
I quickly found out that the apartments were mostly abandoned. Puzzled, I walked down toward the clubhouse. A number of players were sitting around a barbecue pit outside. Among them was Pita. I said hello, and he directed me to the clubhouse, where the families were staying. The electricity was out in the apartments, and they'd decided it would be easier to keep warm and pool resources if they were all together.
Inside, I found a big, warm meeting room with futon and beanbags and pillows and blankets scattered around. Women were talking and children were playing. I spotted Megan and Pita's daughter Tiara, who immediately went and woke up her dozing mother.
Fortunately, Megan didn't seem too upset. She hugged me and asked if I was okay.
"For a given value of okay," I said, tearing up again.
Megan's actually a year younger than I am, but she has a mother's instincts. She deposited me in a beanbag and put a blanket over me and went to make me some noodles. She also introduced me to her mother, Barbara, who had just come to Japan a few days earlier.
"You picked a hell of a time to visit," I told her.
"I wouldn't be anywhere else," she said. She was glad, she explained, that she was there with her daughter and grandchildren instead of watching the news reports in New Zealand and worrying. I could understand that.
I told Megan what had happened, and she told me I was welcome to stay with them until I could get out of Kamaishi. We chatted for a while, and then, exhausted, I fell asleep.
***
A rugby clubhouse is actually not a bad place to stay after a natural disaster. This one had a kitchen, bathrooms, a shower room, a laundry room, a supply of high-energy food and drink, and the biggest, strongest men in town. With the electricity out, there was only cold water and you had to do laundry by hand, but I wasn’t about to complain. On this side of town, there was clean running water; that alone was worth the move.
The men went into the woods nearby and cut down some trees, then chopped them up for wood. They set up a second barbecue pit, where they were able to heat up water for coffee, tea and instant noodles, and they also used it for cooking group meals. Families brought food and supplies from their homes to share with the others.
For me, personally, there were offers of clothing. The rugby wives were all tiny, so my only option was to borrow from some of the men. Thank God rugby players have thighs. One player, a huge Tongan named Lata, gave me a couple of sweaters I could've worn as dresses and a pair of cut-off jeans. Another player, Scott Fardy from Australia, gave me a pair of his old Brumbies Rugby Club track pants. And socks, at least, weren't a problem at all.
The Seawaves (yes, the irony of the name struck me more than once) are an international bunch. The majority of the team is Japanese, but they also recruit from Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands. Megan and her mother are originally from South Africa, and one of the rugby wives, Olga, is Russian. Thus, at any given time, you could hear conversations in Japanese, multi-accented English, Tongan, Afrikaans and Russian. At night, when we sat around the fire, the Tongans sang traditional Tongan songs, Megan and Barbara sang African folk songs, and Fardy favored us with a very unofficial version of "Waltzing Matilda."
Though the situation was terrible, I'll always remember those evenings with fondness. Everyone was so kind and accepting, and they never once made me feel like a burden.
Another thing I'll remember is the noise. The rugby club is located just down the street from the main hospital, and for the first few days, there was a constant stream of helicopters going in and out, evacuating patients. They even took over the rugby field behind the clubhouse as a secondary landing pad. Aftershocks rumbled through from below, and helicopters thundered from above both day and night.
By Saturday evening, I was starting to feel safe again. I still didn’t let go of my bag, though; it had become my security blanket. And I hadn’t been able to contact my family. That was the worst of it for me. Knowing they were all back in America wondering if I was even alive was torture.
The next day, though, there was a bit of good news: The NTT building (NTT is a huge telecommunications company in Japan) had set up two satellite phones. Also, certain cell phones could be used inside the building. Unfortunately, there was a huge wait to get in, something like six hours. A few of the players said they wanted to go down that night, when the lines would be shorter. I asked to go with them.
It was also decided that the rugby club would be an official shelter. Some sort of public official came by and took all of our names and asked if we needed anything. The one main thing we needed, in fact, was diapers; two of the women were still nursing their babies, and there were a number of toddlers as well. Olga decided to go down to the local grocery store and see if any were available. I went with her.
There was a long line outside the store, and Olga decided she didn’t want to wait. I stayed, though, wanting to buy some groceries to thank the club for helping me out.
The way they’d organized it was that they had brought a selection of goods into the store’s foyer, between the inner and outer doors. They were letting people in about ten at a time to shop, and clerks with hand-held calculators rang them up. Japan is a cash society, which made the process much easier.
The line was very well-organized and quiet. People were being patient while waiting, and when they got in, they would buy one or two bags of goods apiece. There was no panic and no hoarding. That was the story around the country, I would later learn, and I didn’t find it at all surprising. In Japan, social order does not break down easily. In the case of a disaster like this one, it was a very good thing.
I also found that you could request goods that weren’t in the foyer. I asked for spray deodorant, which they didn’t have, and some razors, which they did. I also managed to get some face wipes.
Other than those items, I stuck with basic groceries, things I thought would keep well. Apples, potatoes, onions, tofu, noodles. I’d gotten money out only a week earlier and had around 30,000 yen on me, over $300 American, so I could easily buy two bags to take back to the clubhouse.
At the clubhouse, people were pitching in where they could. There were always a few women to watch the children in the meeting room where the families slept. Others cooked. Usually, someone would make a huge pot of soup and some rice for dinner. The next day, noodles would be added to the remainder of the soup, and that would be lunch. The men did all the heavy lifting and maintained the woodpile and barbecues.
They were actually really getting into being outdoorsmen. I made a crack about how the local wildlife soon wouldn’t be safe. I wasn’t expecting, two days later, for someone to bag a deer.
The clubhouse had a generator, which they ran for a few hours each day to get news on the TV. I watched footage of the wave that had devastated the Tohoku coast and learned that Ohtsuchi was also fighting a terrible fire from a broken gas line. I really hoped Charles had gotten out, and that my teacher friends at Ohtsuchi Junior High were safe.
Sunday night, I went with Fardy and a couple of the Japanese rugby players to the NTT building. Along with the hospital and one government building, it was one of the few structures in town with electric power.
Unfortunately, the satellite phones wouldn’t dial international numbers. Fardy suggested I call the US consulate instead. They didn’t have the number handy at NTT, so one of the players called a member of his family outside the disaster zone, who looked up the number for me, and I called the consulate.
They were very helpful. The man I spoke with agreed to pass on a message to my family. The only number I could remember was my sister Erin’s; she and her family have lived in their house the longest of anyone in my family. I asked the consulate to tell her that I was safe, I was well, and I was staying with friends. They also registered me with the consulate so they could locate me in case of an evacuation order from the US government.
Being able to get a message, even a secondhand one, to my family was a huge weight off my shoulders. Once I got back to the US, Erin told me she’d been awakened by a phone call from the consulate a little before 5:00 am Sunday morning, and she had immediately woken my parents, my sister Megan and my brother Seth with the happy news. They’d all gone to church that morning with a new reason to thank God.
***
On Monday, we found out about the Fukushima nuclear plant’s woes. It made Olga almost frantic with worry. Given that she was born in Russia around the time Chernobyl happened and had two very young children, I can’t say I blamed her. Fortunately, the winds were blowing the wrong way to bring the fallout anywhere near Kamaishi.
Nonetheless, it did add a new urgency to get out. That, however, was no easy matter. The road north from Kamaishi had been destroyed. The road south was little better. The main east-west highway had been taken over by the Japanese army, and you needed special permission to travel on it. No trains or buses were running, except a skeleton bus service in town only. The only other option was a high, winding road through the mountain pass at the far west end of the city, and gasoline rations made traveling inland by car difficult.
Even with those restrictions, Megan was desperate to call New Zealand. Her eldest daughter, Tonica, was going to high school there. One of the Seawaves had gotten a message out saying the team and the families were all okay, but Megan, quite understandably, wanted to speak to her. She and her mother made plans to go to Tono, the next town west of Kamaishi, in hopes of getting cell phone reception. They invited me along.
Before we did that, though, Megan wanted to check up on some friends in town. One friend, Takemi, had made it through the quake and tsunami, but immediately set out for hard-hit Kesennuma to find her elderly parents. We hadn’t heard from her since. Megan hoped she’d come back to town.
She hadn’t, though. I still haven’t heard anything about her. Megan left a note at her house, and at my request, we went to find our mutual friend Mayumi. She’d been one of my Japanese language teachers and also assisted with the beginning English classes at the eikaiwa. I knew she lived up beyond the tsunami zone, but I wanted to make sure she was all right.
We found her at her home, crying hard. We all hugged her, and she told us, “My father is dead.” He’d been in town at his kimono shop, and he hadn’t made it out in time. It made my apartment seem like such a small thing to lose.
There were more stories like that to come. Another friend of Megan’s, Tomoe, lived in a beautiful house down by the bay with her family and her husband’s grandfather. When the tsunami warning came, the grandfather hadn’t been able to move fast enough to get out. He yelled at them to go, to leave him behind.
Tomoe’s husband, torn between helping his grandfather and seeing his wife and children to safety, made the agonizing choice to go. He would never see his grandfather again.
***
The afternoon did bring some good news. Some of the rugby players had gone down to the damaged part of town to see if they could help. While there, Fardy had run into Nathalie. She and her fiancé, Yuugo, had decided to go around to some of the shelters and look for me. Fardy told them where I was, and Nathalie came for a visit. It was good to know that at least one of my friends had survived.
She told me that she’d been on a bus coming in from the west side of town when the tsunami alert sounded. The driver had stopped the bus, and she’d been well beyond the tsunami zone when it hit. The house where she’d been living was destroyed, though, along with most of her possessions. But her fiancé and his family had made it through, and that was what was important to her.
I gave her the number for the US consulate and urged her to call them when she could. She told me I was free to stay with her and Yuugo if I needed to, and we said goodbye for the time being.
A little while later, Megan, Barbara and I left for Tono. The mountain road west of Kamaishi is steep, winding and treacherous in winter, and it took us a long time to get out. Soon after we reached the far side of the mountains, though, we started seeing electric lights and people parked on the side of the road, using cell phones.
Megan checked her phone. She had plenty of bars, but her battery was low, as there’d been no way of charging it in Kamaishi. We spotted a little convenience store with lights on. Megan is a very forthright person, and she went in and more or less begged the store owners to let her plug in her phone so she could call her daughter. They were kind enough to allow her to do so, and they even brought out a little electric heater for our comfort.
While Megan and her mother talked to family in New Zealand, I bought a few snacks to take back to the club, figuring we might as well give the generous owners a few sales while we were there. Megan did the same when it was my turn to talk.
Again, the only number I could remember was my sister Erin’s. Shaking, I dialed it. After a few rings, her husband, Ed, picked it up. Wouldn’t you know it—Erin’s a birth doula, and one of her clients was having a baby that night, so she wasn’t home. I couldn’t be too disappointed, though; Ed’s been in our family a long time and is practically a brother to me, and it was great to hear his voice.
I more or less downloaded a huge amount of information to him. I told him to let my family know I had grabbed my medications before evacuating, which I knew they’d be concerned about. I told him I was safe and staying with my friends at the rugby club, and food and water weren’t a problem. I told him a little about the disaster. I also told him that Nathalie was okay. Later, I found out he’d contacted her father to tell him she was alive, the first news he’d had of his daughter.
Ed listened patiently, probably taking notes on his iPad as I talked, and promised to pass on all the information. He also told me that my mother had been on Good Morning America asking for information about me, and that they were in touch with the governor’s office in Alaska, trying to get me home. That threw me for a loop.
Soon, it was time to say goodbye, as I didn’t want to run up Megan’s phone bill too high. I promised I would keep in contact as much as I could, and he told me they all loved me and would help in any way they could. Then I hung up, and we went back to Kamaishi.
Why didn’t I take the opportunity to get out of Kamaishi then? Quite simply, it wouldn’t have been all that much easier to get to a major city from Tono. There were still no trains or buses. I had no friends in Tono to stay with, and they were suffering from shortages, too. On the whole, it seemed best to go back to the rugby club. I still think it was the right decision.
***
By Tuesday and Wednesday, we’d all settled into a routine. Most of the men went to town to volunteer their help. The women handled things at the club. I got to know Takako, Lata’s beautiful wife, quite well. She spoke excellent English (and also French) and was very much a take-charge person. She and Lata had an adorable toddler, their daughter Sisifa. I also got to know the team manager, Taiki. He spoke a little English, as did his wife and children. Their son had been one of my students in junior high.
Tuesday night, we got partial electricity back. It was a little return to normalcy. I did some laundry and took a badly-needed hot shower. By Wednesday, we had cell phone reception back, and I was finally able to contact my company to let them know I was alive, and so was Nathalie. They told me that if I could get out of Kamaishi, the Morioka branch office would give me a place to stay and help me to get out of Japan.
And then, on Thursday, consulate people from Australia, New Zealand and Canada arrived in town. I spoke to the Canadian consul, who told me he’d pass on my location information to the US consulate. I told him I needed to get out. I felt like I was using resources that other people needed. The consul told me he was sure the US consulate would send someone out for me in the next few days.
As soon as I’d spoken to him, Barbara approached me and told me that she, Megan, their children (Pita was staying) and Olga’s whole family would be leaving with the New Zealand consul. She hugged me, and I started crying for the first time in days. The majority of my friends and fluent English-speakers would be leaving with them. Fardy did his best to reassure me, telling me I could stay with the club as long as I needed.
I was grateful for his kind words, but in truth, that wasn’t what was making me cry. You bond with people in emergencies. Megan’s family had become my emotional anchor, and with them going away, I felt adrift again.
Worse, I soon learned that the Canadian consul was wrong; the US consulate balked at getting me out of Kamaishi. They asked me if I could get out to Sendai, and I had to explain—yet again—that there was no way out except by car, and I wasn’t yet desperate enough to ask my friends to spend precious gas getting me far enough inland to find train or bus service.
Fardy told me I should lie and say I had a medical need to get out. My honest streak wouldn’t let me. But I can’t say I wasn’t getting there.
***
That night, the families returned to their apartments. I was allowed to stay in Peter and Olga Miller’s apartment. I was finally able to check my email and discovered I had 295 new messages. Most of them were alerts from Facebook and LiveJournal.
It was like going back into the past. The messages started out concerned, with family and friends urgently inquiring if I was okay. The tone of them grew more and more fearful, until finally, my message from the consulate had gotten through. “PRAISE THE LORD!” wrote my mother, and that was the general theme on Facebook.
LiveJournal was a little different. I was puzzled by the number of “virtual gifts” people had bought for my LJ. Then I discovered that they were mostly little graphics called “Help Japan” buttons. The proceeds from the sale of those buttons all went to Japanese earthquake and tsunami relief. Someone had organized a campaign to buy them for my journal, and I received a grand total of 128 from friends, strangers and anonymous donors.
Another LJ user, a woman I’d run across in fandom circles, had taken it upon herself to search out information, as she lived in Japan (Tochigi Prefecture, well out of the tsunami zone). She’d contacted my parents and let them know she was watching the boards where they were posting the names of people in shelters, and she’d let them know if she saw anything about me. I barely even knew her, but she was trying to help me. They told her when I got my message through, and she passed it on to my LJ friends.
I posted a short message to my LiveJournal, letting people know I was all right and how grateful I was for their generosity. I’d never even met most of my LJ friends in person, yet there they were, doing their best to support me. I also emailed my family and best friend.
Other news was less heartwarming. I watched some CNN English-language news, and the scenes of devastation were just heartbreaking. They showed nearby Ryoishi, the tiny hamlet I’d often ridden through on my way to Ohtsuchi. They had a huge seawall protecting their town, solid concrete close to ten feet thick at the base. They’d had such confidence in it that many people hadn’t even evacuated.
In the contest between the seawall and the tsunami, the seawall had given. Part of it was knocked out like a loose tooth, and the wave had turned most of the town into soup and washed out the highway. The army couldn’t even get in to look for survivors—or bodies.
Every morning I went out to Ohtsuchi, the bus had stopped in Ryoishi to pick up two junior high-aged girls, a pair of best friends who got their hair cut the same way. They went to school in nearby Unosumai. I can only hope they were at school that day.
In Kamaishi, I learned, one of the school gymnasiums had been converted into a makeshift morgue. Over 300 bodies lay there by the time I left. The final number of casualties was around 1,250 out of a town of 45,000.
***
Finally, on Friday morning, I got good news from Takako. She’d been making some inquiries and found out that highway bus service was resuming. I ran down to the bus center and got a schedule. There was a bus leaving Saturday morning at 8:10, and I resolved to be on it.
Before I got back to the club, though, Fardy called. He was down in town helping out and ran into a couple of American soldiers from a base in Aomori. He had asked them if I could hitch a ride with them when they left town. As they were passing through Morioka on their way, they said it would be fine. They were driving a van and had only two soldiers, a civilian contractor and a Japanese liaison to carry, so there was plenty of room for me and my one little bag.
A half hour later, I was saying my goodbyes at the rugby club. The women all wished me good luck and hoped I would get home soon, and all three Tongans gave me big hugs. “I want to see you smile again,” said Pita.
“I am smiling,” I laughed.
Then I got in the van, and I left Kamaishi.
***
EPILOGUE
The soldiers took me straight to the Interac branch office in Morioka, where I was greeted enthusiastically by my friends Annie and Bobby. I was especially glad to see Bobby; he’d been in Ofunato. To my joy, I found out that all Interac teachers had been found, including Charles.
It took coming in to Morioka to realize just how much the disaster had affected all of Iwate. Morioka is a mid-sized city, much like my hometown of Anchorage, AK. Normally, it’s bustling.
Not so now. When a restaurant tried to open a few days after the quake, it ignited a broken gas line and set off an explosion. Other businesses were being cautious as a result. Not only that, but gas shortages were keeping cars off the road, and transportation problems (the north-south shinkansen line was down) and the dire need along the coast had led to food shortages as well.
Bobby gave me a hastily-drawn map of where I could find food and other supplies. He also warned me I’d likely come down with a cold. In that, he was right; I started sniffling as evening set in.
The company put me up in a hotel, the Toyoko Inn, and told me I could stay there as long as I needed to. Due to the gas shortage, the desk clerk warned me that they wouldn’t be able to provide fresh towels or sheets every day, and hot water might become an issue. Fortunately, it didn’t.
The following day, I got a real look at just how bad the shortages were. I went down to a local supermarket to get food, and many of the shelves were completely bare. I grabbed a couple of instant noodle cups, some bananas, a package of onigiri (rice balls) and a bottle of my favorite lemon soda. In addition, I bought a new t-shirt and a couple of pairs of socks.
I needn’t have worried too much about food. One of the Japanese ladies working at the Morioka branch office, Saori, was so worried about me that she brought me a whole bag of food at the hotel that day.
I ended up spending only two days there. My family had been in touch with Senator Lisa Murkowski’s office, and one of her aides, Nathan Bergerbest, had managed to get me on an earlier flight out of Japan.
Getting to Tokyo was another challenge. I’d hoped to go by bus, but they were all full. The only available train route took me out to Akita on the western coast of Japan, down the coast to Niigata, and from there to Tokyo. I’d wanted to see Japan’s west coast, but not like this.
In Tokyo, I had been put in touch with Andrew Klaus, a member of CRASH, a Christian relief organization. I gave him the extra food Saori had given me and email addresses for a couple of local Christian leaders. He and his (very large) family welcomed me and gave me their guest room for the night. The next morning, Jana Klaus, his wife, accompanied me to Shinjuku station and put me on the “Airport Limousine” bus.
A few hours later, I left Japan, heading for my parents in Oregon.
***
It wasn’t without regret that I left. Part of me felt guilty for leaving, even though it was what I’d been planning since long before the disaster. Many other teachers in my program stayed. I honestly don’t know if I would have, had I not already been leaving.
What will always stay with me is the kindness I was shown in those days. The people at the shelter, Kazuki, the Seawaves and their families, the Army guys who gave me a ride out of Kamaishi, the people from my company, the Klauses and so many more—none of them had to help out, but they did. They went truly above and beyond what any of them had to do, and most of them didn’t know me at all.
I only hope this account of what I saw and felt during those days will remind people that the disaster is far from over in Japan. It’s been less than a month, but all you see in the news now is Fukushima. While the situation there is terrible, there are still many people in coastal cities without homes who are staying in shelters. Shortages are ongoing. Life in all of Japan has been severely impacted, and it will take a long time for the country to recover. And they need our help.
I don’t know what will happen to Kamaishi. The city was already suffering a population decline before this happened. The Nippon Steel plant was hit hard, as was the port. Steel and fishing are Kamaishi’s main industries. If they can’t recover . . .
I hope to return sometime in the next couple of years. I hope to see my friends and walk down Watari Street toward the port. I hope the Seawaves can continue playing for the city. I hope I can remember the good times, and not just the devastation.