Posted by Jess
14/15 March 2011
As most of you know by now, Jason and I made a few big decisions on Monday, the 14th. Let me fill you in on what happened from Sunday to Monday to change our direction and lead us to leaving Japan.
On Sunday, life seemed pretty normal. The story of the nuclear reactors indicated that things were starting to stabilize and although they were widening the evacuation radius little by little, the Fukushima plant is so far from us that we were not concerned. Aftershocks were frequent but small. Only one opened the lighter drawers in our house, the rest were similar to the types of earthquakes we feel about once a month in the normal course of business. I spoke to my boss and we decided that unless things changed in the next 24 hours, we'd still leave for China on Monday night and return on Thursday. I was also told that the office would be open on Monday but it was up to each individual to decide where they needed to be that day. It seemed like a beautiful day; People were out and about and the sun was shining. Our favorite park was closed, but we walked to the ATM and gave money to the Lions Club members out to collect for disaster relief.
School emailed on Sunday and said that initial inspections had passed and school would be in session on Monday. We were to be sure Ella had emergency contact information attached to her backpack so in the case of an aftershock or power outage, someone could be contacted. We were asked to respond to let school know if Ella would be attending and reply all (there's only 10 kids in the school) to make sure everyone knew what was going on. We received one or two responses from parents saying there were heading to Singapore through Spring Break (Mar 21-Mar 25) and their children wouldn't be in school Then a couple of hours later we received an email that said International Schools would be closed on Monday and so would Ella's. Throughout Sunday afternoon and evening there were public loudspeaker announcements telling us to conserve as much electricity as possible and we lit the house by candles that night. The only appliance we kept on was the laptop - everything else was turned off or unplugged as we tried to do our part. Ironically we noticed that there were still large neon billboards on in our area. Someone was asleep at the wheel on those.
Still thinking that people were overreacting a bit to the nuclear radiation danger to the Tokyo area, I headed to work on Monday. We were told that if we wanted to go to a different regional office (like Singapore or Seoul) or send our families home, the company would help us to do that but it was our choice. Jason and I, as of Monday morning, were still planning on me going to China and us leaving for Hawaii on Friday. Then I got to work. Once there I heard more stories of Friday and what it was like to be at the office during the quake. A very level-headed coworker told me that he was taking his family to Singapore for the week. I read a news report from the Japan Meteorological Agency that said there was a 70% chance of a large aftershock by Wednesday morning and a 50% chance by Saturday. Large = 7.0 or more and another possible tsunami. Oh and the 300 or so aftershocks that had already happened were steadily moving south on the fault line towards Tokyo. I really hope they are wrong. At the same time, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) started issuing notices that as of Monday, they would start doing rolling blackouts for periods of 3 hours at a time across central Japan. It did not appear at that time that our apartment or the office was included. And again, people came into the office and turned on all the light switches as they do every other day even though the sun was shining and the lights were unnecessary. Seriously?
I kept Jason up to date as I found out new information on Monday morning and with all the news, we started to think about our options. It was a hard decision and we waffled a bit. I really did because I wasn't there on Friday so I really don't have much perspective on all that happened and what might be coming next. To investigate our options, I called Delta to ask about moving up our Hawaii flight. Bravo Delta for allowing people to change flights to/from Japan without change fees. I started drafting an email to my boss telling him that we weren't sure what we wanted to do and then called Jason. As I was telling him about our options a large aftershock came. We waited for a minute thinking it would pass and as it went on, we hung up, he corralled the girls and I closed my desk drawers. I called him back and he said "let's go". At the same time my boss sent me a note saying "that last one sealed the deal, no Shanghai". And I called him and said we'd like to leave, we're headed out tonight and I'll work from Hawaii this week. All he said was "you should go."
And so within an hour we changed our flights, booked a car to the airport, booked a hotel room, cancelled the Shanghai trip, rearranged schedules, called family to let them know our change of plans and I headed home. Luckily we had packed nearly everything before Monday since I was going to be gone most of the week. We made the decision at 11am and by 2pm we were in a car to the airport. While waiting for our flight, we felt a few small aftershocks but nothing too big. Our flight took off on time and in 6 hours we had landed on Oahu where for now, we are safe. I know that we are still in a risky place for a tsunami but moving up our already scheduled plans was the easiest way to get out fast and we knew that if we went to Seoul or Singapore, we'd have to fly back through Tokyo on Friday to get to Hawaii. Plus, this flight change had no cost associated with it.
Today in Hawaii we've been watching the news and hearing about the deteriorating situation at the Fukushima power plant and I learned that everyone in the office was sent home early because the planned blackouts would impact our offices after all. Even some who decided to stay on Monday are rethinking today as the situation seems to be getting worse, there was another explosion at the plant, another reactor exposed and the winds have shifted a bit from headed out to sea to inland. For now we'll stay here and continue to monitor what's going on through news sources as best we can and hopefully head back home at the end of our vacation as we originally planned.
We are grateful to be safe and away from home. While Ella sees the news and understands some of what's happening, I wonder if she'll only remember that after the earthquake, we had a big vacation at the beach! and nothing more. Today she saw an escalator that wasn't working and she said "I wonder if it broke during the big earthquake". I can't imagine the stories she will tell my parents and sister when we meet them later this week but I don't know how much she will retain or how much she should. I know that Jason and I will never forget the news updates. 9,000 missing in one town. 2,000 bodies found on shore. 17 US Navy tested positive for radiation. One hour of exposure near the plant today = 3 years of radiation in your body. Its unclear what the totals will be when all is said and done and its hard to know where the numbers are coming from that are reported in the news. Last night while watching again the footage of the tsunami I noticed a man walking in the foreground of the shot. The water is coming behind him, taking down houses and he's just walking, not running, as if he knows that all hope is lost. The camera cuts out before the water gets to him, but that hasn't stopped my mind from fast forwarding to how that story ended. Heartbreaking, haunting images. The Japanese man next to me in front of the airport monitors yesterday started to sniffle and tear up. I do that about 15 times a day. I'm doing it now as I write this.
We received word on Monday that our employees (54 of them) in the Sendai region were safe and accounted for and many were using the company branch office as shelter with their families. The office had running water and electricity and had somehow managed to get a small food supply. But the people had nothing else - no blankets, no clothes, no gasoline if they still had cars and not enough food to sustain them for any length of time. The company was working to get them more supplies as soon as possible. Sadly, they were lucky to have as much as they did at their shelter. 450,000 people are currently living in shelters -that's a lot of emergency food and medical supplies to get out without all the roads, trains and bridges. People are sitting out overnight to buy groceries and cars are lined up by the hundreds for gasoline.
We hope you'll consider donating to the Red Cross for disaster relief. Check to see if your company will match the donation. You can direct your donation directly to the Japan disaster and it is tax deductible. Even if its only $10, don't think "what could that do?" Every little bit helps and these groups are far more efficient at spending those $10 than you or I.
http://www.redcross.org/
Kanpai,
Jess
14/15 March 2011
As most of you know by now, Jason and I made a few big decisions on Monday, the 14th. Let me fill you in on what happened from Sunday to Monday to change our direction and lead us to leaving Japan.
On Sunday, life seemed pretty normal. The story of the nuclear reactors indicated that things were starting to stabilize and although they were widening the evacuation radius little by little, the Fukushima plant is so far from us that we were not concerned. Aftershocks were frequent but small. Only one opened the lighter drawers in our house, the rest were similar to the types of earthquakes we feel about once a month in the normal course of business. I spoke to my boss and we decided that unless things changed in the next 24 hours, we'd still leave for China on Monday night and return on Thursday. I was also told that the office would be open on Monday but it was up to each individual to decide where they needed to be that day. It seemed like a beautiful day; People were out and about and the sun was shining. Our favorite park was closed, but we walked to the ATM and gave money to the Lions Club members out to collect for disaster relief.
School emailed on Sunday and said that initial inspections had passed and school would be in session on Monday. We were to be sure Ella had emergency contact information attached to her backpack so in the case of an aftershock or power outage, someone could be contacted. We were asked to respond to let school know if Ella would be attending and reply all (there's only 10 kids in the school) to make sure everyone knew what was going on. We received one or two responses from parents saying there were heading to Singapore through Spring Break (Mar 21-Mar 25) and their children wouldn't be in school Then a couple of hours later we received an email that said International Schools would be closed on Monday and so would Ella's. Throughout Sunday afternoon and evening there were public loudspeaker announcements telling us to conserve as much electricity as possible and we lit the house by candles that night. The only appliance we kept on was the laptop - everything else was turned off or unplugged as we tried to do our part. Ironically we noticed that there were still large neon billboards on in our area. Someone was asleep at the wheel on those.
Still thinking that people were overreacting a bit to the nuclear radiation danger to the Tokyo area, I headed to work on Monday. We were told that if we wanted to go to a different regional office (like Singapore or Seoul) or send our families home, the company would help us to do that but it was our choice. Jason and I, as of Monday morning, were still planning on me going to China and us leaving for Hawaii on Friday. Then I got to work. Once there I heard more stories of Friday and what it was like to be at the office during the quake. A very level-headed coworker told me that he was taking his family to Singapore for the week. I read a news report from the Japan Meteorological Agency that said there was a 70% chance of a large aftershock by Wednesday morning and a 50% chance by Saturday. Large = 7.0 or more and another possible tsunami. Oh and the 300 or so aftershocks that had already happened were steadily moving south on the fault line towards Tokyo. I really hope they are wrong. At the same time, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) started issuing notices that as of Monday, they would start doing rolling blackouts for periods of 3 hours at a time across central Japan. It did not appear at that time that our apartment or the office was included. And again, people came into the office and turned on all the light switches as they do every other day even though the sun was shining and the lights were unnecessary. Seriously?
I kept Jason up to date as I found out new information on Monday morning and with all the news, we started to think about our options. It was a hard decision and we waffled a bit. I really did because I wasn't there on Friday so I really don't have much perspective on all that happened and what might be coming next. To investigate our options, I called Delta to ask about moving up our Hawaii flight. Bravo Delta for allowing people to change flights to/from Japan without change fees. I started drafting an email to my boss telling him that we weren't sure what we wanted to do and then called Jason. As I was telling him about our options a large aftershock came. We waited for a minute thinking it would pass and as it went on, we hung up, he corralled the girls and I closed my desk drawers. I called him back and he said "let's go". At the same time my boss sent me a note saying "that last one sealed the deal, no Shanghai". And I called him and said we'd like to leave, we're headed out tonight and I'll work from Hawaii this week. All he said was "you should go."
And so within an hour we changed our flights, booked a car to the airport, booked a hotel room, cancelled the Shanghai trip, rearranged schedules, called family to let them know our change of plans and I headed home. Luckily we had packed nearly everything before Monday since I was going to be gone most of the week. We made the decision at 11am and by 2pm we were in a car to the airport. While waiting for our flight, we felt a few small aftershocks but nothing too big. Our flight took off on time and in 6 hours we had landed on Oahu where for now, we are safe. I know that we are still in a risky place for a tsunami but moving up our already scheduled plans was the easiest way to get out fast and we knew that if we went to Seoul or Singapore, we'd have to fly back through Tokyo on Friday to get to Hawaii. Plus, this flight change had no cost associated with it.
Today in Hawaii we've been watching the news and hearing about the deteriorating situation at the Fukushima power plant and I learned that everyone in the office was sent home early because the planned blackouts would impact our offices after all. Even some who decided to stay on Monday are rethinking today as the situation seems to be getting worse, there was another explosion at the plant, another reactor exposed and the winds have shifted a bit from headed out to sea to inland. For now we'll stay here and continue to monitor what's going on through news sources as best we can and hopefully head back home at the end of our vacation as we originally planned.
We are grateful to be safe and away from home. While Ella sees the news and understands some of what's happening, I wonder if she'll only remember that after the earthquake, we had a big vacation at the beach! and nothing more. Today she saw an escalator that wasn't working and she said "I wonder if it broke during the big earthquake". I can't imagine the stories she will tell my parents and sister when we meet them later this week but I don't know how much she will retain or how much she should. I know that Jason and I will never forget the news updates. 9,000 missing in one town. 2,000 bodies found on shore. 17 US Navy tested positive for radiation. One hour of exposure near the plant today = 3 years of radiation in your body. Its unclear what the totals will be when all is said and done and its hard to know where the numbers are coming from that are reported in the news. Last night while watching again the footage of the tsunami I noticed a man walking in the foreground of the shot. The water is coming behind him, taking down houses and he's just walking, not running, as if he knows that all hope is lost. The camera cuts out before the water gets to him, but that hasn't stopped my mind from fast forwarding to how that story ended. Heartbreaking, haunting images. The Japanese man next to me in front of the airport monitors yesterday started to sniffle and tear up. I do that about 15 times a day. I'm doing it now as I write this.
We received word on Monday that our employees (54 of them) in the Sendai region were safe and accounted for and many were using the company branch office as shelter with their families. The office had running water and electricity and had somehow managed to get a small food supply. But the people had nothing else - no blankets, no clothes, no gasoline if they still had cars and not enough food to sustain them for any length of time. The company was working to get them more supplies as soon as possible. Sadly, they were lucky to have as much as they did at their shelter. 450,000 people are currently living in shelters -that's a lot of emergency food and medical supplies to get out without all the roads, trains and bridges. People are sitting out overnight to buy groceries and cars are lined up by the hundreds for gasoline.
We hope you'll consider donating to the Red Cross for disaster relief. Check to see if your company will match the donation. You can direct your donation directly to the Japan disaster and it is tax deductible. Even if its only $10, don't think "what could that do?" Every little bit helps and these groups are far more efficient at spending those $10 than you or I.
http://www.redcross.org/
Kanpai,
Jess
1:45 AM |
Category: |
1 comments
Comments (1)
This post made me tear up too! I'm so glad that you are all safe but it must be difficult to watch what is still going on. Your constantly in our thoughts and prayers!