***let me preface this entry by saying that my family and I are back in the United States and thanking the powers-that-be for getting us home safely. It has been 6 days and feels like it has been 100.
Friday, March 11, 2011
It started out like any other day...
Took my son to school, came home, checked emails and started my day. A friend called and asked if I wanted to go walk and run some errands - so off we go.
We ended up on top of the hill behind our neighborhood that looks out over the Bay. We started talking about how close we are living to the water and what chance would we have if we had a quake and tsunami...would we make it up to the top and would it be high enough. Conversations continued about emergency back-packs and such and she informed me that she had one and had just replaced the waters in it so they were fresh. I told her I didn't have an emergency pack and that even though we'd been living there a year and through all the little quakes (7 since I had been there) - that it would probably be in my best interest to pack one...just in case the big one that they had been predicting for 10 years - just happened to come before we our assignment was up.
We had lunch and called it a day.
On this particular day I had decided to leave my son at school for an extra hour so that he could play with his two best friends. At 2:45 pm I started the ritual of finding my car keys, sunglasses and coat to go get him.
I was standing in the kitchen and the house started to move...another little one I thought. (Funny to me how I had started refering to the quakes as 'little ones' - almost like I was getting use to them)
The house started to creak, almost like it was 'settling' in cold weather, or like the sounds you hear thinking someone is coming down your stairs in the middle of the night. The house started to slowly sway the way it always had during every other quake I had to date been privy to. My thought was, "you know, I have been inside the house during every one of these - I think I'll go outside and see what it looks like to watch the trees sway."
No sooner than I walked out on the porch - the bottom dropped out.
The ground started shaking violently. The car was moving back and forth like someone was trying to push it on its side. The bicycle fell to the ground. The front door slammed shut. And I was having a hard time just standing up.
There is a house being built across the street and the two Japanese construction guys were standing there looking at me - me looking at them. One looked at me like "What the hell?" - almost like I had done this. I was thinking hey guy...YOU live here,not me...YOU tell ME what the hell is happening.
I walked, well stumbled, best I could to the middle of the street to get away from the house and car. I crouched down and watched as the rest of the neighbors started running out into the street. This lasted for a full minute at least. A minute is not long, until the earth under you is shaking so hard, it is hard to HEAR.
As everything slowly started to stop...My first thought: MY SON. Oh dear Jesus. Please let him be okay.
I took off running.
His school is only about a mile away, and as I ran - somewhere I realized I was seeing that the entire world aroung me had stopped.
The cars in the streets. The people had all come outside of the buidlings and houses and were standing on the sidewalks. The traffic lights had all gone black. No birds chirping. Everything had just STOPPED. Except me of course. Here I am running while the ground is still shaking...
I can only imagine how crazy I must have looked to all the Japanese. Everything they tell you is to stop and take cover during something like this. I, the crazy white lady, am running down the street.
When I finally rounded the hill in the neighborhood where my son's school is - I started crying...there he stood. Outside his schoool with his two best friends and three of his teachers. I ran some more.
They let him go and he ran to me. As is picked him up he hugged me and said, "Mommy we just had an earthquake!" He wiggled out of my arms and stood up and did this little wiggly-shaky dance..."it was shaking all around like this Mommy."
He stopped and goes, "Wait. Why are you crying Mommy?"
aaahhh. He was completely unphased.
We walked home. Talked about what happened at school. Dodged cars at traffic lights that were no longer working. I fielded questions about how come we were walking across the street when the little man in the walk signal was no longer there or flashing telling us it was all clear. While I am Thanking my lucky stars the little guy is unharmed and seemingly unaltered by it all.
Then - I walked in my house.
It never crossed my mind that something might be happening to my house during all this. It never crossed my mind what might have happened to ME if I had not had the silly little thought to go out and 'watch the trees sway'. Looking back - I sort of went blank.
The house looked like someone had ransacked and robbed the place. When we opened the door the pictures in the entryway were all sideways. Stuff was strewn in front of the door. The living room had plants thrown in the floor, candle sticks knocked over and broken, vases in the floor, art had shaken off the walls. All the little decor knick-knacks were in the floor, souvenirs from all the places we had been were in the floor in pieces. The 3 sided floor mirror - face down in the dining room. The kitchen - every drawer and cabinet were open. Things were out of the cabinets, stuff in the floor, and luckily...the few bottles of wine we had sitting on the cabinet had only shaken their way to the EDGE of the cabinet...they never made it to the floor!!!! Yes, someone knew I would need those later!!!
The upstairs wasn't as bad. Well, everywhere but our room. The TV had fallen off the dresser, the big mirror was on the floor, my dressing table and all contents...EVERYWHERE. It looked like a perfume bandit had taken each one out, smelled them and then randomly tossed them around the room.
I found my cell phone, grabbed our coats and some water bottles and headed back outside to the street.
It was TWO HOURS before I finally made contact with my husband. All power, phones, everything - OUT. Not knowing where he was or if he was ok...was bad. I think the most frightening thing (besides my son's safety) was the fact that there was no way to know anything. ANYTHING. Sirens are going off, people are walking everywhere, all my nieghbors were still out in the streets...
they tell you to stay out of the buildings because of aftershocks...luckily we did. Two more happened...and they were almost as bad as the quake itself.
The construction workers had their truck radio on loud...the German lady across the street was translating the broadcast. Listening for tsunami warnings. Everything was surreal - the German lady translating the Japanese to us and everyone around was of some other nationality.
During the interim I ran back inside and packed that damn emergency back-pack we had talked about earlier. Found my crappy little AM/FM Japanese radio (I bought to listen to the military rock channel) -hoping for some sort of news in ENGLISH, grabbed passports, all the extra money we had stashed and tossed it all in the car. I left a note for my husband taped to the door.
We headed for higher ground.
We went to the club where I take my son swimming in the summer. It is the highest point in our area. Many of the other expat families were there. Well, not the families...the mothers and kids. During this whole ordeal, which lasted about 4 hours - there were NO MEN ANYWHERE. None.
It was all Mothers and kids, or Mothers trying to find their kids. It was scary.
All the men were at work. The phones weren't working and none of us could get in contact to find out if they were ok. Or find out if they could even make it back to us. We couldn't understand the news about the tsunami because it was all in Japanese. We were basically helpess.
It took TWO HOURS before I could reach my husband to let him know we were okay and to find out he was unharmed. It took another FIVE HOURS for him to get home to us.
He works 15 miles away. FIFTEEN MILES....FIVE HOURS.
The phones (cell phones) worked for 5 mintues, literally, and then were out for the next 8 hours. We had no power, no phones, no nothing. Just dead time....waiting.
For our husbands and for another quake.
Finally at dusk, we went home. I needed to clean up what glass and broken things I could before it got too dark. I needed to find the candles, find the flashlights. I needed to make it safe for my son to even be in the house.
After all the glass was cleaned, and paths were made to walk...
I settled my son in to watch his DVD player (Thank God I remembered to charge the battery the night before) and I had a MUCH needed glasss of wine...
and we sat and waited for my husband.
He arrived after 9pm. The earthquake was at 2:26pm.
Trying to get home to us he had been in a co-workers car, then walked (because he could walk faster than the cars were moving) and then in a taxi. All trains and buses had been shut down.
After the heartswell we had when we were all together again, we cleaned a little more, had another glass of wine and reluctantly decided to try and sleep.
Precaution lead us to take the picture off the wall over our bed and our son slept with us that night. It was not a restful sleep...afteshocks were coming about every 30 minutes.
I was scared, freaked out and worn out.
Deeds
***DAY 2 will be posted as soon as I can.
This was all I could stomach to remember in one sitting. I am still comparmentalizing and a little in denial. I am trying to deal one day at a time.
This is an areial shot of a crack from the earthquake...
these are not weeds...these are full grown TREES around the crack.
Just to give you some perspective.
Friday, March 11, 2011
It started out like any other day...
Took my son to school, came home, checked emails and started my day. A friend called and asked if I wanted to go walk and run some errands - so off we go.
We ended up on top of the hill behind our neighborhood that looks out over the Bay. We started talking about how close we are living to the water and what chance would we have if we had a quake and tsunami...would we make it up to the top and would it be high enough. Conversations continued about emergency back-packs and such and she informed me that she had one and had just replaced the waters in it so they were fresh. I told her I didn't have an emergency pack and that even though we'd been living there a year and through all the little quakes (7 since I had been there) - that it would probably be in my best interest to pack one...just in case the big one that they had been predicting for 10 years - just happened to come before we our assignment was up.
We had lunch and called it a day.
On this particular day I had decided to leave my son at school for an extra hour so that he could play with his two best friends. At 2:45 pm I started the ritual of finding my car keys, sunglasses and coat to go get him.
I was standing in the kitchen and the house started to move...another little one I thought. (Funny to me how I had started refering to the quakes as 'little ones' - almost like I was getting use to them)
The house started to creak, almost like it was 'settling' in cold weather, or like the sounds you hear thinking someone is coming down your stairs in the middle of the night. The house started to slowly sway the way it always had during every other quake I had to date been privy to. My thought was, "you know, I have been inside the house during every one of these - I think I'll go outside and see what it looks like to watch the trees sway."
No sooner than I walked out on the porch - the bottom dropped out.
The ground started shaking violently. The car was moving back and forth like someone was trying to push it on its side. The bicycle fell to the ground. The front door slammed shut. And I was having a hard time just standing up.
There is a house being built across the street and the two Japanese construction guys were standing there looking at me - me looking at them. One looked at me like "What the hell?" - almost like I had done this. I was thinking hey guy...YOU live here,not me...YOU tell ME what the hell is happening.
I walked, well stumbled, best I could to the middle of the street to get away from the house and car. I crouched down and watched as the rest of the neighbors started running out into the street. This lasted for a full minute at least. A minute is not long, until the earth under you is shaking so hard, it is hard to HEAR.
As everything slowly started to stop...My first thought: MY SON. Oh dear Jesus. Please let him be okay.
I took off running.
His school is only about a mile away, and as I ran - somewhere I realized I was seeing that the entire world aroung me had stopped.
The cars in the streets. The people had all come outside of the buidlings and houses and were standing on the sidewalks. The traffic lights had all gone black. No birds chirping. Everything had just STOPPED. Except me of course. Here I am running while the ground is still shaking...
I can only imagine how crazy I must have looked to all the Japanese. Everything they tell you is to stop and take cover during something like this. I, the crazy white lady, am running down the street.
When I finally rounded the hill in the neighborhood where my son's school is - I started crying...there he stood. Outside his schoool with his two best friends and three of his teachers. I ran some more.
They let him go and he ran to me. As is picked him up he hugged me and said, "Mommy we just had an earthquake!" He wiggled out of my arms and stood up and did this little wiggly-shaky dance..."it was shaking all around like this Mommy."
He stopped and goes, "Wait. Why are you crying Mommy?"
aaahhh. He was completely unphased.
We walked home. Talked about what happened at school. Dodged cars at traffic lights that were no longer working. I fielded questions about how come we were walking across the street when the little man in the walk signal was no longer there or flashing telling us it was all clear. While I am Thanking my lucky stars the little guy is unharmed and seemingly unaltered by it all.
Then - I walked in my house.
It never crossed my mind that something might be happening to my house during all this. It never crossed my mind what might have happened to ME if I had not had the silly little thought to go out and 'watch the trees sway'. Looking back - I sort of went blank.
The house looked like someone had ransacked and robbed the place. When we opened the door the pictures in the entryway were all sideways. Stuff was strewn in front of the door. The living room had plants thrown in the floor, candle sticks knocked over and broken, vases in the floor, art had shaken off the walls. All the little decor knick-knacks were in the floor, souvenirs from all the places we had been were in the floor in pieces. The 3 sided floor mirror - face down in the dining room. The kitchen - every drawer and cabinet were open. Things were out of the cabinets, stuff in the floor, and luckily...the few bottles of wine we had sitting on the cabinet had only shaken their way to the EDGE of the cabinet...they never made it to the floor!!!! Yes, someone knew I would need those later!!!
The upstairs wasn't as bad. Well, everywhere but our room. The TV had fallen off the dresser, the big mirror was on the floor, my dressing table and all contents...EVERYWHERE. It looked like a perfume bandit had taken each one out, smelled them and then randomly tossed them around the room.
I found my cell phone, grabbed our coats and some water bottles and headed back outside to the street.
It was TWO HOURS before I finally made contact with my husband. All power, phones, everything - OUT. Not knowing where he was or if he was ok...was bad. I think the most frightening thing (besides my son's safety) was the fact that there was no way to know anything. ANYTHING. Sirens are going off, people are walking everywhere, all my nieghbors were still out in the streets...
they tell you to stay out of the buildings because of aftershocks...luckily we did. Two more happened...and they were almost as bad as the quake itself.
The construction workers had their truck radio on loud...the German lady across the street was translating the broadcast. Listening for tsunami warnings. Everything was surreal - the German lady translating the Japanese to us and everyone around was of some other nationality.
During the interim I ran back inside and packed that damn emergency back-pack we had talked about earlier. Found my crappy little AM/FM Japanese radio (I bought to listen to the military rock channel) -hoping for some sort of news in ENGLISH, grabbed passports, all the extra money we had stashed and tossed it all in the car. I left a note for my husband taped to the door.
We headed for higher ground.
We went to the club where I take my son swimming in the summer. It is the highest point in our area. Many of the other expat families were there. Well, not the families...the mothers and kids. During this whole ordeal, which lasted about 4 hours - there were NO MEN ANYWHERE. None.
It was all Mothers and kids, or Mothers trying to find their kids. It was scary.
All the men were at work. The phones weren't working and none of us could get in contact to find out if they were ok. Or find out if they could even make it back to us. We couldn't understand the news about the tsunami because it was all in Japanese. We were basically helpess.
It took TWO HOURS before I could reach my husband to let him know we were okay and to find out he was unharmed. It took another FIVE HOURS for him to get home to us.
He works 15 miles away. FIFTEEN MILES....FIVE HOURS.
The phones (cell phones) worked for 5 mintues, literally, and then were out for the next 8 hours. We had no power, no phones, no nothing. Just dead time....waiting.
For our husbands and for another quake.
Finally at dusk, we went home. I needed to clean up what glass and broken things I could before it got too dark. I needed to find the candles, find the flashlights. I needed to make it safe for my son to even be in the house.
After all the glass was cleaned, and paths were made to walk...
I settled my son in to watch his DVD player (Thank God I remembered to charge the battery the night before) and I had a MUCH needed glasss of wine...
and we sat and waited for my husband.
He arrived after 9pm. The earthquake was at 2:26pm.
Trying to get home to us he had been in a co-workers car, then walked (because he could walk faster than the cars were moving) and then in a taxi. All trains and buses had been shut down.
After the heartswell we had when we were all together again, we cleaned a little more, had another glass of wine and reluctantly decided to try and sleep.
Precaution lead us to take the picture off the wall over our bed and our son slept with us that night. It was not a restful sleep...afteshocks were coming about every 30 minutes.
I was scared, freaked out and worn out.
Deeds
***DAY 2 will be posted as soon as I can.
This was all I could stomach to remember in one sitting. I am still comparmentalizing and a little in denial. I am trying to deal one day at a time.
these are not weeds...these are full grown TREES around the crack.
Just to give you some perspective.
3 comments:
Glad to hear you are ok.
Absolutely fascinating. I'm so happy to hear you and your family are together and well. God bless!
Oh my god Dee Dee I'm still crying! I am soooooooooo glad that you are alright. Glad your all home.
LOve you
Carol Ann
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