Earthquake, Tsunami, and Aftermath

On the afternoon of Friday, March 11, 2011, our house was rocked by an 9.0 earthquake originating off the coast of northeastern Japan; the world's fifth largest earthquake since 1900 and the worst in Japan's history. Hazel and I were home alone when the earthquake began. It became immediately apparent that it wasn't like the other earthquakes we had experienced since arriving in Japan, even the 7.2 earthquake we experienced just two days before.

Not knowing what to do, but being born and raised in tornado country, I moved us into our innermost guest bathroom shower room and had to sit down so as not to lose our footing. We promptly lost power. I did not close the two doors between us and the hallway to avoid getting trapped, but the pocket door to our bathroom was sliding open and closed on its own with the quaking. The shaking was audible, and eventually the sound of breaking glass overpowered our house. Having no frame of reference for this experience, it felt like the house was in the middle of a twister a la The Wizard of Oz, or was being ransacked by intruders with us still in it. The first wave of shaking partially emptied the contents of the book shelves in our dining room, leaving DVDs, CDs, and broken wine glasses and vases strewn on the floor. A few minutes later, a second wave of shaking knocked a large apothecary jar, filled with river rocks signed by guests at our wedding, onto the floor directly across from our bathroom refuge. The sound of rocks and glass crashing to the ground was nothing short of horrific. Surprisingly, Hazel remained mostly oblivious.

Matt was driving home from work when the earthquake started.  It felt like the wheels were going to come off his car. It was such a relief when he finally got home. We continued to experience aftershocks for the next couple of hours as we began to assess and clean up the damage.

Hazel and I took cover through the open door to the right.

In a fortunate twist of fate, we had previously planned a vacation to Thailand, and were due to leave on a flight to Tokyo that night. As we finished packing our bags by candlelight, I couldn't help but feel like a member of the Van Trapp family escaping under the cover of night. Our flight out of Misawa was canceled, but we were able to leave on a different flight about forty minutes after our original departure time.  The power was still not restored to our house by the time we left for the airport. As a result, we had no idea that as we flew to Tokyo, tens of thousands of people had already lost their lives to the massive tsunami that wiped out the coastline just south of us.

When we arrived in Tokyo, we began to realize that things were probably a bit worse than we originally thought. Our original flight to Bangkok was cancelled, so we found an rare open patch of floor and set up camp. Hazel slept in her stroller covered with blankets and towels, and we slept on the hard floor with nothing but beach towels, a baby changing pad, and a stray cardboard box to cushion us and block out the 24-hour glow of florescent airport lights. Eventually, some kind Japanese women gave us two blankets that were distributed prior to our arrival. We "slept" that night with Hazel between us and hoped that our flight would leave in the morning. It did not. The next morning, free rice balls were distributed to the stranded travelers. We took two, one for each of us, and another kind Japanese man used pantomime to insist that we take more. Crisis bonds people, even foreigners, together. Eventually, flights began to start up again, late the next evening (some 28 hours after arriving in Tokyo) we flew to Bangkok and eventually to Phuket.

Our "camp" in the Tokyo airport.

In Thailand, we finally had access to television and internet, and learned exactly what had happened following the earthquake. We were saddened by the loss of so much and so many in northeastern Japan, but were very thankful for our safety. Additionally, we began to deliberate over whether or not Hazel and I should return to Japan in the light of the situation at the Fukushima nuclear plant. After much deliberation, we decided it would be prudent for Hazel and I to wait it out in Iowa for a couple of weeks. And so we parted ways in Tokyo, with Matt returning to Misawa and Hazel and I flying to Chicago. Hazel and I spent six weeks in Iowa (five long weeks apart from Matt; he was able to join us for a week), and finally returned safe and sound as a family to our home in Misawa on May 2, 2011. It was the longest week-long vacation ever.