Post Quake Blur

The actual 9.0 magnitude earthquake was an ordeal but was also rather short-lived. What immediately followed was just as trying as the original quake and drew out the experience to a solid eight hours.

It is standard procedure to evacuate the school to the sports field after an earthquake where we take attendance and wait for aftershocks to pass. I think it’s normal to eventually reenter a building after a small to medium sized earthquake but after this quake there was no way we were letting anyone back into the school. On a beautiful spring day I don’t think this would have been a problem but snow was predicted and the temperature was already dropping. Friday was also “Twin Day” and several groups of students were dressed in matching clothing more appropriate for the beach then a March snow storm. I was dressed for the season in long underwear and a wool scarf and it was too cold for even me. We sat on ground, we shivered, and we shook.

It’s hard to tell how strong an earthquake is when you’re outside. You can hear the rumble and see light poles shake, but it’s not the same as being indoors where furniture moves and things fall. The aftershocks started within half an hour of the big earthquake and ranged from 4.9 to 7.9 with varying distances from Sendai. Once you’re outside in an open area you’re effectively safe from common earthquake dangers, so when aftershocks hit the only thing to do is wait for them to pass. Every aftershock only added to the general fear and tension we all felt.

People have different ways of dealing with trauma, shock, and fear and I think this especially obvious among a large group of four- to eighteen-year-olds. Many of the boys joked around trying to out-macho each other, some students were sobbing, and a lot just stared off into space. I did my best to comfort the visibly upset students, even though I wanted to throw up.

Most of the time we spent out on the field is a blur to me. After an hour the elementary and middle school students were loaded onto buses because it was starting to snow. The high school students waited patiently outside huddled under umbrellas. Some of the teachers started to venture inside for coats and gym clothes for the students who needed more protection from the elements. At one point, we were in an all-out blizzard. Some parents that live close to school arrived to pick up their children, but we still had between sixty and seventy students to keep warm and calm.

The school where I teach is located in a northern ward of Sendai called Izumi. Being located so far into the mountains means that tsunami waves are not a threat, however it also means that we are in a very remote area. It can take over an hour to reach downtown from the school. As the clock ticked by, it became time to find a way to get the remaining students home.

We decided to load the buses with the students who normally ride them, and then drop the students at their normal bus stop. If there was no one there to meet any of the students (who were from kindergarten up to eighth grade) they would have to stay on the bus and return to school where they would have to wait until a guardian came to get them. The stops closest to school went fine, and half the bus was unloaded within half an hour. The closer we got to downtown, the slower the traffic went. Eventually we were at a standstill. Part of the problem was that many of the roads in and out of Izumi are not arterioles and when clogged with thousands of people trying to go south they slow to a crawl. On top of that most traffic lights were out, which further slowed down traffic.

To their credit the kids on the bus were very well behaved and we didn’t have many disruptions.

We made it one more stop and then it was determined that the next stop at Kita-Sendai, in the northern part of downtown, was as far as the bus would go because traffic was not improving, and the bus needed to conserve gas to get back to school. There are two more bus stops after Kita-Sendai, and we had several students who were in contact with parents who were waiting for them at their bus stop. I was going to get off the bus downtown no matter what the last stop was, so I volunteered to walk a group of ten students home. Getting the students home wasn’t so bad and took about forty minutes. The hard part was walking to the final bus stop and finding three moms waiting for the bus. They were extremely distraught when they heard the bus had turned around and I don’t really blame them. How would you feel if your child was heading in the exact opposite direction away from you? I learned from the moms that Greg had been waiting at the bus stop, but his phone had died, and he followed my instructions to go home when we were still stuck in the north of town.

I walked the last two students home. One of whom lives very close to me, so we had a nice chat as we walked over cracked sidewalk and broken glass.

Greg was waiting for me when I got home at about eleven. The electricity was out so he greeted me with our one flashlight. He had cleaned up the worst of the earthquake mess and laid out our futons. It was a huge relief to see him. I was completely exhausted but it was impossible to get any sleep that night because there were aftershocks that rattled the whole apartment every ten to twenty minutes. I had kept my fear in check for all of the trip home but when our apartment start to shake and it was dark outside and inside, everything I’d been holding back bubbled to the surface. I was so tired that I wasn’t thinking straight and I was convinced that the apartment was going to collapse with every wave of aftershocks. Greg would calm me down some, and then another aftershock would start and I would be bolting for the door. I think I managed to get a little bit of sleep in the early hours of the morning, but it was a fitful start to what would turn into a long week.