the earthquake--our story

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people in Sendai and all of northern Japan. thank you to all our family and friends for the many phone calls, emails and facebook messages!!

Friday: the earthquake hit around 2:45 pm. Tokyo was about 250 miles from the epicenter. The biggest miracle for me, was that the kids did not have school that day. We had been out at the school that morning for parent teacher conferences. picked up Jake from Japanese preschool at 2 pm and went straight home. I was upstairs and the kids were downstairs watching TV.

sidenote: a few people have been asking about what kind of a building we live in. We currently live in a 2 story house. moved in last December. but we were on the second story of an apartment building before that.

earthquakes are quite common here. and this one was LONG! over 2 minutes and it started out slow and barely shaking, then built up to severe shaking. the first 10 seconds, I thought, "is this an earthquake?" then I went downstairs and said, "guys! this is an earthquake!" just thinking, this is kind of cool. 10 seconds later..."everyone get under the doorway!" we huddled in the doorway of the dining room/entryway and watched everything shake. everything fell off the shelves, and cupboards and drawers opened. Emily started crying. We said a prayer and I just kept talking the kids through it, trying to keep them calm. it just seemed to go on forever. Our house seems kind of creaky and old anyways, and I wasn't sure it was going to hold up. I kept wondering if we should run outside, but there's no open area to get to. It's all tall houses and buildings and tiny, narrow streets. I finally decided we should just stay put. After it was over, I looked out the window and saw people just standing. everyone was pouring out of their houses, not sure what to do.

Trent said, "that was so cool that we said a prayer to keep us safe and then the earthquake stopped. We should totally write this story in to the Friend magazine" we all laughed. a totally random comment.

Ryan called. he was okay. he works in the financial district on the 5th floor of a tall building. Everyone at work dove under their desks. a friend's husband who works on a higher floor described looking out the window and seeing all the buildings swaying back and forth like watching trees blowing in the wind. Tokyo is definitely built for earthquakes!!

All cell phones were down. but most landlines were still working. Ryan could call me from work, but I couldn't call him. strange. Thankfully, we never lost power. and our Vonage phone (USA phone) was working, so I was able to talk to my parents soon after. thank goodness for facebook! within 30 minutes, I had already had contact with most friends in Tokyo.

The first aftershock felt just as strong as the initial earthquake, but not as long. Everything we had just picked up fell off the shelves again. we found ourselves standing in the doorway again, kids crying. After that, we just stayed together (the kids insisted I always be in the room with them) we watched some movies and tried to ignore the aftershocks...that kept coming and coming. little ones, big ones. as I write this Sunday afternoon, 48 hours after, we are still having aftershocks. but not so close together. that first 24 hours, they seemed at times to come every 5-10 minutes.

Tokyo's main problem (besides all cell phones down) was that all trains shut down and also all high ways (to keep them open for emergency vehicles) stranding tens of thousands of people with no way to get home. Luckily, we live about 10 kilometers from the financial district so Ryan was able to walk home in about 2 hours, along with a wall of thousands of other people. His gym is just down the street from his office, so he was able to stop by and get his running shoes so he wouldn't have to walk home in work shoes. The gym building was being evacuated, but they let him up to quickly get his shoes. Taxi's were quickly snatched up, and traffic was at a standstill. It was faster to walk. Bike stores had long lines of people trying to buy bikes.

Saturday: nobody slept much that night because of the aftershocks, except Jake, who slept through the entire night. it was scary and very uneasy. Saturday, we weren't sure what to do! Everything was quiet. All activities had been cancelled for the day. cello lessons and a RS women's conference. We stayed home, went to the park down the street for a while. Ryan and I really just wanted to keep reading about everything going on in Japan on the internet, but we were being careful not to let the kids see images on the computer and we've downplayed the seriousness of it to them. Emily is especially nervous and emotional. she's cried a lot and had a stomach ache/didn't eat anything for an entire day b/c she was so worried and scared.

Saturday afternoon the warnings started coming about about possible black outs due to the nuclear scares...which sent everyone running in a panic to the store, creating a food shortage. It was so eerie to walk down the aisles and see empty shelves. no food. anything prepackaged, bread and milk was gone. Water was limited to 2 bottles per person. Fortunately, we are pretty stocked up and not worried. we've been told the power outages will start tomorrow in 3 hour cycles.

Sunday: all kids spent the night in our bedroom. Jacob says he's too scared to go in his bedroom "because there are earthquakes in there." We went to church this morning. more aftershocks. I think it was theraputic for people and kids to listen to each other's stories. school has been cancelled for tomorrow due to probably power outages..and there are lots of rumors flying around about all the nuclear scare stuff. we're not too worried though.

here are some pictures

this is our toy room--the floor was empty before the quake

bread aisle

meat section

ramen shelves

veggie bins

everybody brought their mattresses in our room to sleep

and here are a few of my friend's stories...for anyone interested. The biggest problem was trying to get home and find family members.

• Although the elementary school had no school Friday, out at ASIJ. the middle school and high school were in session. The school is about a 45 minutes bus ride from our house. and it took them 7 hours to get home. with the freeways closed, the regular streets were gridlocked. they got home between 11 pm and 1:30 am depending on where you live in Tokyo. I can't imagine how much harder it would have been if the elementary aged kids were on those buses
  


• One friend went to pick her son up at his school (not ASIJ) and it took her 5 hours to get there and longer to get home. she got home around 5 am.



• Ryan considers himself lucky that he only had to walk 2 hours home. many others walked for much longer through the night.



• one guy in our ward was on his way to the airport for a business trip when it hit. he spent the next 23 hours in his car.



• One friend's daughter was out at Disney Sea for a birthday party. Disney Sea is right on the coast and was hit with a tsunami. the actual park is on higher ground, but the tsunami plowed through the parking lots. The rides were shut down and no one was allowed to leave the park for the next 4 hours. When they got to their car, on the 4th level of the parking structure, they found their car covered with dirt and debris, the first floor of the parking structure was still knee deep in water.