So when my vice principal told me there was a three to nine meter tsunami coming, I didn't believe him. Tsunamis are like Godzilla and the Loch Ness Monster. A myth.
Well, okay, so maybe the Loch Ness Monster could be real. And Godzilla is an absolute possibility. But a tsunami? What's that?
We got tsunami warnings all the time. The big earthquake in Haiti got us a tsunami warning, which ended up just being a little burp in the ocean. My little area is far enough inland that I didn't really believe a tsunami would ever touch it, if such a thing were real.
And then the water started flowing past.
It was really like when you overflow the bathtub, and the water just flows out in every direction, eventually getting deeper. We weren't near enough the ocean for the wave to hit us, just the water flow. But I realized that if it were going to get very deep, it would flood the first floor of everything.
The principal had everyone climbing the stairs of the gym to the second floor balcony area, just in case the water got inside.
And then I realized that my backpack was still on the floor in the school.
So, being me, I ran back across to the school to save my things.
In Japan, the school and the gym are separate buildings, you have to go outside and walk a little path to the gym.
I was chased by a couple of teachers yelling "wait, it's dangerous!" trying to stop me. Like I was going to let my things die in a flood. The water was about to my ankles while I was running through it, so my feet and the bottoms of my pants got thoroughly soaked. But I saved my backpack and went back to the door to get back to the gym, but it was too late.
Naturally I took pictures.
The water just continued to steadily rise, and we eventually had to retreat to the second floor of the school.
Maybe after closing the doors.
Previously, when everyone was making their way to the gym, everyone had grabbed all the bottles of water and tea and juice and taken them along as well, so those of us trapped in the school were without much in the way of drinks. But we did have all the sweets and stuff the sixth graders had prepared, so we at least had food.
I had been sick the previous week, but was slowly recovering. However, because my feet were wet and the school was cold, my cough came back with a vengeance. So me, and possibly more so the young mother with the baby, warranted the special treatment of someone finding the kerosene heater to try and keep everyone warm.
It sort of worked. They kept having to turn it off for the aftershocks, to avoid risking it toppling and setting our asses on fire. Because that would have just topped everything, right there.
Power was naturally gone, and we had little in the way of flashlights, but we managed to make do. We spent the whole night alternating who was by the heater, and some of us kept going to the windows to see how the water was.
Then the car alarms started going off. Because the water was so high it was flooding the cars.
My car died a sad tragic death. And it was such a shiny car.
I was optimistic though! I kept thinking, the whole night, that eventually the water would go away and I would be able to drive home (I was not yet aware that my car had died, just that it was crying unhappily. I thought it would still work, and drive me off into the sunset. I thought this even as the sun went down.) Obviously I wasn't mentally equipped for the situation, because I was convinced that in a couple of hours everything would get better.
Ha.
I spent the whole night and most of the next day waiting for the water to go away. I was cold and wet, and my cough had become a source of concern for everything in my near vicinity. They gave me a surgical mask and sat me in a corner and left me alone.
I gave up.
I wanted my bed. I didn't care if there was no water or power in my house, my bed is a warm place no matter what the outside temperature is. I could change into warm clothes and get into my warm bed and die a peaceful death all alone, rather than stay in a place full of strangers and no food (we ran out during the night). So I informed my teachers that I was going to attempt to walk home, after seeing several people out walking around in the water.
Granted those people had waterproof pants and goulashes, and I was wearing a business suit, but there should be no underestimating my stubbornness.
And if it had been very dangerous, my teachers wouldn't have let me do it anyway.
So around three o'clock, I was escorted out behind the school, where a nice man in a canoe took me across the way to the train tracks, and told me to follow the train tracks home. This is what the train tracks looked like:
The water was a little higher than my knees, and freezing cold. I waded for about half an hour, and at one point I was convinced that I was going to get frostbite and lose my toes. This was not enough to deter me and send me back to the school however. My bed is worth a couple of toes.
I made it past my junior high school, and ended up walking with some of the students and their parents for part of the way. I also ended up falling, and that on top of the scrapes and bruises I got during the doomquake made my legs look super sexy for days.
Eventually we got out of the water however. It had only flooded the area by the river very badly, and in fact that area stayed underwater for nearly ten days. So it was good I hadn't tried to wait until the water went away, or I never would have made it home.
After my students turned off to get to their houses, wishing me good luck, I ran into another couple of guys that chatted with me and gave me food, walking along with me. They made sure I got to the road to my apartment safely before heading off in their own direction. Japanese people, in my experience, have always been super kind. It's one reason I was so not excited to be leaving Japan.
I made it to my apartment, and as expected had no power or water, but I did get to change my clothes, and I did get into my warm bed, and I did sleep for about sixteen hours. Though this did not heal my cough; it remained bad for...it's still bad, actually.
I thought the worst was behind me. Now I just had to wait for them to get power and water up and running again, and everything would get back to normal. In my silly, optimistic little world, such things as food and water shortages didn't exist. I mean seriously, food and water are everywhere. I had food in my fridge. Enough for the couple of days it would take for Japan to recover, naturally.
Because seriously how bad could the damage really be?
No comments:
Post a Comment