Minamisoma Trip: the Second Day, Part One

I had been a little dubious about getting up in time to depart by 06:30, especially because it was around 02:30 when I went to sleep. I needn't have worried, though, since I woke up at 04:30 feeling surprisingly refreshed, with plenty of time to take a shower and saunter down to the lobby to meet the rest of the crew. We left on time, cheered by beautiful weather, and headed for the first major waypoint for the day, Soma, to the east.

Andrew continued to navigate, using the GPS "navi" function of his smartphone in combination with his previous experience of the area and its roads. We made a smooth transition from the relatively flat area around downtown Fukushima City into the mountains, and soon I was driving on winding, up-and-down roads though beautiful vistas of wooded slopes and gorges, with here and there a glimpse of fields, mostly rice paddies with the occasional stretch f what looked like pasture. It would have been a great road for motorcycling, and I made a mental note to come back someday on a bike.

The truck handled reasonably well, though I wasn't able to devote as much attention to the scenery as it deserved: the road required much of my concentration. This was the first truck I'd driven with an automatic transmission, and it wasn't long before I was missing the ability easily to use lower gears for engine braking. The legroom was adequate but not generous, and since the brake pedal was three or four centimeters higher than the gas pedal, my right knee got a lot of exercise being drawn up and back to brake. I was driving very conservatively; the traffic both ways was very light, but some of the slopes were fairly steep, and there were enough  curves to keep things interesting. If you want to get an idea of the terrain, try Google Maps and look at Route 115 from Fukushima Station east toward Soma.

When we got closer to the coast and into the outskirts of Soma, we turned south and proceeded to our first rendezvous point of the day, in Minamsoma. Here, shortly before 08:30 and still on schedule, we met with a group of local volunteers, with another truck that had come from Yamagata with Daniel Kahl driving a full load of fresh Yamagata spring water, and with a busload of other volunteers who had come up from Osaka (!).  After introductions all around and a briefing on the days' planned activities, we got back in our various vehicles and followed a local volunteer's car to the first of five temporary housing areas.

After a short drive, we arrived and started the process that we'd repeat at each of the spots on our route. First find a place to park the trucks, not so close as to be in the way but not so far as to make unloading/reloading inefficient. Next, pull a couple of folding tables and some wheelbarrows out of a truck. Then, unload approximately enough of the supplies to fit the distribution plan for this area's residents/households, open crates,   set the stuff out on the tables arranged by item type, ensure someone is at each spot to count and hand out the predetermined amount, and start the distribution.

Most of the residents, with help from the local volunteers, were lining up as the setting up was done. When all was ready, each person came up, they gave the number of people for whom they were receiving food and water, handed in their pre-arranged slip, and walked along the the tables collecting the appropriate, pre-determined  number of oranges, potatoes, carrots, onions, soup mix, small and large bottles of water, etc., with the help of those handing them out and of other volunteers assisting with wheelbarrows, empty boxes, or sacks, and carrying the supplies to the homes of those unable to manage the weight or bulk.

As boxes emptied, they were put into service for carrying by the residents, or broken down and flattened to get them out of the way if not usable. As the stock by the tables depleted, more cases were unloaded from the trucks and opened. Meanwhile, everyone made an effort to engage the residents in conversation as much as possible, especially the children. Once everyone had received their allotment, everything was loaded back onto the trucks and  the little caravan of vehicles drove off to the next area.

This process was repeated four times, for little temporary settlements containing groups of people varied in numbers and demographics: some had more kids and a younger average age, some seemed composed mostly of senior citizens. The total for this run was a little over 800 people in a little over 300 households, and they all  impressed me with their cheerfulness and positive attitude. I didn't see a single glum face, young or old, among any of the residents of the adequate but cramped housing, nor among any of the local or "imported" volunteers.

We all gathered in the early afternoon for a quick lunch prepared by local volunteers, chatted a bit, and then departed for the return journey, a little before three.

Stay tuned for the final installment, covering the return journey and the aftermath, in the next post.

Minamisoma Trip: the First Day

Last weekend, I had an opportunity to do something I had been hoping to do for some time. Some friends of mine, patrons of the Black Lion pub in Meguro, have been doing volunteer work in Tohoku, most recently in Minamisoma, Fukushima, and this time I was able to go along. Previously, I'd contributed some time and money to help fund the project, but I'd been told that they sometimes need truck drivers, and had offered my services to do something more direct. I finally got my chance.

Early Saturday afternoon I met Andrew Coad, the expedition leader, at the Nippon Car Rental facility in Roppongi, where we got a two-ton truck, and then quickly set out to get it loaded and on the road.  The first stop was Metro Cash and Carry in Tatsumi, where we got about half a truck full of vegetables and fruit and several cases of snacks for kids. This part was relatively easy, since most of the stuff was on pallets and the warehouse workers got them quickly into the truck using hand-operated wheeled jacks (think man-powered forklifts).  The very energetic Andrew alternated between filling in gaps with loose cases and checking counts: in order to ensure fair distribution, it's necessary to have a good count, so getting numbers on, for example,  oranges (1680 of 'em) and the average number of carrots or potatoes per case was as important as confirming the number of cases. New to the game, I helped as much as I could, but I wasn't terribly useful in comparison with the warehouse pros and the indefatigable (he had spent the previous day/night moving, and had returned what was probably the same truck just a few hours before!), efficient Andrew.

Then it was off to Second Harvest in Asakusabashi, where we met Philip Duncan, who is in charge of distribution logistics for the Save Minamisoma Project, which in this case meant that he had arranged for the truck and he helped Andrew and me to transfer enough cases of assorted food and beverages from a truck parked nearby to fill up ours. It was a warm day, and he must have been less comfortable picking up and passing heavy boxes in a shirt and tie than we were in casual clothes. He was still smiling, though,  when we finally locked the truck up and set off for Fukushima.

Meanwhile, the rest of our group had left in two private vehicles from  Meguro, to go up separately and rendezvous with the truck at our destination for the day, close to Fukushima Station.

The first leg of the journey was easier than expected. The weather was good for most of the trip, and the roads were less crowded than I'd anticipated. We took the Tohoku Expressway once we'd cleared the Shuto (Tokyo Metropolitan) Expressway and its environs, and made good time for the next 250-odd kilometers, with relatively little traffic all the way, and just a flurry of rain in one of the passes close to our destination. We reached Fukushima Station and the nearby Grand Park Hotel  at just about the planned time, virtually simultaneously with the other two vehicles. Here, in trying to park the truck in a lot designed for rather smaller vehicles, I had an unfortunate altercation with the awning of the lot's payment machine, bending it pretty thoroughly and creasing the top of the truck's cargo compartment.

The rest of the evening was spent in checking in, going out for dinner and a few beers, parceling loose kids' snacks into individual plastic pouches, and, eventually, talking to the local police--one of whom turned out to have relatives in Minamisoma--and to the owner of the parking lot...who also owns the hotel, and who was an astoundingly nice fellow, very decent (almost apologetic) about the damage to his awning, and who even gave us a cash donation for the project! After a nightcap or two, most of us turned in relatively early; the plan called for a 06:30 departure.

Stay tuned for a description of the rest of the trip, in the next post.

Losing to Fate and the Weather

This last Golden Week, eight climbers died in the Japan Northern Alps. The weather during the holidays was very volatile even in the predominantly flat Kanto area, and except for a day or two when it seemed to be suddenly summer, overall it was pretty cold and gloomy. Some of the deceased climbers were described in the media as being "experienced", yet many or most were wearing only T-shirts and light windbreakers, with no gloves.

It's not charitable to say so, but to me that's gambling with Fate without sufficiently understanding the rules of the game.

I've written about this kind of thing before. It's always sad to hear these stories, and there seem to be more of them in the last few years. Perhaps that's simply because the graying of society is raising the average age of folks on the mountains.

Mountain weather is very changeable, particularly this early in the season, although I've seen some sudden and drastic changes even in mid-summer. It's always better to be over- than under-prepared, if you intend to descend the mountains alive.

I suspect that some of the people who were mentioned as having  experience in, for example, the Himalayas may have been taking the Japan Alps too lightly, believing them safe by comparison. I can understand the reluctance to carry a tent or heavy coat on what is planned to be a fairly easy trek, but a good down jacket, while bulky, doesn't weigh that much, and it could save your life. The same is true for warm gloves and a knit ski cap or the like, neither of which add that much weight or bulk. Even a couple of negligible-weight, super-compact "space"/survival blankets added to your rucksack or stuffed into a pocket "just in case" might well be the difference between dying or surviving.

I'd really like, for a change, to start hearing more stories about climbing groups whose "just in case" preparations enabled them to survive and return safely even when the unexpected struck.

Thunderstorms with a Twist

Ibaraki and Tochigi experienced considerable damage from last year's Tohoku earthquake, including collapsed houses, but got much less exposure in the news than other prefectures did. The scale of the destruction and loss of life in Miyagi, Iwate, and Fukushima was much greater, and the scenes of liquefaction in Chiba provided very dramatic video as well as cautionary tales about what disaster insurance would and would not cover.

The two northern Kanto prefectures are receiving plenty of attention now, unfortunately, because of the tornados that ripped through them. The damage was considerable, including the death of a boy whose house, foundation and all, was picked up and set down upside-down. That was in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, where as many as 200 homes had their roofs blown away. In Moka City and Mashiko and Motegi Towns in Tochigi, 300 or so homes were damaged. Broken utility poles, debris strewn wildly about, broken glass, and crushed cars have figured prominently in the news since, along with human interest stories with interviews of people in homes with no walls or roof, waiting for power to be restored. I saw one particularly poignant interview with a fellow whose house was half-demolished...he'd moved there not long before after losing his home in the Tohoku disaster. 

The storms caused hail damage in Mito, Ibaraaki, too. One video clip I watched described and showed the first examples I've seen of roof tiles broken not by falling, but by being hit by hailstones.

Other prefectures were not entirely spared by the storms accompanying the twisters: long-suffering Fukushima had 20 greenhouses blown away and four homes damaged "by gusts", a farmer was electrocuted by lightning while on his tractor in Toyama, and a family walking their dog were struck by lightning in Okegawa, Saitama. The mother and her 11-year-old daughter were hospitalized; the mother has since recovered consciousness but the daughter still has not.

I may have seen that lightning strike, since I was standing outside not too many kilometers north of Okegawa at the time, watching the sudden and very violent lightning storm taking place around that area in the middle distance, glad that the storm had mostly moved away from me. 

By the standards of countries where tornadoes are more common and  often more severe, these were relatively mild. The Meteorological Agency is saying that they were probably F2 on the Fujita Scale. Tornadoes are unusual in Japan, however, although they seem to have been becoming more frequent in recent years. In a quick search, I could only find records of 16 since 1881; half of them have hit since 1964, three of those since 2006. 

It's possible that there have been more: in the last few years some reports of sudden, violent "gusts" were blamed for damage that looked very much as if it had been caused by a tornado, and I've heard a lot of news reports describing such phenomena as "strong gusts appearing like tornadoes". I assume that  the media--and probably the Meteorological Agency--are reluctant to pronounce them tornadoes without clear evidence that they're not downbursts or sudden really violent gusts but not exactly tornadoes. That's the reason for the quotation marks above, since I'd bet that was a tornado in Fukushima, too.

Yesterday, the tornadoes in Tochigi and Ibaraki were being called by that rather tentative term. Today's news stories, after all of the amateur video clips of them had been repeatedly aired, were calling them tornadoes unequivocally. The victims have, I'm sure, no doubt what they were.

Justice and Mercy

I've been spending a lot of time lately attempting to find a way to secure an adequate source of steady income, having had the final mooring line loosed from my erstwhile long-term employer a year ago. I've also been spending a lot of time on multiple visits to multiple government offices, gathering and distributing forms and acquiring stamps of approval and permission, speaking with various clerks and their supervisors in a series of inter-related vignettes that--if it weren't for the almost universal courtesy, decency, and helpfullness I've been pleasantly surprised  to find among the bureaucrats--even Kafka would find too bizarre.

I've also been spending quite a lot of time in clinics and hospitals undergoing various tests, examinations, and conversations with doctors.

All of this activity, including many hours of waiting, can hardly be called fun. It's all necessary for one reason or another, though, and it's all connected in the overall plan of trying to acquire enough income to keep myself fed, housed, and amused, and trying to ensure that I'll live long enough to spend it.

So far, although the income part is going to require more effort and more time, the health part is looking good. Considering much of my lifestyle over the decades, and the fact that as of today I'm two years into what I choose to consider middle age, the results to date are so astonishingly good that I'm sort of living proof that there's no justice in the universe. There's a considerable group of bemused doctors, nurses, and technicians out there looking askance at me, and their number grows with each set of admirable test results.

G.K. Chesterton said,“For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.” I haven't been a child for quite a long time now, and I'm damn sure closer to the wicked than to the innocent end of the scale. I'm unaware of having done anything much to deserve mercy, and don't really much believe in a source for such mercy anyway, but I'm certainly not complaining.

Bonfire of the Inanities

Several TV news programs yesterday ran video clips and stories about a test conducted to determine how resistant to fire a three-story wood-construction school building would be. The test building, costing 300 million yen and incorporating the latest safety features in its construction, was designed to simulate the sort of school that some educators, architects, and government officials have been recommending building if the current ban on three-story wooden schools were to be lifted.

Reasons given in most of the half-dozen news stories I saw for going back to wood construction from the current fero-concrete structures included reducing students' stress and instilling in them appreciation of nature and the ecology. My second suspicion was that the schools contemplating wood construction are looking at reduced building costs more than at students' spiritual welfare. One story, however, confirmed my initial cynical suspicion: the Forestry Agency of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is attempting to find a way to revive Japan's lumber industry. Interviews of officials and industry representatives predictably featured lots of moaning and whining about competition from overseas suppliers and the poor condition of the uncut--and unsold--cedar plantations that dominate Japanese mountainsides. Building bigger schools with domestic cedar could, they hoped,  help turn the industry around, and clearing the tall, scrawny, closely-packed cedars out would allow for less crowded future stands of more robust, more competitive trees.

Yes, those are the same cedar plantations that the government's post-war reforestation policy produced, and that led to the annual epidemic of hay fever misery. I wrote about it here (sorry, the links seem to be dead, although you might be able to read the article in The Times if you pay for a subscription). You can try here, instead, for the basics.

Judging from the results of the school fire test, the folks who want to sell cedar lumber for wooden schools will have to wait a little longer.

A fire was started in the simulated school staff room on the first/ground floor, virtually exploded into a ball of flame within two minutes, and within 10 had gushed staight up to the roof, pretty much destroying between a quarter and a third of the building. Much of the structure was engulfed within 20 minutes, and the entire "school", high-tech safety features and all, was essentially reduced to cinders in a little over an hour.

I was astounded to learn that the Waseda University professor heading the research team claimed that the test confirmed the building's fire resistance.  If that conflagration was indicative of fire resistance, I have to conclude that the comparison was to to a building made of nitrocellulose, or maybe "Canned Heat".

Several of the news stories mentioned that evacuating all the students from such a school is expected to take 10 minutes. My admittedly limited experience with fires in buildings, and with children, and with educators here, leads me to believe that this is optimism verging on the criminal. I very much doubt that most school teachers/administrators could/would react that fast, and I really doubt that school kids--panicked, screaming, amidst gushing smoke and flames--especially on the upper floors, could be evacuated in anything near that amount of time. From what I saw of the test, I'd expect half or more of the students and staff to be incinerated.

I'm not an engineer, nor a fire marshal either, but I also doubt that smoke detectors or sprinkler systems would do a lot toward reducing the casualties if such a building caught fire, particularly during the typically dry winter season in many parts of Japan. I definitely don't believe it would be worth the risk for the very dubious (except for the lumber industry, of course, and the MAFF) potential benefits.

It wasn't clear to me exactly who funded the test. I hope that my tax money wasn't used (although I suspect at least some of the funding came from taxes, at least indirectly). I would have been happy to save them a lot of money and--perhaps for a small consultant's fee--explained that building a three-story pile of wood, with lots of air spaces in it, and setting it alight is going to result in a big, fast fire.

It was clear that another attempt will be made within a year or so, incorporating whatever lessons were learned from this test. I would much rather that the money--nearly US$4 million--had been and would be spent on rebuilding in Tohoku instead.

Survival Manual

A friend sent me the following message after reading my last post:

I would add one item to the main survival kit; a copy of the US Army Survival Manual. It is available for download to an iPad or Android device, as well as in hard copy (which may be more useful in an actual emergency.)

That's brilliant advice! You can, as he said, find it in several varieties, including PDF format for printing out, illustrations and all. It has easily understandable advice and directions for surviving in all sorts of situations. A very quick search of the 'net will provide many links to it, and you can download the one(s) that you think would best suit you. I'd recommend both an electronic version and a printed one (you're liable to run out of battery power sooner than you'd expect and much sooner than you'd hope).

Some of the advice is for situations more severe than any that I hope you find yourselves in, but it's always better to be more prepared rather than less. I highly recommend that you find, acquire, and read it, and the sooner the better. Then keep a copy--preferably both electronic and printed--where you can access it when you need it.