On our way home from the daycare, I stopped by a gas station. Every Friday the gas station had a “double point” promotion, so I was waiting for Friday to fill up the gas, although I knew I was running short of gas the previous day. It was a stupid idea. On that Friday, the earthquake happened, and I couldn’t get the gas. Because the whole town had blacked out, the gas pumping machine didn’t work. When I got to the gas station, it was dark, roped off and closed. What a disappointment! Yet I was optimistic, hoping that I could get gas the next day.
How was I to know that the gasoline shortage would last almost a month after the earthquake. Since then, I would fill up the car with gas as soon as it got to half a tank. A full tank of gas could get me from Fukushima to Tokyo.
We went to a grocery store near the gas station. It became like an open-air market in the parking lot. The staff was busy taking goods out of the dark inside and displaying them on tables in the parking lot. I asked one of them if they have batteries and gas cylinders for a portable gas table. Soon he found them. I was impressed that the staff remembered all the prices. They couldn’t use cash registers, so they used a calculator and they rounded down small numbers, which I appreciated about local businesses.
Finally we arrived home, It was a single-story townhouse. From outside, it had no sign of collapse or cracks. I would have expected a mess, from broken glass or shattered dishes inside. I told my kids to be prepared, not taking off their shoes. But Surprisingly, there was no mess. Just some stuff dropped off from the top of the cupboard. At a closer look, I found some cracks between pillars and walls, but overall the house was okay. In Kawamata, a municipal building collapsed and many houses lost a majority of their roofing tiles as a result of the earthquake. In my friend’s house, her cupboard fell and almost all the dishes broke into pieces and ironically every time an aftershock occurred the remaining unbroken dishes broke. So I was very lucky, maybe because of the flat shape of the house, it was strong against the strong vibrations, swaying and shaking.
Fortunately, the water tap was working, so I filled the tub, kettle, bowls, and all the pans with water just in case the water stopped working later on. I found a bug out bag I bought 4 years ago, and took out a portable radio and few flashlights.
There was no cell phone signal, and I didn’t have a land line. Even I had one, the phone didn’t work because of the massive blackout. So there was no way to call my mom that we were okay.
It was getting dark after 5:30. p.m. There was no electricity and once the sun set, it became colder and colder. I had a gas heater and an oil heater, but both of their igniters were electric and without electricity I could not start them. it was very cold and all of us were shaking. I had my kids bundle up with as many layers of clothes as possible. I did find a small portable butane stove, which I used to boil water to make instant noodles. It warmed our bodies as we ate the noodles. It was March, so the coldest time of the year had passed and I believed we could survive.
No light except the flashlights, no TV, no heater, no cell phone signal, no land line, nothing to do, so we went to bed (actually it’s futon mattress). My kids were chatty with a flashlight in each hand, while I was listening to the radio. The news about Tsunami went on and on. Hundreds of bodies were found on the Miyagi shore. Nobody knew how bad the whole damage by the earthquake was. Many aftershocks occurred again and again, and every time, my children and I looked at each other, half getting up, wondering if we should get out of the house. Eventually we fell asleep before 8:00 p.m.
