"Incomprehensible" - Shichigahama & Tona - Wed 4/20

Woke around 5 AM, and got the day rolling. Started by driving around Shichigahama and being overwhelmed. Jeff's word was 'incomprehensible" and that might be an understatement.  He will be posting photos when he can, but hasn't had time yet.  

It's hard to put into words the sense of how you feel standing in such utter devastation. Imagine taking everything in the house, putting it all into a gigantic garbage disposal, then add the roof, walls, doors and windows, cars, and dirt and landscaping from the front and back yards.  After whirling it around for a few minutes blow it all over the whole neighborhood, and dump rain on it for a couple days.  Then do the same for the all the houses in town.  That's how it seems for what we saw yesterday.  

Then we met some people and began to get the human & heart side of the terror and emotional devastation.  How can people here not live in constant tears?  We stopped to ask directions from a older lady, and after chatting a bit, I asked her a few more questions and she invited me into what was left of her house which was incredibly still standing.  She showed me the back of the house, where the tsunami had wiped out a fist-full of houses and then dug a large hole in their back yard.  Somehow the wave poured through their house and back out again without tearing it apart.  It did however, churn their furnishings and cleaned out their fishing gear store.  She said her husband was at work so he was safe, but she was at home, and had to run up a hill some 100 yards away to high ground.  When I pointed out a dozen fishing rods still left in the corner of the store, she chuckled ironically as she explained that the wave took all their good equipment, and left these last few lousy poles they didn't really want.

We headed for the CRASH base camp in Rifu (half way between Sendai and Ishinomaki) and stopped for a bowl of ramen for lunch.  It was quite good - better than usual - and the team enjoyed it. Got to the camp, picked up a couple CRASH staff, and drove to a town called Tona, near Higashi Matsushima.  Coming into town, we crossed the railway tracks, and had to do a double take: the rails had been forced up onto their side into what could have been a quarter barrel roll. Someone said it looked like tracks from a Disney roller coaster.  

We went to a neighborhood near the shore where the houses were still standing, but the tsunami had come in up to head-high. CRASH had connected with some locals here, and we were asked to help do clean up.  The people several of us worked for had a very nice, 1 story house, but everything inside was completely damaged, to the point they were planning to vacate the place so they were having all their ruined furniture hauled away and the front hedge cut down.  The city had sent a couple small trucks to help haul junk (maybe it was the owner's turn to have the trucks?) so we helped out all afternoon.  Some others on the team were working at nearby houses cleaning muck out of the floors and clearing the yards of debris.  Apparently the muck is a bacterial hazard if it's left there. It's dirt and silt and garbage and waste left from the tsunami.  I talked to the owner who explained that the wave came in up the road past their house then receded back on a 45 degree angle towards another beach.  All the water inside their house had come in the now broken front windows and sliding glass doors, and was forcing itself through their back yard.  The effect was a churn cycle on a gigantic washing machine spinning all their furniture breaking holes in the side walls and the ceiling, and letting the water gush out the back.  The man was at work so he and his van were safe, but the wife was at home.  She told how she ran a couple blocks to the highest house in town and got up on the 2nd floor. Others weren't so fast or fortunate.  How sad.  Her face was kind of blank, and her eyes had very little life.  I asked about a sign on their door, and she said the fire department taped it there indicating they had come to check the house several times on certain days after the disaster and indicating they had either shouted for anyone needing help or actually going inside to look.

With Jordan and Marina at Mika & Hidemasa's apartment

We had to leave by 4:30 because the tide was coming in and new low spots in the road would block our way.  So we returned to the CRASH base camp, then about 5:30 headed into Sendai, stopping at Seiyu (now owned by Wal-Mart - go figure that one)  to get some salad fixings for supper and breakfast food for the Takayama Guest house.  We made it to Mika's apartment about 7:30.  It was wonderful to see her again.  She and Hidemasa live in a very nice 15 story condo just blocks from the main Sendai station.  The newer half of the building had earthquake technology built into it so was fine, but the original section where they live had cracks in the main joints of floor and walls.  They seem to be doing fine, and it was delightful therapy to enjoy a simple supper with her and H.  Jordan Nogaki and his wife Marina joined us.  They live further north and he had to work until 7, so the timing worked pretty well.  We left around 9, and Jordan invited Nate to stay overnight with him, and that was cool.  Made it back to Tak around 10.  BTW, the rental van has a GPS in it, so that really helps!  It's all in Japanese so it takes some head-scratching to plug in the correct destinations and routing, but sure it helpful!