“Where was Moses when the lights went out kind of up date on the MARCH 11, 2011 Japan Earthquake...”

[Rambling Steve Gardner]

This is a “Where was Moses when the lights went out kind of up date on the MARCH 11, 2011 Japan Earthquake...”

 When the earth quake hit I was on tour about three hours from Tokyo in an area called Yamanashi, I got back home to Tokyo late last night, four days after the quake hit. We were in the small town of Kiyosato where our only hardship was to be stuck without lights, gas, water, transportation or communication. We were all safe. Shook up but safe. Our biggest worry was our families and friends. We wanted to know about them and to let them know that we were OK. We count ourselves as very, very lucky. It was snowing and cold and if we would have had to spend the night outside in the snow, then we would have been in a very bad way. As it was, everyone pulled together to be their “best selves on one of their worst days”.

 

In Kiyosato, I was doing a music and photography workshop for more than 61 university students from Japan’s Meiji University, where I teach a course on American Roots and Blues Music History. There were seven other instructors there, also doing various workshops, along with 4 exchange teachers from Canada. 

 

When the quake hit, the building began to sway left and right and increase in intensity. It was smooth and might be compared to sitting on a porch swing which at first was fun and then moved out of control. Remarkably, no one panicked. Some cried and were very frightened, we all were, but no one panicked.

 

We had a show scheduled for that night so we decided to go on with it. After everyone filled their trash cans with water from the communal bath, to flush toilets; filled pets bottles and passed out blankets, I tuned up and we all gathered round. I play National Reso-phonic guitars, which  are pretty loud, and I am not too shy to put out the big voice so having no amplification wasn’t a problem for me. We played, sang, laughed and told stories by the soft glow of emergency　lights and i-phones- it was a regular 21st century, high tech blues show. 

 

As I played and sang I let my eye wander over the crowd. They were smiling, hugging and pulling together which seemed to calm all of us down. The temperature inside dropped to about 0 as the snow stopped falling and the sky showed stars and a moon holding water. It was cold and dark but clear. We all made it through the long, dark night without too much trouble and only a few light tremors. 

 

Again our biggest worry was lack of information flowing in either direction, fear of after shock and the fact that cell towers and land lines were either down or over loaded; so we couldn't confirm the safety and where about of friends and family or do the same for them. Luckily only one student had a mother and grandmother living in the quake area and after about five very restless and tense hours we were able to confirm that the family was alive, shaken up badly but OK. Their house was severely damaged, but they were OK and where able to remain in the house. 

 

One of the seminar instructor’s, whose home was on the edge of Tokyo which was hit the hardest, did not fair so well and had to evacuate his family. His house, built on reclaimed land, tilted and the land around it was beginning to liquify.  His family was fine and was able to relocate from Tokyo to join us in Kiyosato after tense hours and difficult train connections.

 

After the quake there was no real train service much. The trains in Japan are electric and the rail service is very sophisticated and computerised. However to cofirm the safty of the tracks the rail road companies sent out crews who inspected bridges and sliding joints by hand. 

 

We continued the workshop until several buses could be contracted to transport us back from the wilderness down the paved toll road on into the eye of the storm which was TOKYO.

 

HERE IN TOKYO=Things are hard and will get harder before they get better. Public transport-trains, subways and buses are super crowded, gasoline is in short supply as are many food stuffs. No bread at all. 

 

Electric ovens in bakeries are shut down for the short term duration to save power.  Dairy products are in short supply mainly due to the loss of the factories which print and supply containers for milk and yogurt most of which were located in the Sendai area and were lost to the disaster. Plenty of milk but no cartons. 

 Also it is almost impossible to get instant foods, noodles, along with camping stoves and fuel, toilet paper, tissue or bottled water. These items have all flown off of store shelves. DVD rental shops and movie houses have closed or stand empty while bicycle shops have been doing a boom business. I have not heard of much black marketing yet for food or gasoline but it is reported that some scalpers have been selling D cell batteries and flashlight sets for as much as US $100.

 

(The system in Japan for hot water is “on demand” which requires a D cell battery to “spark” the gas. The same D cell “sparks” most of this countries two burner gas stove tops as well. Without the battery the safety over ride will not let the stovetop be lit. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time.)

 

Otherwise everyone is watching the news-maybe too much so. We will likely find when this is all over and the health statistics are in, that in Tokyo, a city of nearly 12 million good people, there were more injuries, sickness and death related to stress rather than related directly to the earthquake or radiation. 

 

We ARE worried about a possible melt down but it will or it won’t happen. We must use this time to prepare, NOT panic. We are receiving less radiation in Tokyo than most airline passengers receive on international flight from Tokyo to New York which reach an altitude of 30,000 feet. 

 

When this is over and the dust settles there will be a very long line of heroes who went above and beyond the call and some who even gave all. Most of these we will never know of their heroic acts large and small. But like it or not, the regular guys who have been risking their lives to cool down that burning nuclear power plant are sure to be at the head of the line of real heros and I for one hope that they are alive and well so that we can thank them and shake their hands.

 

In Sendai, Japan where the quake and tsunami hit, the  images that I have seen from there remind me of similar images made when hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf coast and New Orleans a few years ago and took so many lives and left so much distruction in it’s path. 

 

Without warning. Earthquake. Tsunami. In the blinking of an eye, all of our lives were changed. The sense of devastating loss, helplessness and near hopelessness from  this incredible act of nature is incomprehensible. I look at the images of those victims of this tragedy almost with a sense of guilt at my good fortune; I stand transfixed, newspapers and magazines open on my table,  television babling in the corner, my heart in my hands. These tragic images serve to remind me once again not of how great the losses are that those in the path of the quake have suffered, but also of just how lucky I am.

 

If the news reports are accurate then help is slowly getting to where it is needed in the quake zone. But it is important to remember that help is fixing the problem and not becoming a part of the problem. Aid organisations have requested money, clothing, materials and food rather than man power. Fuel and shelter are in very short supply in the earth quake zone and there is no way to effectively use, feed and house a large volunteer labor force from the outside as of yet. However the need for Medial specialist, construction engineers, heavy equipment operators still top the list of those needed most at this time.   

  

Each day since the main earth quake, parts of Japan have been shaken by a series of powerful after shocks and new quakes up and down the fault line, but they seem to be tapering off which means that we are getting back to normal. 

The Japanese government and electric power companies are putting forth a plan of power conservation through the use of a series of rolling blackouts over the Kanto plane. The power grid is very fragile at this point in time and we are lucky that the weather is fair and cool rather than hot. Some areas will loose power for hours at a time and if this is all that happens then we should all be alright. 

  

At this time the trains are running at about 70%, but with no heat and reduced interior light to save energy. Markets, department stores and public building have switched off all but necessary lights. Additionally it has never been more important than now for all of us to conserve water, natural gas and gasoline as all of these will soon be subject to rationing.

 

Please keep us all in your thoughts and prayers. We are but ordinary people who are passing through the most extra ordinary of times. 

 

My guide through these hard times is found in the words of the old time spiritual: “Keep your lamp trimmed and burnin’...children don’t get worried, see what the Lord has done”.

 

All the best from here,

 

Steve Gardner

Tokyo, Japan 

March 2011