A Firsthand Look at the Tsunami

Melanie Fullerton, an American teaching at the Meyson Academy which teaches Christian values in Sendai, personally went through the recent tsunami in Japan. She wanted to share with me her experience and how you can help. If you would like to help her school, follow her link or send money to Christian Relief Fund and we will help them. We are so thankful for Melanie’s faith, bravery, and safety. Keep praying for all the victims of Japan’s enormous disaster.

Milton,

I really don’t know what to tell you about everything. It was definitely the most terrifying experience I’ve ever had just being in the earthquake. I feel extremely blessed and lucky that all my friends and I are alive and safe. Our school was built with great structure and so no buildings fell. We suffered some structural damage that will take time and money to fix but everyone was okay. I can’t say the same for others though. We have more than 2300 students at our school. We have been able to contact most and those we have contacted are alive. The same can’t be said for all their families. Some father’s died in the tsunami and many members of extended family are gone as well. I can’t imagine what they must be going through. It’s so hard not to be there with them and not to have gotten to say goodbye.

Here is my story from what happened:

When the earthquake hit it was 30 minutes after school had ended. I had sent my kids home or to daycare and then cleaned my classroom. At 2:40 I went upstairs to the office that all the teachers share. I was standing by my Japanese friend, Anna’s, desk. She is very scared of earthquakes and always feels the slightest earthquake. I’ve never been scared and always found them somewhat exciting. At 2:45 she stood up and grabbed me and said, “Is this an earthquake?” Before I could even say “I don’t feel anything” we both looked at each other and screamed “RUN!” I really don’t know what it was that made us immediately run from the office… we had never done this before. We started sprinting down the stairs with the other teachers. By the time we reached the stairs we could barely stand because the shaking was so violent. We have a fish tank in the hallway right at the bottom of the stairs. It exploded and water was going everywhere. At that point I really wasn’t sure if we would even make it out of the building before it fell down (I had no idea how strong these buildings were!) Right outside our building is a large soccer field. All of us teachers (About 10 in our building) ran to the middle and squatted down. We were all hugging and squeezing so tight. Many of us were screaming and crying. It seemed to last for hours even though it was only 5 minutes. Most earthquakes last about 10 seconds so this was extremely long. I remember praying “please God please!! Make it stop!! I don’t want to die in Japan!” I don’t know how to explain what it was like. The sound alone I will never forget. Usually shaking is just slightly back and forth but this was also rolling and up and down. The building I was in sank a foot into the ground. The field is next to two buildings. Our building (the Immersion building) was shaking and waving in and out. The other building is almost all glass doors surrounding it with some small tiles at the bottom. The windows looked like water going in and out. Luckily non of them shattered but some fell off and onto the ground. We also have two huge poles (about 3 stories high) in the field. They were swaying so bad I thought for sure they would fall and crush us. I finally had to stop looking at everything and just close my eyes. About half way through the earthquake got even stronger and by that point we were falling all over each other because we couldn’t even squat. When the earthquake finally ended it took us a few minutes to be able to stand up. I looked at Anna and we just hugged for a long time. She then looked at me and said “Daycare”. She has 2 of her own children that are in daycare and I had 4 of my students in daycare that day. 7 of us started sprinting to the daycare building at the other end of the campus. When we got there they had about 100 kids and 6 teachers. Many of the kids were crying. I grabbed my students and we all huddled together. By then many big aftershocks were hitting and they were so scared. One of my students just kept crying and saying, “Is my mother okay?” It was so heartbreaking! None of the kids had coats or shoes on because they were all napping when it started. Some of the teachers ran in the building to grab coats and shoes. One of my students was so cute… she was trying to stop crying and so she started making little jokes. Her coat was the last one to come out so she said, “where’s my coat? Is it scared? Maybe it is hiding under the table!” She got all the kids laughing which was so good since they were so scared too. After a few hours we went back to the school to see the damage. The office was chaos. Furniture had fallen on it’s side, computers were thrown about, everything from our storage area was on the ground and all the shelves were bent up, everything from the cabinets was just all over the place. Then we ran to our apartments to see the damage. I was truly one of the few lucky ones in that area. My contract was ending in 2 weeks and so I had already packed most of my belongings. That meant there was nothing really left to fall over. My friends apartments were total chaos though. We were too scared to stay in our apartments for long so we grabbed extra clothes to put on, our blankets, food from our fridge (power was out), and ran back to the school to spend the night. That night many of us slept fully dressed. I slept in my coat, boots, gloves, and I had my cellphone and passport in my pocket in case another one hit and we had to run. At this point we had heard something about a tsunami but since all communication lines were down we had no way to know the devastation others were going through.

I really don’t think I slept more than 30 minutes that night because we were all so afraid of the big aftershock they were predicting. I finally got up at 6:30 and went back to the Immersion building to start cleaning. One of the Japanese teachers was already there cleaning so we cleaned until about 9:30 when everyone else woke up. After that I hardly remember the next few days. We all sat outside on the lawns… too scared to be inside and too scared to be alone. We walked around the immediate area looking at damage. HUGE cracks  in the road, landslides, sidewalks that were completely bowed up and looked like hills, cracks in all the buildings but really nothing compared to what other people were seeing. The area of Sendai where I lived was probably the best off. We rationed our food and ate together at the school. I can’t even begin to tell you how wonderful Meysen Academy was to its teachers. They let us live at the school, they fed us, they kept our spirits up and kept us informed about what was happening elsewhere and what was to come. We actually got power back in a few places about 36 hours after it happened. I was able to contact my family and tell them I was safe but didn’t know what would happen after this. Lots of tears where shed by everyone. Emotions were high and everyone was scared, stressed, anxious, and upset. No one was looking at the news because we knew it would scare us too bad. When we got power back and talked to our parents their reactions made us realize that we were the lucky ones and we didn’t want to know about the unlucky ones yet.

On Sunday afternoon our principal, Daniel, met with all the teachers and said that they were offering to take a busload of people up to the Misawa base in northern Japan. At that point it was truly only to help ease the worries and fears of the American staff and their families. There was little risk of anything happening but they thought it would make us feel safe. They told us you have an hour to pack and eat dinner and then we are leaving. My friend Anna was there and she started crying saying it was the last time she would see us. I truly thought we would be coming back so I was fine. We ran to our apartments and started packing. Just to be on the safe side I started throwing the rest of my things I hadn’t packed for America into a suitcase. I was trying to cover all my bases in case worst came to worst and we never went back. I had to leave many things behind but nothing that isn’t replaceable. We left an hour later. Because the roads were so warped and terrible we arrived in what should have been a 5 hour drive 11 hours later. When we got there the base graciously let us come and stay. There were 40 us total. They set up cots in their gym and gave us breakfast. They then told us we would have escorts for while we were there because of rules and regulations and we had 3 buildings we could go to. That was totally fine with us because we felt safe and had everything we needed. The next few days were a whirlwind. Sitting around, loading up trucks of supplies to go to Sendai, emailing family and friends, talking non stop about what was happening and trying to process what we went through. The second day I started reading the news. I couldn’t believe what was happening just 10 miles from where I had lived. Towns were gone. Thousands of people were dead and thousands more missing. It was devastating! One place in particular that I had visited many times was completely gone… submerged under water never to go back to what it had been. I still can’t believe all this had happened and we only knew a fraction of it. We knew there was a tsunami, we knew there was devastation, that people were dead, that people were stranded… but we didn’t know the extent. Food and water were starting to become scarce in Sendai so our school sent another bus of teachers up. A few of my friends are still there helping the school send out relief teams with supplies from the base and from Samaritan’s Purse (they have set up their base camp at Meysen for the time being).

On Tuesday we had a meeting where they asked us if we wanted to stay in Japan or go home. It was so hard to think about because we hadn’t said goodbye to anyone and we still had 2 weeks left of school with our kids. We still thought we would go back to Sendai in max a week. On Wednesday an American consulate came and basically told us that we either needed to go home to America or go somewhere but we could only stay at the base one more night as it isn’t a refugee center. That was totally understandable but threw many people into a panic of what to do. On Thursday a travel agent from the base helped almost everyone find tickets home and then it was over. It was so fast and no one knew what was happening. I have friends all over right now… home, traveling, staying in Misawa city and working for a church for the time being, Sendai… very scattered. Most people went home either for good (those whose contracts were over in 2 weeks) or indefinitely (those who are still teaching but can’t go back till it’s safe). No one knows how long they will be gone or what will happen next. As much as I wanted to come to America and see my family it was one of the hardest things I’ve done leaving Japan. I’ve talked to many of my friends since and we are all missing each other already. It’s hard for people who weren’t there to relate to what happened. They can understand it was scary but the extent and the amount of different feelings that are running through you is hard to explain and hard for others to understand. I joked to my friends that I feel bipolar this past week and a half. One second I’m crying, then I’m laughing hysterically, and then I’m angry at someone for no reason. I almost feel bad for having so much fear and anxiety since what I went through is nothing compared to others. I know I shouldn’t discount what I feel but I feel almost guilty that I survived when others didn’t.

I hope to go back to Japan soon to visit but know I need to wait till it’s safe to travel and when I won’t be a burden on the city of Sendai. Many people are going without food and it’s hard to get food and water into the city. Many of my students are living on one rice ball (about 1 cup of rice) a day. Water is scarce, electricity is in and out, gas probably won’t be restored for a least a month, and fuel is impossible to come by. People are stuck and they can’t do anything about it. The city can’t return to normal if people don’t start working again but people can’t start working until things return to normal. It feels like a losing battle at times. From what I hear the nuclear situation is getting better but it is still a cause of worry to many.

From what I hear and understand despite Japan’s wealth and leadership there is simply to much tragedy to fix things right now. They are doing all they can but hundred’s of thousands of people’s homes are gone and are now living in shelters. How do you even begin to rebuild that. It will take years for things to go back to what they were. My school is raising money through Kids without Borders at the moment. Here is a link if you want to take a look http://friendsofmeysen.wordpress.com/. The donation button is on the right. If people donate then 100% of donations go to Meysen to help with the relief effort in Sendai. Meysen will use that money to help the citizens of Sendai and those most in need. It is a WONDERFUL school and I fully believe that they will do everything in their power to help those around them. They have suffered much but continue to say how lucky and blessed they are… which is very much true. They have been a source of light in the city. I can’t express enough how lucky we were! So many people are hurting, hungry, and cold right now and we came away fine. We are hurting for those around us!

I hope this is what you were looking for. I don’t know what else to say about everything. Thank you so much for your concerns and prayers! Japan needs lots of help and prayers right now!

Melanie Fullerton