Apologies for not posting this earlier — I put notices on my business websites but forgot that a lot of folks know me solely through the blog:
- I live in Gifu, which is quite far from the earthquake epicenter. We got shaken up a bit, but no permanent damage was done. We’re landlocked so, unless the mountains fall into the sea, tsunamis are not an issue for us.
- The people I’m close to in Japan are all OK.
- We really appreciate your expressions of concern and prayers.
- If you are wondering “What can I do?”, every day is a good day for charity. I recommend the Red Cross or your local favorite charity. In particular, disaster relief charities will use money collected today to help the folks affected by the next major incident, and it is highly probable that they are less well-situated than Japan is — we’re probably as well-prepared as anybody could be.
Thanks as always. We’ll pull through this, don’t worry.
Regards,
Patrick
I knew more than the basic, knew where Tokyo, and Kyoto, and Okinawa are, but have a tendency to loose the prefectures, etc., although I often recognize them, or they sound famililiar when I see them reported. And I knew there where both earthquake and tsunami drills. (And yes, knew where the word tsunami came from, but attribited typhoon to indochina, for some reason…) But the news here is uninformed, misinformed, and frankly, contradicting itself about the level of preparedness there. I was so glad to watch a vid. of the high rises swaying ( and not falling), although it did make me feel a bit odd. And I did think there had to be more in the way of both engineering and training, about earthquake reponse. Sigh. But you should listen to our news.
Are there two nuclear plants having difficulties–can’t recall what you said–that’s what we’re hearing.
Thanks for all you’ve written, thoughts and prayers with you!
Thank you very much for this Patrick. I’ve written a blog post summarising the bare facts but this statement, together with your “perspective” post, is really helpful and informative. I’m trying to increase awareness of the need to raise funds to support the relief effort, and with your permission I’d like to include a link to this and to your “perspective” post too – my blog post is here: http://erikapricedesigns.blogspot.com/2011/03/japan-earthquake-tsunami-what-happened.html
Thank you, Patrick, for your calming essays. I have visited Japan and noticed that so much is run using electricity, even the toilets! Are the rolling blackouts causing disruptions that you would trace to the extensive electronic controls, etc. E.g., I wonder if biometric locks stopped working; did people have regular key? Just wondering…
Just wanted to let you know of the “mobalization” typo on the next post.
I happen to be a part time ESL teacher in a “emerging and developing economy” and couldn’t help but wonder if you offer special pricing for Bingo Card Creator.
Glad to know you’re safe and sound =)