Yamamoto and the Radio Show!

Andy Warhol said that we will all have our 15 minutes of fame- this could be it for me! While visiting the schools, we were asked to be on the local radio station 80.7. Following the tsunami, the radio station had also set up a temporary facility so that they could keep people informed of what was happening around them. We were ushered into the small studio, given microphones and headphones, and asked questions about our reactions to the devastation and to the schools. We aired at 7:00 pm that evening on the local and Japanese stations, and the recording can apparently be found online all over the world. 

Mikiko and I getting ready for the radio show!

And we're on!  

Yamamoto and Nakahama Elementary School

After we visited Yamashita Elementary, we drove over to visit another elementary school in Yamamoto that was destroyed by the tsunami, Nakahama Elementary School. 

 We were amazed to see the tall piles of debris, mountains and mountains of them, as we drove along the coast to Nakahama. By Yamashita #2, you could still see a few houses here and there, but near Nakahama, there are no longer any houses, just the foundations of buildings still in the ground. And then there were cars, thousands of them, piled on top of each other like a junkyard, right there on the school grounds.

Foundations of houses and buildings, but no buildings in sight.

At Nakahama school, there were approximately 60 students in the large 21-year old school on March 11^th, 2011. After the earthquake hit and the school received a signal about the tsunami’s arrival, staff members debated whether or not to head to the City Hall, as stated in their evacuation plan. The walk to City Hall would be 40 minutes, but they had about 20 minutes until the tsunami reached them. The children and teachers made the wise decision to go up to the roof of the building instead of walking to City Hall. And soon after, the black tsunami waves crashed into the school, again and again, leaving the building an island in the middle of the ocean that evening.

The tsunami waves came up to the blue sign of the building. 

The kids and teachers survived the day and evening in the attic of the building, and were evacuated by helicopter the next day. The local kindergarten that evacuated by teachers' cars to City Hall was swept away by the tsunami.

The attic where the kids and teachers stayed that cold March day and evening.

The rooftop where the kids and teachers waited to be evacuated by helicopter.

We walked around the building, careful of broken class, wires, and metal hanging from the ceiling. The Superintendent of the Board of Education shared with us that the government would like to keep the walls of the building in place, as a memorial to those who lost their lives in the earthquake and tsunami. They plan to build some type of park in the area as well.

The floor of the gymnasium is lifted entirely off the foundation.

The Superintendent had us look out at the ocean for quite some time, the ocean that caused this devastation, but also the ocean that was celebrated by the town for what it provides to the people. On the wall of the school, the ocean is recognized for bringing food and life to the area.