We Need the Hitchhiker’s Guide Right Now
Well, things are a bit of a mess–more in terms of organization than anything else, it seems. They announced rolling blackouts last night and my school spent most of last night coordinating messages and planning around power and train announcements… so naturally, we wake this morning to find there are no blackouts but the trains are pretty much not running. So we had to just cancel everything today. Thanks, government guys. Smoothly handled!
In the meantime, a lot of people are acting less on information they have and more on information they don’t. The French and Chinese embassies sent out advisories to leave Japan and not to travel to Japan. Well, thanks, guys–now people are seeing those and thinking these governments know something others don’t, and that gets inflated into “imminent nuclear disaster” and so forth. Seems like people are beginning to panic, but mostly because of the effect of other people panicking.
This image was posted on Facebook by a former student, Kaz:
Indeed.
Hi, Luis. Glad to see that you continue to be holding up well. Sounds like you had to cancel Monday classes because of the trains, but that is not too serious in the context of everything else going on there. Glad your home is OK. Thank you for sharing the drawing by Kaz – very apropos. Let everyone know we are thinking of and praying for them. Please take care & keep us posted as best you can. Joe
I don’t know how this will sound but other countries having their citizens leave Japan makes sense. People who don’t need to be in Japan now are a drain on resources needed for locals and should leave.
yeah, at this point all the fancy S&R teams flying in look to be really overkill, almost like disaster tourism.
With entire towns reduced to matchsticks floating the problem isn’t locating people, it’s just *getting* to them.
More dudes in cool jumpers isn’t the answer — the JSDF is sending 100,000 soldiers– the rescue services now need heavy equipment.