Sunday, September 21--DIS101-Intro to Natural Disasters

We got to experience two of the most common natural disasters in Japan this weekend. Fortunately, both were extremely mild examples, and neither one required us to evacuate or even break out the flashlight from the emergency kit.

The weekend kicked off with a visit from TS15, also known as Tropical Storm Sinlaku. We'd been watching this on-again/off-again typhoon for over a week as it ambled northeast across the Pacific. After several days' delayed arrival, forecasts finally called for rain to begin Friday night and last through Saturday afternoon, with total accumulations of 250mm (almost 10 inches for all you non-metric folks). Winds were forecast to increase throughout the night and end up sustained at 45 mph with gusts to 65 mph. Well, the weather forecasters here are nearly as accurate as the ones in the States. About all they got right was the time the inclement weather would start. Rain was steady, but light--significantly less than 250mm. It was accompanied by three bolts of lightning, one of which knocked out power for about two minutes. There was a stiff breeze, with a few stronger gusts--not even powerful enough to pull the dead blooms off the hibiscus tree. The whole thing was over and done by about 3 a.m. By the time we got up Saturday morning, the sun was out! I've seen worse thunderstorms in Virginia.

Our second encounter with Mother Nature’s grumpy side came at 7:17 a.m. this morning. We were still sleeping, since earlier in the week Jim had declared Sunday a day of rest (he was tired from his trip last week, and had no chance to catch up this week due to a hectic schedule). I was in the middle of a dream when my body started trembling. As I was coming to consciousness, my first thought was that Jim was having some sort of convulsions, causing the bed to shake. Then he raised himself up and the shaking continued, so I thought I was having some sort of convulsions. Finally it clicked that we were having an earthquake. By the time I asked Jim, “Are we having an earthquake?” it was over. It wasn’t even strong enough to make the dishes rattle in the cabinets. We went back to sleep, and later in the morning I checked the internet for details. The magnitude 4.8 quake was a 3 on the shindo scale (measures the degree of shaking) at its epicenter near Tokyo, and what we felt was only a shindo 1. Japan averages 1500 earthquakes a year (there have been 5 so far today alone), so it seems inevitable that we will experience many more during our time here. Let's hope they are all as mild as today's quake.