Survival

I cannot find any words to say to those over 20,000 people who passed away or are missing in this disaster. What I can say is as much help as possible should be offered to those who survived this ordeal.
Blackout lasted three days and I was isolated for 4 days from the world; home as well as mobile phones and cable TV were disabled. Now water supply has been restored after 12 days but still no city gas available. I am sure people all over the world know much better than I about what have happened in Japan on March 11th. When I could have an access to outer world, most reports were about how to rescue tsunami victims and what will happen at Fukushima nuclear plants.
I feel guilty to tell this when I think of half a million people who are forced to stay in refugee camps, but fortunately I have been spending a life of quality even after the aftermath. The followings are the reasons why I could.
Over 30 years ago I came across with Miyagi-oki earthquake which killed about 30 people and I have learnt several lessons to live in this country that is rich in natural disasters; what is the most needed in case of peril is water. No #2, #3. Then food, heat, and fuel follow as #4.
From the experience we have always been keeping two 18L polyethylene water tanks, more than ten 2L water PET bottles, and some more. And we have had a custom to keep water of bathtub until we refill it. Because of the oscillation or vibration of the quake, however, the water in the bathtub spilt away and was less than one third when I came back home. Fortunately, we had water supply for half a day after the quake and hence we could fill bathtub, kettles, pots, and pails with water. In addition, we have a special device to collect water from rainfall on the roof. The picture is a whisky-barrel connected to trough, the volume of which is about 120L. The quality is good enough to flush toilet, and could be drinkable after filtering out dust particles with cloth, probably without boiling. Eventually, however, we had almost 18L of fresh water left when we got water supply back after 11 days.

When we built our house we employed propane gas, not city gas system, because we had an experience to spend over one month without gas supply on the occasion of Miyagi-oki earthquake; then we had city gas. This time, having propane gas, we did not have any inconvenience for cooking. For heating rooms, we have an oil heating system, which is fine but do not work during blackout. But we have a woodstove which of course works without electricity. And we had plenty of firewood. In addition, we have an obsolete oil-heater and two 18L bottles of heating oil. These had been more than enough to keep us warm during the days when electricity was off. It is of vital importance to have as diverse energy sources as possible to survive in case of disaster.

These are not all firewood I have. Takeko does not want her picture to be shown.

As to food, we happened to have about 10 kg of rice left out of 15 kg of rice, which an acquaintance of mine who is a farmer kindly donated us two months ago. As long as we have rice, water, and fuel, we can live forever. On top of that, we had various kinds of canned foods to eat in the refrigerator and shelves. It turned out that we had lived on those stock foods during the days when supermarkets were closed.

In short, we are OK and did have survived with stocked water, foods, and fuels. I found that what is the most valuable, next to water, is information. We were isolated from the world for the first few days; both home and cellular phones were unavailable, we could not watch TV, could not have an access to internet. During the period we were very anxious about what is going on, whether my acquaintances are safe or not, and when and where water and foods are available. After we could have an access to phones and e-mail, I could find out what I should do. In case of emergency, what is needed? #1 is water, and #2 is information.