Late Thursday night April 7 In Shock

Instead of heading to bed, I volunteered to head to the laundromat with Paul and Beth to wash his clothes and those of the older woman we had helped. Because I was wedged so tightly in the van among the supplies, I said I would doze in the van--after all, they were only doing two loads. Suddenly at 11:30 the world shook so violently that all rational thought ceased. I was in a van surrounded on two sides by boxes, that was rocking, bucking and jumping. I felt like a pebble next to a jackhammer. The whole "seemed like an eternity" thing is so trite. . .at least until your own private 20 seconds of shock and awe seems like it will never end. When it stopped I remembered Paul and Beth inside. I clambered out of the van. All the electricity was out. Inside the building three people--my two pals and a Japanese guy were under the folding tables on their hands and knees. Washing machines had jumped away from the walls, bookshelves had fallen over, but most frightening, was the self-serve photo booth in front of the building. It had been bolted to the paving stone walkway which had heaved and buckled and sank in six inches in the back. It had fallen back toward the plate glass windows of the laundromat, where Beth had been sitting. But thank God, only the window frame kept it from crashing through the plate glass window. We prayed in the parking lot for the people of Ishinomaki, that they would be protected from falling structures and another tsunami. We managed to unlock Paul's machine which brought our own little tsunami from all the water still in the machine. The poor woman from the rest home? We had to leave her clothes behind because that machine wouldn't open.

Three people coming home late from work stopped in the parking lot. They said the jolt from tonight's quake seemed harder than the 9.0, although the 9.0 was much longer. We checked the cell coverage--it was out--but Beth skyped her parents and Jennifer on her iphone. We heard military helicopters in the distance.

As we drove back to camp all power and stoplights were out. Road and overpass joints had fresh humps and ledges, a couple of which, in our hurry, we hit too fast. We were warned that the bridge across the lake to camp had not been thoroughly inspected (still night of course), so we stopped, shone the headlights on it and walked across with a flashlight. It seemed ok, but Beth and I walked across anyway, then Paul drove the van across. Everyone at the cabin was ok--of course no power--and the water was being restricted because there was no power to the well pump.