Coping with Disaster and Preparing for the Future: An On-the-Ground View of Japan’s Earthquake Recovery Effort | Brookings Institution

September 13, 2011 My estimation of the response to the quake and tsunami stems from my time in Tohoku during the critical first few days and weeks of the disaster, first as a fixer and eventually as an aid worker. A fixer is essentially an interpreter who is resourceful and willing to exploit whatever opportunities present themselves to satisfy his employer’s needs—in this case, navigating news teams through an utterly wrecked landscape in blizzard-like conditions where there was no gas, elect