The Spring of 2011

In 2011 I was a 7th grader at the American School in Japan. On the the day of the disasters my P.E. class was in the middle of our swimming class. I was not in the pool that day because it was the time of the month for me, so I was doing lunges along the side of the pool when I noticed that the doors leading to the outside were shaking and banging. I didn't realize that it was an earthquake until my teacher yelled out "It's an earthquake! Get out of the pool!" We quickly evacuated the building into the schools driveway. It was a particularly cold spring so the students who were swimming that day didn't get a chance to grab their clothes, so they were left wet and shivering. Our school buses were swaying side to side and we were instructed to move away from them. High school students offered us their jackets and scarves. After the shaking had weakened, we went back to our lockers to grab our bags and our clothes to change into. We were then guided to the school field where the whole school had gathered and we waited for further instruction. After the shaking had fully stopped we were dismissed from school immediately. The usual 1 hour long bus ride home ended up being about 4-5 hours. My mom, who was home alone because my dad was out of town, had went to the store to buy was much water and food as possible. The stores quickly ran out of water, cup noodles, and rice. Over the next few days we spent much of our time gathered around the TV waiting for updates, and we contacted our families who were waiting anxiously for our calls. My dad, who was away on a business trip quickly came up with a plan to evacuate us from Japan and sent us to stay with his family in Hawaii until school was scheduled to start again. When we returned to Japan we were notified of when our area was allowed to use electricity, due to the shortage, and the combinis and stores still struggled to provide the community with enough food for everyone.