Eerie. That was how the experience of Japan's latest earthquake was described by a veteran familiar with living with the natural occurrence. Benjamin Grier, an economist for a Hong Kong-based think tank, visits Tokyo and other areas of Japan often. Grier had planned to be in town for a quick presentation and planned to extend the trip into a short holiday. Now he is having trouble getting back home. As life-long friend, former business partner and current co-writer of our blog, I usually speak with him at least once per week. With utter chaos all over the news networks I picked up the phone to call him and got the voice mail without ringing.
When the Quake got Creepy
Most earthquakes are a fairly quick experience. But toward the end of the meeting when the world started to rumble everyone systematically moved to the doorways. A few giggled and others just waited silently. But when the quake lasted for more than a minute the event felt like an eternity.
"I was doing the nervous giggle trying to give myself a little more confidence, hoping it would rub off on the really scared guy next to me. That changed after a couple minutes of constant, strong, shaking. It felt like we were frozen in time," he told me over the phone once cellular service was restored.
Grier is no stranger to earthquakes. He has lived in the earthquake active area for over a decade and describes the duration of the quake in retrospect as "eerie." At one point he was convinced the earth would not stop shaking until it demolished the world's most quake-proof buildings. Possibly out of spite.
Cell Phones Sort of Save the Day
While cellular communication was knocked out for nearly two hours, Grier wasted no time preparing for an extended emergency. He immediately left the building and found a cab driver to take him as far away from the coastline as possible.
"I have worked in dangerous areas before, mostly due to the threat of insurgents or armed rebels; back when we did joint projects interrelated with the U.N. But this seemed more cunning. The threat was invisible. There was nowhere to hide and you couldn't spot your enemy coming." And that is when the call was lost. Although cellular call service was spotty we took the conversation over to Twitter using the 'Direct Message' feature. Due to character number limit (140) the rest of our conversation is edited for proper grammar (and some obscenities removed).
Grier said his cell phone service was knocked out for about two hours, but he wasn't concerned much with that. Fearing a possible tsunami he started to make his way inland. Others followed suit. "I couldn't get anywhere, even cabs that were vacant weren't picking people up and everyone was mobbing the payphones to get in touch with family. I had no one there, so I moved inland on my own." And he eventually accomplished this by purchasing a bike on the street.
Eventually, when the cell phone service came back area residents were able to follow the news live on their mobile units. Japan's cellular infrastructure is so well developed that Grier was shocked to see it down for so long.
"I think a certain amount of panic set in, delaying the systems from going back online." stated Grier. But once it came online he was receiving live updates on impassable roads and shutdown trains. This helped him make the decision to follow a rail line that was being suspended; information that he received via Twitter. "Technology and a common sense emergency response helped a lot of people," Grier added, "If the people weren't so used to dealing with earthquakes sheer panic would've been responsible for unnecessary injuries and deaths-coolness reigned and multiplied once the cell service came back."
Grier earned the nickname "Dr. Warbucks" for taking grant money and doing most of his work in war-torn Africa. It seemed that whenever he arrived in places that had a long period of peace, war would break out. Eventually he took a cozy desk job eager to escape the calamity that seemed to follow him. And even after multiple trips into Japan with no troubles he is convinced that he is bad luck and his visit is somehow related to the natural disaster.
But when it counted mysticism was dropped and logic took over. As of the last communication Grier is safe in a hotel lobby and has Wi-Fi access; his Twitter is buzzing with complaint after complaint. The gratitude of escaping death, I guess, was short-lived. But that same gratitude has only grown stronger for his friends and family. LINK
Posts
