Fahrenheit 119... or a note on fire drills

A couple of weeks ago my school held a fire drill, that is too say that a few days before hand we had a fire drill rehearsal where we practiced having a fire drill... which is in itself a practice for a real fire so we practiced having a practice of a real event... this might sound redundant but I suppose there is no harm in being redundant when it comes to saving your life. During the rehearsal I was lucky enough to be the first person down the emergency chute from the fourth floor, which was actually a lot of fun. On actual fire drill day the buzzer sounded and all the students and teachers filed out in full Japanese efficiency to the outer field, all while still wearing their inside shoes so as to simulate what we would do if this was an actual fire. Other then the rehearsal this was very much the same as fire drills I remember from back home, however after a customary count off and reporting on how long we took to evacuate the building the similarities ended.

We were then treated to several speeches in Japanese from both the headmaster and the fire chief after which all the students were divided into three groups. Group 1 went to go watch student volunteers being rescued from the third floor by the ladder truck, a demonstration that ended with the finale of the last student getting to ride to the ladders full 45 meters. Group 2 went to go and participate in the emergency chute demonstration that I participated in during rehearsal. And I went with Group 3, where we practiced yelling "FIRE!!" and putting out a real fire with fire extinguishers.

火!

So as you can see fire drills in Japan are quite involved, in total we had a least a dozen fire fighters, a ladder truck, a tanker truck, the fire chief and an ambulance on site. All I can say is that if the school would actually catch fire, a dubious prospect given the fact that the entire building is made of concrete, that some this "training" kicks in and everyone gets out safe and sound.


p.s. as for the post title, 119 is what you dial here in an emergency... as opposed to 911.

I Feel the Earth Move

At 7:16 yesterday evening we experienced our very first earthquake. I was cleaning up after supper and Dustin and Theo were playing the Wii when the apartment started to sway, the windows rattled, and the bookshelf and microwave stand threatened to topple. It is maybe fairly indicative of the part of the world I am from, but at first I thought there was a tornado outside of our apartment. It took me half a second to realize that was pretty ridiculous and that it was in fact an earthquake. By this time our cell phones, which have a built in earthquake warning alarm, went off. The shaking lasted for about 10 seconds or so and was relatively gentle. Theo looked around puzzled for a second or two, shrugged his shoulders, and then focused all of his attention back to Kirby. I suppose it is better than being freaked out.

The epicenter was about 80 kilometers north west of us near the border of Hiroshima and Shimane Prefectures.
We live in a relatively stable part of Japan for the most part, so we were pretty surprised last night. It was just the extra push I needed to get an emergency preparedness kit packed and ready for the future.