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| "Just-in-Case" Bag |
Food was getting back on the store shelves; gasoline was available; transportation was moving smoothly once more; and Raymond had started classes at high school. It seemed things were back on an even keel.
But tonight, we had a succession of over 10 medium-large aftershocks within two hours (actually, there was much more; I just stopped counting at 10), mostly in the area of the nuclear reactors. A few seconds ago, there was notice that one of the last notices of an aftershock was actually a false alarm.
I made myself a peanut butter sandwich, grabbed a banana (they really taste very good together); then pulled on my shoulder bag (full of stuff like Bible, epilepsy medicine, and manually operated flashlight/radio) and went downstairs to watch the news on T.V. with my sister Joyce.
It had been just this afternoon that Emily and I had been talking about man not being able to make any real safety; only God could do so. Man can boast of his ability to build earthquake-resistent buildings, but if a tremor comes along exceeding the maximum-stress he imagined ever possible, well, the building topples...or, as seen last month, the building itself may "endure" the quake but be swept away by ensuing tsunami; as some buildings' remaining foundations attest. Many cities that declared they would never have an earthquake because they were far away from geological features characteristic of "quakable" areas...found themselves tragic victims of them.
As resilient as the Japanese people are--proud of the ablity to "bounce back" from natural disasters--I think this will help us see how vulnerable we really are.
