Tokyo disaster planning: with Pics!

Good Evening Y'all,

Since things have been busy in the day job, it's been tough to keep up with my once per fortnight target blog posting, so hope to make it up to both of my dedicated followers. Post-quake, while we didn't have any materially negative effects, we did identify a number of things that we could improve in our planning in the event we had to either (a) head for home quickly or (b) get out of the house with a minute's notice or so.
After thinking about it, and combining some camping gear with red cross backpacks, here is what we ended up with:

After thinking about it, and combining some camping gear with red cross backpacks, here is what we ended up with:

 

• A leatherman multi-tool that includes everything from a bottle opener (for those pesky, non-twist off bottles) to a sharp knife, the leatherman is light, compact and makes you feel like a boy scout even if you believe that the great outdoors should stay outside. This particular version comes with a penlight as well. In the same picture, there are also two hand-crank LED flashlights, and while the light bulb won't warm the hand like the old incandescent lights, they hold a charge for several hours after getting cranked. 
• This all-purpose radio (with slightly more limited Japan capability than I would like, but fine in AM bands) is also hand crank, and designed for outdoor use. For those of us who care more afraid of  dying of boredom after a life changing event, this handcrank radio provides (a) exercise (b) music, assuming that radio stations are cooperative and (c) a USB port that you can use as a cell phone charger for smartphones. Oh, and it has a headphone jack, so you can jam away without having all of the neighbors who evacuated with you demand your head.

• While not the height of fashion unless "grey" is in this year, the emergency ponchos are lightweight, and should keep you both warm and dry in the event of unplanned excitement. Add to that two survival blankets, and should provide some protection from nasty climate.
• A small first aid kit with some bandaids, two light sticks, K rats (well, ok, calorie bars) and a couple of masks round out the "grab and go" packs.

Not pictured: Lots of water that makes up about half of the packs, because it is absolutely, incredibly boring.

Missing items that I plan to add: Asthma inhaler, more complete first aid (especially non-aspirin cold medicine, decongestants. antihistamines and antibacterial cream). Spare pair of eyeglasses. Shoelaces and/or other rope (I like shoelaces because they are multi-purpose). Duct tape. Matches and/or lighter.

Missing items that I may add: PHS phone, since no one is on the network, it would be nice to be generally reachable. Spare shoes.

Items My (retired military) Dad Thinks Are Missing: Man portable missile weapons, predominantly utilizing gunpowder, both of the concealable and non-concealable variety. Ammunition for same. Camo ponchos and two-way radio. Helicopter. (OK, I"m making one of these up. I'll let y'all guess which one.) 

I'm curious, folks: What do y'allhave in your disaster kits? Anything obvious that I left out?

Tokyo: The new Abnormal part II...

Good Evening Everyone,
This post has been edited because I wasn't that happy with it after posting. I have now reached "happy enough". I hope that the "happy enough" feeling is contagious.
The New Abnormal:

• Every time I hear high pitched chimes, I automatically assume that there is an earthquake en route, since those chimes are what the radio uses to notify you that the early warning system has gone off.
• My daughter has a solid understanding of what earthquake means, and how to hide under the table, but is not really clear on what "scary" means. "Earthquakes are scary," she says, smiling. Very different than monster muppets, where she hides her face and goes quickly for a hug.
• When I saw a facebook post from a buddy that he had walked the entire Yamanote line loop (about 40 km), my assumption was not "This is some Oxfam charity thing", but instead "Oh, wonder how long it was shut down."

One severely undercovered story on the Tokyo effects of the quake was just how well Tokyo building codes and engineering held up to the shaking. When I look out my window each morning, my daughter and I play "count the cranes on the skyline", starting with the ones closet to us...not only did none of the ones we could see fall down, I have heard of more cranes falling in Houston than in Tokyo in the past three or four years.

Not all was good in the world of construction, though. In the suburbs and exurbs around Tokyo, there was substantial liquefaction damage (If you went to church, you know that the foolish man built his house upon the sand, but they didn't mention that it turned to water during an earthquake).  The stats for the damage are at the daily yomiuri, or for a picture of what a manhole looks like when soil turns to water, you can click through.


Finally, I had an interview with AOL-Huffpost about TEPCO condolence money that I really didn't think was controversial...but then again, I'm rational, or at least I tell myself that at night before bed. The text of my e-mail (later covered in actual phone conversation) follows:

OK, I haven't followed the details[on compensation by Tepco to affected communities], but it is imperative to separate radiation poisoning (ie what is going on at the plant, presumably, and could kill you in hours or days if you aren't wearing a spacesuit) from higher levels of radiation exposure, which increases your risk of cancer. 

Assuming that the payments are for the latter, this seems similar to what tobacco companies in the US did in the following suit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Master_Settlement_Agreement

Now, that [tobacco] was a court case and so absolved them of further liability, and the Tepco payments do not as they are "mimaikin", but it is unclear to me how this is different in principle or in practice, or is even particularly Japanese--excepting, perhaps, the willingness to pre-emptively take some sort of liability without a court of law requiring it.

Some of the one-liners in the phone conversation are more interesting "...It's not that TEPCO is a big evil empire that's going to come and lay waste to their farms. ...", but the content is roughly the same as the e-mail.
As always, I welcome comments, feedback, questions and other random acts. Spambots and those computers lacking personality not welcome.

Tokyo: The new Abnormal

Good Evening Everyone,

Well, it's been three weeks since we went back to work post-earthquake. Japan has largely been off the front page of the news, with the exception of the planned Tepco nuclear fix utilizing edible kindergarten paste and paper machie, and for those of us in Tokyo, life goes on. Bread is back on the shelves, no more shortages of eggs or milk, or at least not in my neighborhood, and the earthquake relief efforts go on. We have a lot of water, which is unnecessary scientifically, but helpful emotionally.

Radiation and Science and Other stuff
On the radiation front, there has been some good and/or interesting news, such as "Hong Kong Radiation Exceeds that of Tokyo", which despite being published on April 1, looks true to me. The NY Times, after a somewhat shrill start, has really done some good reporting on radiation dangers and not, along with a not quite brand new career in atomic forensics, leading to the new Jerry Bruckheimer show, "CSI: Fukushima". (OK, I made the last bit up). Finally, for the ubergeek, we have the Radiation Dose chart.

Things that have changed for me:
Ignoring the fact that the first thing I did each morning for two weeks was check a Tokyo Geiger counter web site, I have found that I no longer trust my inner ear. Going up stairs, or otherwise consistently shifting my weight leads to a "hmm, is that an earthquake or am I just off-balance/not as young as I used to be". If you haven't seen the Japan Quake map (and the 900+ quakes we've had since March 11), well, you aren't the quake geek that I am.

I sure know that we know a lot about radiation except when we don't. Or, put another way, neither government will announce the additional cancer risk that is being provided within a given "exclusion zone" or "evacuation radius" or whatever. It makes it tough to make a rational decision, so I usually just revert to first principles (and online Geiger counters).

I am pretty sure that the risk of distributing KI (Potassium Iodide) tablets outweighs the risk of substantial exposure in Tokyo (people who are allergic to shellfish in particular are at increased risk from KI, at least if the words "anaphylactic shock" qualify as increased risk).

This summer will be bad news for the greater Tokyo area, and (probably) the Japanese economy as a whole. While I am a long term Japan bull, losing a quarter of your power during the height of air conditioner season is going to be painful, and unless we are lucky (think "Global Cooling"), domestic production is going to get hammered this year, and there are going to be substantial knock-on effects throughout the economy.

Business continuity planning for a number of our customers has gone through the roof, and so we look to be quite busy getting ahead of this summer's blackouts.

Otherwise, though, things are basically normal.

Things I'm grateful for:

• My family is safe, warm and reasonably happy.
• A large outpouring of concern from family and friends, some of whom I haven't heard from in years.
• Tokyo remains a great place to live, work and eat...and with the lower levels of foreigners, it was easier to get a table at popular restaurants for the last two-three weeks.
• The US government assigned a smart, turned-on FoO (Friend of Obama) as ambassador here. He has been on youtube regularly, and has been up to visit several of the shelters in the north.

A Modest Proposal

Good Morning Everyone,

For those of you in the Tokyo community, you are probably aware of the new slang "Flyjin", a derivative of "Gaijin", parodying those that chose to leave for other parts. The WSJ has a solid article discussing both "Flyjin" and the operational challenges of bridging a gap between those who stayed and those who left.

As I've said several times, the right decision is the one that puts an individual and his/her family in the best emotional state, as the greatest damage from the Fukushima issues in Tokyo will likely be stress related. [Caveat: If the leader of an organization departed without ensuring that employees and customers were being taken care of, I think that is Leadership Meltdown.]


A Modest Proposal:
So, for those of you that left, whether Flyjin or not, I have a modest proposal: Take the same amount of money that you and/or your family spent on your vacation (albeit unplanned) and donate that to one or more of the charities that are doing good work up in Tohoku. Help out the some of the 450,000+ people who are homeless and/or have lost family members.

For those of you that didn't leave, you're ahead of the game. Donating the amount you didn't spend to fly you and your family somewhere else should be easy, as I am confident that you would have spent it if your personal safety or emotional state required it. Help out the survivors that are living in shelters get their lives back on track.

We will be donating both at work and as individuals and I hope all of you will as well. Ganbare Nippon!

Mr. Wizard and Dr. Strangelove share a Perrier

Good Evening,

On some days, writing this blog, I feel like I'm writing for Mr. Wizard's world, as presented by Dr. Strangelove or vice versa. At this point, everyone has presumably heard about the radioactive drinking water, declared unfit for babies at "twice the maximum levels". If not, a couple of good articles are the NY Times article on tap water (good factual reporting with consistent explanations for adults vs. infants) and NPR's article on "contaminated milk".  If you have read the latter, let's just say it's a much greater number of milk glasses than it ever took the owl to get to the center of the tootsie pop...

OK, so now the Mr. Wizard Strangelove bit:

The reactor shutdown properly last Friday, the 11th. It is now Wednesday, the 23rd. Post Chernobyl, the brilliant folks in the life sciences field found that Iodine-131, a particularly radioactive version of Iodine, was the primary health issue. People typically have an iodine shortage in their thyroid (no big deal typically), so when this particular version shows up, the thyroid drinks itself full.

Facts:
I-131 has an 8.2 day half life. The last time any was produced at this plant was over a week ago, so it means that there is 50% less to worry about then when the earthquake hit. If the current level is about 200  becquerel, and 100  becquerel (I keep thinking "baklava") is safe for children (300 is safe for adults), then 8.2 days from now the problem is 100% gone away. Risk level is increased thyroid cancer years in the future, as opposed to radiation poisoning now. (Most of this data comes from when the US was testing A-bombs in the atmosphere and not really thinking about the random particles strewn across creation).
More good news: If you're over 40, this is unlikely to matter at all! Nice to be loved by mother nature....

Theory on where did this come from anyway:
I don't know for sure, but I believe that we are just seeing run-off from the rainstorm a day and a half back, possibly from the release last Tuesday, the 15th. It's been a while since I've studied hydrology, but it makes sense that the northernmost water filtration plant might be seeing some excitement as rain falls and runs downhill.

Prediction:
Will continue to experience shortages in the oh-so-critical bottled water supply, and encourage people to drink beer, wine and unfrozen drinks. Will soon read about "increased levels of radiation in the water supply", which will have zero effects on anyone including the fish.

For us, we think (a) these amounts shouldn't matter and (b) our activated carbon filtration systems will take care of this, but carefully consumed wine and beer this evening just to be safe, while our little one enjoyed more fruit juice than normal.

Good details on how and why the US Embassy acted vis-a-vis dependents

Good Morning Everyone,

I've been spending a little time with the family over the three day weekend (in Tokyo), so the blog has been quiet...and largely because there hasn't been much to report.

Kudos to the US Embassy for detailed clarification on both (a) why families and dependents were allowed to leave and (b) that there are more people at the embassy working now than before the earthquake. My favorite quote:

Our employees remain in country, and we are absolutely open for business – in fact, the number of people working at the Embassy now is much larger than before the earthquake due to the number of experts who have arrived from the United States to augment our operations in these difficult times. We look forward to our dependents returning to Japan once the situation has eased.

A few other observations:

• Aftershocks really continue to rattle the nerves. Had two more this morning, and while it is kind of fun for our little one to play the "hide under the table" game, her Mom and I are both tired of it.
• If Dad happens to be retired military, and you ask for disaster recovery plans, plan to spend some thoughtful time sorting through the advice. It's great stuff, Dad, but will take us a little while to work into our earthquake bags.
• There are about 450,000 people homeless due to the earthquake. If you haven't made a donation to the charity of your choice, please donate for Japan disaster relief here.

Otherwise, for many of us, as one of my clients said, it is "Business as Unusual". We're open, doing what we can to make things as normal as possible for everyone. As always, if there is anything that we can do to help out, personally or professionally, please don't hesitate to contact me.

DONATIONS FOR THE TSUNAMI VICTIMS AND THEIR FAMILIES

I told all of y'all before that I would post my recommendation on donations. Well, here it is. The entire contribution will go to families affected (ie no operational overhead), and I will be personally involved in the distribution as a Vice President of the ACCJ. Both my company and I personally will be donating as well.

For those of you outside of Japan:
Via PayPal (outside of Japan only): ACCJ PayPal account: “acct@accj.or.jp”
[Paypal may charge a slight overhead, but it's cheaper than international bank transfer and easier]

For those of you in Japan:Transfer to ACCJ Bank Account:
Mizuho Bank (0001)
Kamiyacho Branch (146)
Current (Toza) # 0052534
Name of Account : ACCJ or ザイニチベイコクショウコウカイギショ

For full details:

http://www.facebook.com/notes/the-american-chamber-of-commerce-in-japan-accj/accj-disaster-relief-fund-a-call-for-help/141193295946944

or go directly: http://www.accj.or.jp/doclib/forms/Disaster_Relief_Fund_Letter.pdf

Finally, an update on those folks who have made it so far:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/16/japan-quake-tsunami-freezing-temperatures-relief

Giving the Security Blanket back to JR: More good and reasoned news

Good Afternoon Everyone,

I mentioned before that we had tickets to Kansai as a security blanket. Well, we're returning the blanket today. It helped us sleep a bit better last night and our friends running the geiger counters have continued to show us that no news is good news, so thanks JR! I'm happy to pay the cancellation charges.

Also, thanks to my friends in FEMA and the DHS about reassuring me that my math and risk calculations were on-target vis-a-vis radiation. Those midnight phone calls can occasionally be reassuring. 

In keeping with the good news spirit:

Kudos to NPR: http://www.npr.org/2011/03/16/134567692/nuke-o-noia-the-worst-threat-to-japan

Kudos to the Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2011/0317/Fear-of-Japan-s-nuclear-crisis-far-exceeds-actual-risks-say-scientists

Kudos again to the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-im-not-fleeing-japan/2011/03/16/ABQsdhk_story.html

Decent amount of business activity (still!), so the only other post you might see today (JST) will be charitable contribution related.

Buying a Security Blanket: More on the Embassy Announcement: I'm STILL NOT LEAVING

Good Evening Folks,

I'm a little bit too tired to do a good article on political game theory, but I will point out that politically, doing something is generally rewarded over "doing nothing", even when doing nothing would be better than doing something. But perhaps I digress. Here is the note:
http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/acs/tacs-travel20110317.html
[additional conference call transcript that I found after returning home tonight tha tis much, much more clear than the original announcement: http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20110317-09.html]

In an earlier post, I mentioned that you do whatever keeps your family emotionally in the clear and happy first and foremost. I also said we were definitely staying. After the numerous emails received from non-working embassy dependents saying "we are being forced to evacuate" (inaccurate, at least according to the posts above), and the rumor mill going around about large companies relocating operations to Kansai (for indefinite time periods) and/or having no employees come to the office, we were facing some uncertainty at home.

So we bought a security blanket. Three tickets for Kansai, where my in-laws live, which are for my wife, my daughter (who is three) and my wife's sister, on Saturday March 19th. So, I guess in the big picture, we're not that scared, but continue to be nervous. For the record, though  I'M NOT LEAVING. I am stressed, no question. Somewhat ironically, I have probably done more damage to myself dealing with stress(have a look at how poor my diet has been) that way than I'm likely to have from Fukushima...

Now, these tickets are refundable, but in the same way those people who didn't buy groceries because they knew that the bulk of the logistics system was sound got hosed for a few days (because everyone else bought out the stores), we were acting using our animal, rather than our rational brains. Mea culpa on that....but between the well meaning notes, the incessant "lack of new information news", along with the calls from the people at the airport today offering to take our three year old out with them, we figured that time at the grandparents might be soothing. A security blanket doesn't do anything but (a) potentially keep you warm and (b) sooth the nerves. That's what we're buying.

By the way, I'm still going to work tomorrow. We're still open for business. I wish I could do more, but that's where things are at now. If/when we cancel them tomorrow/Saturday, I'll be sure to post.

Advance notice: I am planning to go to Australia for 10 days at the first part of Golden Week, booked it in February, so please don't hold that against me. I love the Hunter Valley wines...hmm, I wonder if this also qualifies as high risk behavior?

On Stress and Happiness

It's been a long day and evening, and I certainly have a run-on keyboard tonight. 

The top ten things that let me know I'm more stressed than usual:

1) Have eaten french fries 4 times since Friday. I normally eat them once/month, tops, as a special treat, as those things are deadly.

2) While I'm sloppily sentimental, it's usually for movies. In fact, my wife has started to point out to my daugher that "Daddy is about to get all teary" in movies in normal times. Now, though, I'd swear I'm pregnant. Occasional e-mails and comments from people make me all bleary-eyed, and when a customer sent us e-mail today to say not only they were renewing but the appreciated our dedication and support and were renewing for five years, our normally somewhat clean office became really, really dusty. Must be kafunsho (hay fever).

3) Can't focus very well on important things like billing and accounting (not too much non-emergency selling right now--we have had some of that), and spend most of my work time on Facebook and blogging.

4) Confused "doing something positive" with "Studying nuclear reactors to try and figure out how long those babies need to cool down."

5) Related to (3) and (4), trying to see how hard it would be to explain a nuclear reactor meltdown by comparing it to your typical Texas BBQ pit.

6) Have strong desire for any or all of the following: 

(a) Tex Mex. Proper Tex Mex, not to be confused with typical Tex-Mex in Tokyo. Unfortunately, it's a long plane flight away.

(b) BBQ, and not just because I'm trying to figure out how cladding overheating in one of the Fukushima plants is kind of like the paint on the barrel catching fire.

(c) Chicken fried steak, with cream gravy on mashed potatoes.

7) I keep forgetting that we're still in allergy season, so that I should wear a mask. No, it's not for fallout....

8) Can only get to 8 on a top ten list :-).

US Embassy Allows Voluntary Departure of eligible family members

Good Afternoon,

In the not really the news department, but in a pre-emptive strike on inaccurate headlines, 

US Embassy update: 

"[we have] authorized the voluntary departure from Japan of eligible family members of U.S. government personnel assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, the U.S. Consulate in Nagoya, and the Foreign Service Institute Field School in Yokohama."

http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/acs/tacs-travel20110317.html

Now, if I were paid by the click, the headline would read "US Embassy Family Members Depart Tokyo".