Earthquake Diary 106

On this day I was going to Miyagi Gakuin University as a volunteer to help move emergency supplies for some of the hard hit towns to the north. Since the subway was running again, I took my usual root - the subway to Asahigaoka and then from there a bus to the campus.
The Asahigaoka subway station was one of the most badly hit but when I used it for the first time I could find no evidence of the quake. Everything had been repaired on the platform and in the hallway (picture) at the head of the stairs

However, at the ground level in the bus depot, things were different. The elevator behind the temporary wooden frame goes down to the subway stations entrance tunnel and up to the upper floors of the depot where there are classroom that the public can rent for very small fees. In the past the Sendai Chapter of JALT frequently had meetings here.

Once on campus, I went to the gym, which was filled with boxes of various kinds of supplies.

 Since it was now about five weeks after the tsunami, much of the stuff had already been move, but the gym was still pretty full of boxes. Most of them were supplies that were in the original manufacturer's boxes, but there was some stuff that had been donated by individuals and these were in reused boxes of various sizes.

 We had planned to start at noon, but because of the bus schedule I arrived at about 11:30. There was another group there taking out supplies. Everything was being carefully counted before being loaded onto the trucks or into the backs of private cars for the trip to the north.

 Since I was early, I decided to go into the school and have a cup of coffee in the part-time teacher's room. The school has an automatic coffee machine that is set up so that it is free. Most schools supply at least tea and coffee for the part-timers. These machines are the best of any that I have seen. They have both hot and ice tea and coffee, as well as cocoa. Also you can adjust the amounts of cream and sugar. Of course, this is not important to me because I drink my coffee black, but the machine does have two different types of coffee, both highland and lowland.

 After finishing my coffee, I wandered around the school a little to see what damage there was and how the repairs had been done. This is a wall in one of the stairwells. The crack had been filled with glue and some kind of plastic studs inserted, probably to hold some sort of reinforcement to the outer wall.

 Back in the gym, I found that the group that was now there was keeping track of what they were supposed to take by listing it on a whiteboard.

The group was almost finished and many of the volunteers were now just standing around waiting for the few who were still working to finish. The woman in the foreground seem to be in charge, or maybe she was just being bossy.