During the last day of the program, we were taken to Okawa Elementary School, a school located just about an hour away from Sendai in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, without realizing that we were going to leave this place with a heavy heart. When we first arrived at the school, I felt a sudden feeling of desolation with the vast land, empty roads, and a school left in ruins. Apart from the sudden feeling of desolation, the overall atmosphere was quite somber as we began approaching the school yards. The first thing I noticed was the signage: “Okawa Elementary School Ruins,” which indicated to me that this is a place of remembrance. The second thing I noticed as we were standing in front of the school were the flowers, even though the tragedy, a brutal tsunami costing several lives which was caused by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, struck over ten years ago, this place is still held in people’s hearts. As we were standing in front of the school, the storyteller who introduced himself as Noriyuki Suzuki begins to tell his story..
Mr. Suzuki was standing in front of us and greeting us all with a smile on his face, and telling us all about his hobby, basketball, from which I later learned he used to coach at the school. From the first impression, you could not tell the loss he had endured. Alas, Mr. Suzuki had lost his 12 year-old daughter during this tragedy. As we were touring the school, comparison pictures were shown and it was tragic seeing how this once lively school has been torn to shreds both physically and emotionally. Walking around the grounds, we were standing in places were lives were stripped, and as Mr. Suzuki was recalling the experiences of the bodies that had to be recovered, including that of his daughter, I began to shed tears. As we continued on our tour, we walked up a hill to get to the outdoor learning space, which supposedly was a safe spot during evacuation, but during the journey on that hillside was a sign that indicated the water depth from both the river and ocean flooding in. That level of water practically washed over the school, and it was hard to imagine what it must have been like on that day where the whole school needed to evacuate in minutes.
In the wake of a tragedy that no parent should ever have to endure, the loss at Okawa Elementary School serves as a reminder about the importance of emergency preparedness. As Mr. Suzuki told his story, it became clear that this was a fault of the administration in charge of emergency preparedness for the school. If better prepared, 74 children and 10 teachers would not have had their lives taken.