Earthquake!

I really hate not having access to the internet. It takes forever to get anything posted. This is all old news, but as this blog is as much a record of our time here as it is a way to tell everyone what's going on, I'm going to post it anyway.

At 5:30 in the morning on Saturday, February 27, an earthquake struck southeast of Okinawa. At it's epicenter, it was a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. It was the biggest earthquake they’ve had in Okinawa in 10 years. A tsunami warning was issued for the island immediately following the earthquake, but was rescinded shortly after. Here's each of our impressions, and memories of the earthquake:

Earthquake from Jason’s viewpoint.
I woke up about 5:00 and was laying in bed while my mind was wandering. All of a sudden I felt some shaking and the closet doors next to us began to rattle along with the lamp shade above use. When Jennifer and I concluded it was indeed an earthquake we went and grabbed the kids to take them to a protected area. I grabbed Carston and stood under the door jam between the two connecting rooms and Jennifer got Cassie and Jessie out of bed and had them kneel down next to the bed and cover their heads. The earthquake seemed to last a long time, but it is hard to tell while it is happening. After the shaking stopped the building seemed to still be swaying a little bit. After talking to people on the island it seems like we maybe over reacted but it was the strongest earthquake here in ten years and I will probably do the same thing if it happens again. I think it is better to be safe than sorry.
Posted by Jason Cowley

Jennifer: I had woken up and was just drifting off again when I heard a lot of noise coming from the closet doors next to us and the vent above our bed. Jason asked me if it was an earthquake and I told him that I thought it was. When he asked if we should go get the kids, I said, “Probably”. We crawled out of bed and ran into the adjoining room where the kids sleep. Jason went right to Carston and started calling to Cassie. I went to the girls and pulled them down on the side of the bed. Jessica was hard to wake up. She looked at me and then started to go back to sleep. I had to tell her to get down by us, and the three of us squatted there for a few more seconds. When the shaking and rattling was over, I could still feel the building swaying, even though we are only on the third floor. The girls were scared and I had to lay with them for a while. We weren’t sure how big it was, or if it was even bigger than normal. We’d heard that Japan had a lot of earthquakes, so we weren’t surprised. After a while, we all fell back to sleep, and in the morning, we had a hard time finding out how big it was. Nothing had fallen off a table or counter in either of our rooms, so I thought maybe it wasn’t that big of deal. It was the largest earthquake I’ve ever been in, but I don’t know what’s considered worrisome and what isn’t. Michael called me and told me how big it was, and that I was supposed to call and tell everyone we were okay after an earthquake! I’ll keep that in mind for the future. Hopefully by then, we’ll be in a better place to contact everyone.

From Cassie Cowley’s point of view.

I woke up to a loud noise. It was coming from outside. Jessica was half awake. I laid in my bed wondering if it was a Typhoon. Then all the sudden Mom and Dad came running in. “Get on the side of the bed!” Mom said worriedly. Dad grabbed Carston and huddled with him while the three of us, Jessica, Mom, and me huddled up. I was scared. 5 min. later it was over. When it was over I didn’t want to go to sleep. I kept thinking the window was going to fall down on top of Jessica and me while we were sleeping and it would crush us flat. After awhile I fell asleep. Then on Monday when I went to school everyone was talking about the earthquake.
Posted by:
Cassie Cowley.

Jessica: I was scared. I thought that it was a storm and that’s why the house was moving, like boom-boom. So when mom and dad ran in, I woke up and thought that. So, I said to them, “Why did you run in?” So it was pretty scary, as you can tell. I almost thought that we were at home, but then I woke up and reminded myself that we are in Japan. Bye! Jessica

Carston was startled when Jason grabbed him, but I'm not even sure if he noticed anything different while Jason was standing there with him. He didn't cry or anything, and he drifted back off to sleep fairly quickly.

The next day, there was an 8.8 earthquake in Chile that prompted a tsunami warning for the Pacific area. We were preparing for church when we saw the warning and the order to evacuate low ground by 2:00 PM. The tsunami was estimated to hit at 3:10. We still aren’t sure what’s "low ground" here, but we know that the Awasai ward meets at 1:00 and the church is near the coast. When we got to church, they said we’d have an abbreviated sacrament meeting so that we could make it back in time for the evacuation order. We kept an eye on CNN, but it seemed that the waves coming in weren’t significant, so there was no damage and no problems. Still, these two natural disasters were quite the welcome to our new home.