Aftershocks continued throughout the next day of the earthquake. Because of lack of sleep, I spent the whole day with muddy-headed and of course, with fear. The situation developed on the third day when the power company abruptly began to talk about scheduled blackouts. They said they would make a formal announcement later. As they did so late at night, it was the next morning that I heard about it. They had also announced that the first blackout would start early in the morning and the water supply might stop as well.

 　　That sent me in a panic mode. To me, the news and the blackout came almost simultaneously. I rushed to prepare for it in a great hurry, shutting down my computers, securing water in plastic bottles and bundling up to stay in the cold room. I had never imagined a power outage was such a frightening thing. On top of that, the scheduled blackout will be carried out everyday from now on, with each of it three hours long, day and night.

 　　The TV news showed empty shelves of food and batteries at stores because people had hoarded them to stock up. Out of the window, I see a lengthy line of cars toward the gas station all day long. The worst time wasn’t in the shaking of the earthquake. Things are getting worse and worse afterward…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total