It wasn’t just the earthquake – but the tsunami that followed the record breaking earthquake that has resulted in possibly 10,000 dead or swept away, an entire region of the nation laid bare of homes, buildings, schools infrastructure and now, radiation spewing from six damaged nuclear reactors that are in various stages of destruction.
This still unfolding Japanese catastrophe goes way beyond the American translation of the word.
To us, such a catastrophe is unthinkable and impossible.
It can’t happen here, we might all agree.
But it can happen here and it might but it is highly unlikely.
All of us who live on the coast are wed to the sea and the sea can do strange things when the ocean floor buckles from time to time.
If the ocean floor buckled 200 miles offshore in the Atlantic, an unstoppable wave would come onto to us here in Chelsea the way it did to the coast of North Japan.
Everything would be swept away, even the LNG tanks and then we’d be where the Japanese are today, trying to pick up the pieces.
The Japanese are strong allies of America today.
We share much in common with them.
We feel for their suffering.
If you can spare a small donation, send it to the American Red Cross and they’ll send it on to Japan.
It is the right thing to do.