Tags
Earth Sciences, Earthquake, Japan, Natural Disasters and Hazards, Pacific Ocean, Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, Tsunami, Tsunami warning system
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Today our school was one of the few in the area that remained open in the area because of a tsunami warning. The funny thing is that our school is one of the lowest lying schools in the area. Emergency personnel suggested that the students would be better at school than roaming around or possibly even going to the beach out of curiosity. All was fine as the swell wasn’t as bad in our area as it might have been. It was actually a fun day at school. Many students stayed home or headed to higher ground. Students planned a school barbecue earlier, so we went ahead and had it with the diminished numbers and sat out in the sun eating with our students.
I had fun in classes because we played the News-Ed Game and I gave extra credit to the winning teams. I was glad I had a lesson plan like the News-Ed Game to fall back on when a third to a half of my students were missing. It was nice to do something in class that wasn’t just a waste of time. Students could actually learn something and it took no extra preparation time.
It was definitely a day that I will always remember as being different. It was an odd feeling. One of my student council members sent me a text message at 3 am to find out if we had class at 7:30. I had no idea what the text message meant at the time. We received an emergency systems telephone call at 5 am and then sirens went off at 5:30 as they started evacuating low-lying areas.
I feel very sorry for the people who are suffering in Japan because of the earthquake and tsunami there. We were fortunate here.
