Local family experiences Japanese quake

It may be a world away, but for some area citizens, the earthquake, tsunami and catastrophic aftermath are part of their daily lives--they are right in the middle of it in downtown Tokyo. CDR Brent Freeman, United States Navy, is the Naval Attaché to Japan, his wife Renea Freeman (former Renea McConnell of Toledo) and their three children own property on Puget Island but live in Tokyo.

They all survived the initial catastrophic quake with little more than psychological scarring to the younger girls, but unfortunately suffered a tremendous amount of damage to their housing unit and personal property. Renea said initially, “everything that could be broken was, everything attached to the walls wasn’t…but fortunately we are all safe.”

The family's children were in class at the American School in Japan (ASIJ) when the earthquake occurred. I (Navarre, age 17) was in English class when the building began to shake. All the students initially took protective positions under desks but were soon ordered to evacuate the building.

After evacuating the building, I immediately looked for my sister, Kiana Freeman, and made sure she was safe. After finding her, I then helped acquire a few blankets for other students, and sat with my class, waiting for the tremors and aftershocks to stop.

After about two hours in the cold and unsure of what was going to happen, the school decided to bus the children home. I rounded up the other embassy and attaché kids and kept them together assuring them that they would be all right. For most kids, this meant a 23-mile trek from the school to the area where most live in downtown Tokyo. Because of both real and potential damage to the elevated highways, the busses had to use the surface streets. What normally is a one hour ride became an ordeal of over nine hours to complete the journey. With no adult supervision on the bus that left me and a fellow student bus monitor to supervise and organize what is usually a boring and uneventful ride. We stayed with the kids for the entire time and organized them to make restroom breaks, pool their money and buy food at convenience stores they passed and distribute the food fairly. I later confided to my father that there were eerie similarities to “Lord of the Flies.”

After the children's trek home, their mom greeted them at the gate of the US Embassy compound where they lived. They were not able to sleep in their 11th floor apartment because of the millions of glass shards spread throughout the house, so we sheltered in a neighboring friends house. After a sleepless night, the Freeman family walked over to assess the damage, and start a long, mournful cleanup. Many friends and other neighbors came over throughout the day to help the cleanup. Several long, hard hours passed. Later that evening, almost everything was put back into place and most of the glass was picked up.

Over the next five days, the Freeman family experienced over 400 aftershocks, many of which were over 6 on the Richter scale. Several days of tremendous shaking passed, which left lasting impacts on everyone’s mind. Finally, on Wednesday night, the Freeman family booked four tickets and purchased an extra spot on board for their dog to Portland, where good friends from Puget Island picked them up to take them “home.”

Upon arriving, they immediately called back home to Japan to let their dad/husband, Brent Freeman (who had to stay in Japan because of his work), know that they landed safely and receive an update on the situation in Japan. Later that day, the embassy placed a voluntary evacuation order for all embassy personnel and families.

The death and missing toll of the Japanese has risen everyday, to a staggering 21,000 lives. Despite having most of their things broken, the Freeman family is grateful and consider themselves lucky, because they realize that “things are just things” and they can be replaced, where the lives of your loved ones cannot be.

Editor's note: Navarre Freeman is a junior in high school, currently living in Tokyo, Japan. "My father is in the United States Navy, so we travel around a lot and I move every year or two," he said. "I have had an interest in journalism for a few years and I would like to pursue this goal in the future as a career."