誰かが言わなきゃならない

1. Disaster-victim certificates

Upon entry to the evacuation camps, the name and the address are recorded and the certificate is issued to everybody. It will not be reissued. This
certificate is said to have advantages: no cost to the express highway, for instance. But it did not mean the right to get gasoline with priority. The priority is given only to emergency vehicles. The certificate seems not very helpful at the moment.
It may work in future when the compensation comes on the agenda.When leaving a camp, the date and the destination should be notified and recorded accordingly. Not certain how this process is common to other groups of refugees in the disaster areas.

2. Volunteers for help

A lot of volunteers are working for us in the Big Palette. The town staff even said once,“Nothing can be done without them.” The pathways on the floor are constantly mopped quietly by young ladies; Refuse is separated even with this big community; Food supplies are distributed; Car traffic is controlled at the
parking lot, etc. etc.
Volunteers are easily recognizable by their paste-on name tags on their
chests.There are one-time volunteers, too, helping us: kill time, ease fears, mitigate the economy-class syndromes by exercise, etc. etc. Some others cut hairs, play with kids, bring them to entertainment shops in the city, offer body massages to elderly people, entertain the people by songs and music performances, etc. etc.
A message offers to take care of the pets for a while. An NTT person helps us, day and night, using free public phones or internet. The reputation of NTT is not good under this emergency condition. The mobile phones had a big difficulty in connection.There seems no control center of all volunteers. The process of distributing food supplies,for instance, differs from person to person.
A kind of manuals may be needed for incoming new volunteers in order to keep some orders and qualities. Some volunteers are bureaucratic and rigid in handling the confusing situation. There may be some difficulty to keep them
under control: most of them seem not familiar with or disciplined to follow the systematic group rules.

3. The home town now

The biggest interest of the refugees is how our home town looks like now. According to some one-time unauthorized visitors, who dared to “invade” the roped “evacuation zones,”the town looks as it was before. Nothing seemed to have changed. No radiation records of Tomioka-cho are even reported. Probably the radiation in the environment is not so serious.
No such unauthorized visitors seem to have any desperate perception
of “jeopardized to dangers,” when they visit the town. The roads may be slightly damaged, but it is so indicated and emergency repairs are done with sandbags or boards for bumps.
The low lands of the town, including the JR Tomioka Station, along the coastline across the Highway 6, lost all roads due to the tsunami. All roads in other areas survived and are still usable. Traffic lights lost their power at many points, but they were working in Kawauchi-mura, just before Tomioka-cho.
Some field workers were recognized in Kawauchi-mura Village, an evacuation designated area, with no special protective equipment. In Tomioka-cho, dogs were roaming and prowling.
Some of them approach the approaching vehicles for preys. Many birds were loudly crying. A lot of private cars were left behind on the grounds of the primary school or the town culture center,when the owners had evacuated after the quake.When a car comes from ahead, the passengers put masks on their mouths and wore rain gears around their heads. Most of them made a short visit to their
home to bring something back. Other than them,some jeeps were running with a mark on their bodies “Rescue, Self Defense Force”.
They met with a couple of police patrol cars on their way but they did not pay special attention to the short home visitors.A rumor said many burglars were hunting out in the town. But no such indications were noticed. No tap water supply. No big visible damage was seen in and outside of the houses despite the repeated afterquakes. No rain leaks were noticed in the houses, because of no big rainfalls in the past weeks, even though they lost their roofs in the earthquakes.
Some refugees consider covering their houses with big blue sheets for the convenience of later restoration. It takes about two hours by car from Koriyama to Tomioka, the distance being 100 km one way. On their way back, several police officers were on duty in Tokiwa-machi,but nobody paid attention to them.
Short visitors checked the electricity and the house doors for locks, cleared the refrigerators, and brought back: valuables like bank passbooks, seals,
cash, credit cards, certificates or spirit tablets, minimum clothing and bed clothing in need for the time being, or tool kits, if he is a craftsman. Some returned to bring back their cars.It is said that the police would strengthen the roadblock for the evacuation zones.
Unauthorized home visits would become difficult. That stimulates some people to visit their homes before the situation worsens. The tsunami hit people want to search for missing family members and check the house conditions as soonest as possible. The town authorities are said to be negotiating with the government for letting people make a short return to their homes,but no firm possibility is seen while the accidents are unlikely to terminate in the near future.