How does one describe scenes of devastation day after day in a way that is not numbing? Today was Kessenuma near the northern edge of Miyagi Prefecture and Rikuzen-Takata in southern Iwate. Both of these cities were hit very hard with water heights over 5 stories high. As one approaches Kessenuma from inland, it looks very normal. The higher land in the outskirts is filled with shops and cars and people going about their business. The steady stream of military vehicles going in and out is an indication that things are not normal. The western end of the port area wasn’t so badly hit – although boats keep appearing in odd places and many of them are partially blackened by fires. As we head east, the situation quickly deteriorates and the alien landscape of debris, bombed out shells of buildings, and really bad smells come over us. Driving is a challenge. The roadways were the first things to be cleared in the response and they have done a remarkably good job. But the combination of differential settling and subsidence, loss of pavement, piles of debris on either side of the roadways and large vehicles coming the opposite way make it a nail biting experience. And sometimes the road just ends – requiring a long backtrack to get back to firm footing. Megumi has been doing all the driving – thank goodness – and she has done an admirable job. Kessenuma is a major port and the impact to port structures will have economic reverberations for some time. The sunken boats created an oily sheen on the water. This area was knows for fisheries – one fisherman told us he thought it would be ten years before the area returned to normal.

Rikuzen-Takata is the southernmost city in Iwate Prefecture. It sits on a flat plane at end of an elongate bay that appeared to funnel the tsunami three to four miles inland up narrowing river valleys. It made me think of Orick and the mouth of Redwood Creek with about 23,000 more people. The sea walls were obliterated. Wood frame buildings were obliterated. Steel frame buildings were obliterated. The only structures left standing were reinforced concrete, and if you were lucky enough to be in one of those, you needed to be on the fifth floor or higher to survive.

The big question now in cities like Kessenuma and Rikuzen-Takata is how to rebuild. It’s clear from Japanese television that there is pressure from some experts to rebuild the sea walls – just higher and larger. There will certainly be discussions about zoning and land-use planning. There is no easy answer – land is at a premium in Japan and figuring out how to co-exist with the tsunami hazard will be difficult.