Re “What Would You Have Done?”
As the mayor of a small Japanese town half the size of Culver City, Futoshi Toba was working away in his City Hall office one month ago yesterday when the earthquake/tsunami of our lifetime leveled his community.
When the world went black at 2:46 in the afternoon in his seaside town, according to the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Toba only had a finger-snap of time to decide how his life would turn out:
• Should he drive into the mouth of the storm, to the family home that is at sea level, and try to rescue his 39-year-old wife, Kumi, mother of their two young sons, or
• Should he stand at the helm of his community, Rikuzentakata, and shepherd to potential safety the residents who elected him?
To say it more pragmatically:
Should he attempt to save one person, the love of his life, or, theoretically, preserve many lives by taking charge of the town?
Isn’t rescuing your family the obvious only choice — or not?
Businessman George Laase gave this slightly cynical opinion:
“Of course, the region's culture would have a lot to do with a person's reactions to a wide-spread emergency.
“But here in Southern California… for the ‘regular Joe,’ it would probably be every man for himself at the local scene, then check on family safety, and lastly community. Only after the event subsided and finding one's family was okay would there be calmer heads prevailing and people starting to work as a community on recovery.”
No time for surveys or reflections.
Almost immediately, the tsunami, in the form of an onrushing 40-foot tall wall of water, roared into downtown Rikuzentakata. Frantically, Mayor Toba and other occupants of the steel-reinforced City Hall dashed to the roof of the four-story building. They barely eluded the flooding, which had reached the top floor.
Without a precise explanation, the Journal says the mayor’s sons escaped injury because their school is on a hilltop.
For reasons you suspect will torment the 46-year-old Mayor Toba the rest of his life, he remained downtown. His wife perished, apparently.
Maybe he would have been buried en route home.
To quote the newspaper account:
“For weeks, Mr. Toba had been too busy to visit the morgue to see if Kumi was there. He also dreaded what he might find.
“‘As a husband, I’d like to go search for my wife, but I need to lead the way on the recovery effort,’ he said late last month. ‘Many people here are in the same situation.’”
