What happens when you guys land in Japan? I assume your equipment has landed at the same spot that you’ve landed. What happens from the minute that plane touches down and they open the cabin door; what starts to happen for you guys?

Capt. Knerr: There are two different levels. Obviously [when] we get off we need to clear customs, immigration, and say, “Hey, we are here to help,” but they are a well-established country with well-established procedures, and their entire infrastructure isn’t down. This was unlike Haiti where the gates opened and everybody just said, “Come on in!” [In Haiti] there was no accountability; you just showed up.

Here it had much more structure. You still had to go through a process to get in [to the country] and we went through that check process. It wasn’t a significant process in that it delayed us. It didn’t but then we had to begin negotiations because to get our equipment over the ground, 60,000 pounds … now times two, because L.A. was with us as well, you know, we are looking at a 130,000 pounds of equipment with 150-plus people.

And it was the U.S. Air Force that brought that stuff over?

Lt. Vaughan: Yes, it was, and then they were actually the ones that helped transport us south.

Capt. Knerr: Yeah. They were the ones who transported us south and provided all the transportation we needed, but we had to go through some negotiations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs over there. One explaining what our capability was, what our needs were as far as transportation but other logistical needs as far as fuel and stuff. Things like that, to get us in theater and ultimately see where they need us. We make sure they know that we are here to help you. It’s not a matter of us just running out the door and saying, “Where do you want us to go?”

Talk a little bit about the language and sort of cultural barriers. Because again you’re showing up in a foreign country on its worst day. Do they know that you are coming in? Do they know a bit about your history and that of L.A.’s, when you land? Where there any sort of language or cultural implications and barriers that you had to deal with, or did they give you someone who was assigned to you to be a counselor, or a minder or someone who just went with you to provide some language assistance.

Capt. Knerr: That was Mr. Caboto for us.

He was a gentleman from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We had representatives there able to translate for us whether it was through the Air Force or through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I don’t know that we ever had any significant cultural issues or translation issues. Obviously you can always use more translators in a foreign country, in that we’re not native tongued, so, obviously as any translators you can get would be [great to have]. But we had personnel there to assist us through every step of the process and to help us find ways around some of the processes.

When you got there, did they have in mind where they wanted your team to go and where they wanted L.A. to go. You mentioned that there were teams there from Great Britain, and New Zealand, and Australia. Did they have a map or grid that they laid out on the table, and said we want you to take this section and you to take this section?

Capt. Knerr: It started out with the name of a town. Ofunato [a coastal city in Iwate, northeast Japan].

We were just given this roughly a 125-square-mile area. They [Japanese officials] told us, “We had limited reports coming in from that area as far as the damage, so we need you to go down there and get us some information.” That was the extent of it. I believe it had been damaged by the tsunami and not the quake itself, but ultimately it was the tsunami that wiped it out.

What did they tell you about Ofunato? What was it like the Thursday (March 10) before the quake? Obviously they were asking you to find out what it was like after the quake and the tsunami. What did they tell you about what it was like?

Capt. Knerr: They ultimately just told us that there was about a 125-miles-square area and it was a port town. So obviously there is a fishing industry down there and then just regular residential, commercial structures down around that area, that is spread out over 125 square miles, and that once again there was limited information coming out of there. They did have some contact with a local fire brigade that was there operating and they were the ones that established where they needed us to show up; where to set up our base camp, who to report to, and once we got there, what areas to work.

So, you get to Ofunato how?

Capt. Knerr: The airport provided us transportation.

They loaded you guys on choppers?

Capt. Knerr: Yes. Some went in choppers, but I don’t remember how many plane rides we had, or how many helicopter rides we ended up having but I think it was around 4…

Lt. Vaughan: The convoy we had was broken down at the Air Force Base [Misawa] and they separated out on Air Force tractor trailers and state body trucks. We split out the cargo cache and then they had their buses to carry the personnel. The convoy was broken down at the airport and the air transportation that they had arranged for us wasn’t [U.S.] Air Force. It was through the Japanese Civil Defense, which was also stationed on the Misawa Air Base. Because that’s a joint military base, it’s U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and then there is a Japanese Civil Defense Force there as well. So we used their helicopters.

They [the Japanese] were the ones that were making the arrangements to get us down there, and basically what the concept was, was just to try to send an advance team so as to get someone down there. [In this case] team members both from L.A. and Fairfax down there as soon as we could to assess the situation and give them as much feedback [as possible].

We would make an aerial view of where we were going into, and then look at our base of operations, this being the place, the site that they had designated for us to stay. That was delayed a few times, because there were some aftershocks that had occurred and tsunami warnings went up, and they did not want …

For the rescuers to need rescuing?

Lt. Vaughan: Right, they did not want the choppers flying into that situation, so they delayed them, which kind of slowed the advance team process up a little bit, but we still ended up getting there before the convoy did.

One of the things that we were able to do on the approach was we were able to talk to the Japanese pilots, and we were able to do a coastline aerial view of the tsunami damage. They flew I think it was roughly about 50, 60 miles north of Ofunato, out towards the coastline, and they flew down low and flew the coastline so we could assess the damage in that general area and see what the tsunami had done. Once we got to Ofunato, we flew into that port town.

What did you find? Describe it.

Lt. Vaughan: Well when we did the aerial assessment, one of the first things that really stood out was the amount of debris that was in the water already. When the tsunami withdrew, everything is has a push-pull effect. So you had this massive amount of water that rushes in and pushes all and breaks everything up, and pushes it up a considerable amount of distance, depending on the geography, because that varied.

Along the area where we were, kind of resembled northern California, Oregon’s coastline with cliffs, and huge rises over the ocean shoreline. It wasn’t real beachy or anything like that. So it was rough and rugged which allowed these marina cities and towns, fishing ports and so forth to be nestled up in these canyons along the coastline, which really intensified the tsunami effects because they got funneled up into these areas and you could see that – the considerable distance that the wave and energy had pushed up into those canyons and how far it had gone up. And then, like I said, all the debris and everything that were pulled back out into the water.

Did you link up with any other teams once you got there or this was just the area that both Virginia and L.A. had to work?

Lt. Vaughan: There were also the teams from the United Kingdom that were there with us as well.

Capt. Knerr: There was also a contingent from China that was south of us as well.

Was it the first time you guys had encountered working with the Chinese?

Capt. Knerr: We’ve worked with a lot of different organizations throughout our years, in training exercises and other earthquakes. Personally, it’s the first time I’ve physically worked with them, however, they had representatives at other drills and stuff.

Where did you guys set up your base camp?

Capt. Knerr: We set up at an elementary school in … I don’t have the correct pronunciation or the spelling of it right now. It was I believe Sadomasei, Sadomasai, Elementary School. They had a ball field for us and also a gymnasium for us. Ultimately we put our personnel inside the gymnasium and stored our equipment right outside of that in the courtyard area.

What were conditions like? We’ve all seen these photos of ships literally in the middle of highways and on top of buildings and everything. Is that basically the story of what you were encountering there?

Capt. Knerr: It’s exactly what we were seeing.

Lt. Vaughan: Yeah, very large objects, you know, buses, tractor trailers, large tug boats, you name it. And considerable distance inland and places that they are not supposed to be.

Capt. Knerr: You are not used to see a fishing vessel that far in.

Lt. Vaughan: Like a mile inland …

Capt. Knerr: We have pictures of a tug boat sitting obviously where it is not supposed to be, in considerable elevation compared to where the water was, and at considerable distance inland. Almost a mile from the coastline, just to realize how big of a wave it had to have been to get it up there.

And there is no real way to drag that back to the water.

Capt. Knerr: Yeah. That’s what we were joking around about was that they were gonna have to put stilts on it and make it a restaurant. How do you get that out?

Part 1 – Answering the call

Part 3 – Radiation concerns and tsunami survivability

Part 4 – The decision to come home

Part 5 – Japanese resiliency and comparing one disaster to another