[War] Japan: "Moving Forward"

[Ian Martell]

"Moving Forward"
Prime Minister Shunichi Sato
Japan
March 6th 2013

The rythmic whump-whump-whump of the rotors and the slight vibration they 
sent through the cabin of the JASDF executive helicopter almost soothing 
after the day he had. He kicked off his silt and mud caked shoes stretched 
his toes.

He looked up at the helicopter's other occupant. "Sorry," he said with a 
smile to Hanzo Haneda the Director of the Fire and Disaster Agency.

Haneda smiled back. "I understand completely Mr. Prime Minister," he said.

Sato had been on the ground in Akita today, one part of this was the 
standard photo op, the other was the truthful concern Sato had for what had 
happened and a desire to grasp the bredth of the destruction himself before 
he passed legislation about it. The destruction was in fact, less 
devestating as one was led to believe, but still heartbreaking for those 
caught up in it. Japan, was the best prepared country in the world for 
things like this. So as a result fatalities were generally low, 107, in the 
last tsunami that hit Akita, and those had been twice the size of the waves 
that hit them two days ago.

However luck was not on their side this time and when the waves hit, the 
Omori river floodgate, which was built to protect the city of Akita from the 
waters of the tsunami flooding up the river, had been undergoing repairs 
that required it to be kept open. When the warning came, the construction 
teams had tried to close the gate before the wave hit, but they didn't have 
the time. The waves surged down the Omori, washing some of those who had 
opted to stay and try their best to close the gate before the water hit with 
it.

Sato let out a sigh.

The other flood gates had closed automatically with the warning, and so when 
the waves hit them, the water was pushed outwards damaging homes and 
buildings as well as the Omorigawa power plant which had to shut down 
operations throwing much of it's service area into darkness.

Meanwhile on the cost, the prefecture's small fishing fleet, especially 
those on Tobi-shima were driven into one another or into the shore. 
Casualties were fairly light there though at least, most of the fishermen 
had been awake and and getting ready for the day when the alarms sounded. So 
though it must have hurt deeply to leave their boats to chance, they did 
heading for shore and shelter.

In all there had been 327 killed, and just slightly over twice that wounded. 
If it had been merely a matter of numbers like a test score, Sato could have 
wiped his brow and let out a relieved sigh. Compared to the rest of the 
world, those numbers were very low. But in the end it was not simply 
numbers, it was lives. He had prayed for them with the rest of the cabinet 
at Sensoji temple in Tokyo and again at a local temple with the governor of 
Akita when he arrived in the city. It had become a common practice in the 
last few years to make a show of piety and greif in public life. Which 
suited Sato fine, he felt both.

Now though the time for prayer and grief was over, he was the head of the 
Japanese government and as much as people wanted to see grief and piety, 
they also wanted action.

He looked up at Haneda. "Sorry," he said. "Just collecting my thoughts. 
Anyhow, what do you think?"

"It could be worse," he said. "But it could have been better."

As safe answer if Sato had ever heard one.

"What went wrong, and how can we fix it?" he asked.

Haneda weighed his words carefully. "Really sir," he said tentatively. 
"Nothing."

Sato gestured for him to continue.

"Well, the Japanese Meterological Agency's estimate on where the waves would 
hit were wrong, but given the amount of siesmic activity in the area it is 
not surprising there was some error, and the repairs... they were an 
unfortunate accident of timing. There was no warning that Baekdu would 
errupt and thus no reason to suspect things were no more dangerous than they 
would be at any time. If anything we might want to review if the doors could 
have been left in better operating condition while the upgrades were made, 
but that is about it."

Sato immediately dismissed the idea as something he would look at, he'd 
refer it to the governor and see it was quietly looked into.

"Fair enough," Sato said. "What needs to be done to bring things back to 
normal."

Haneda pulled out his hand-held computer, a locally made version of the 
famed Blackberry and pulled up a list from within it's electronic bowels.

"We will need to continue to bring in medical supplies and fresh water to 
Akita city and Tobi-shima, repairs are needed for the Omori river floodgate 
and the Omorigawa power station, as well as referbushing the damaged costal 
areas and the areas along the Omori river, we need to assess the damage to 
the costal highway and the Tohoku-line from Yamagata, and then we need to 
look over our warining sensors, and tsunami defences and see what can be 
done to make the results less damaging to the area in the future."

"How much would we need, do you think, to make all of that happen?"

He had asked this question of the commander of the military units sent to 
the region, the governor of Akita and a private contractor, he was curious 
what Haneda would say.

"Well the Red Cross is helping with water and medical supplies, and the 
local things like road repair will come out of the Prefectural budget, but 
with us handling the repairs to the powerplant and the floodgate, the review 
of the warning systems and defences and offering help to with rebuilding 
projects all in all I suppose we will be looking at around 24 billion yen 
(200million USD) that is not taking into account the drain our social 
systems like welfare while the fishermen wait for insurance payments for 
their boats."

Haneda had hit about the middle of the spectrum he'd heard today. "24 
billion?" he asked.

"Yes sir," he said.

"Off set by continued military assistance, we could cut perhaps about a few 
hundred million yen off of the costs if we use military engineers throughout 
the project."

"But we won't win many friends in the construction business besides it would 
come out of the army's operational budget. So we'll keep the army on the job 
until contracts can be made and handed over."

However Sato decided he'd have Hide have a few quiet chats with contractors 
they knew from Sato's time as the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure 
and see if he could convince a few of them to make a few highly publicized 
gestures and donate part of their services to keep costs down. Of course 
they would want something back but that could be handled later. It always 
was. As well there was international support to consider too, he had some 
ideas on that.

Haneda nodded. "I understand," he made a couple of notes in his hand-held 
and they continued to talk business until the helicopter finaly made its way 
around the Ou mountains and made it's way to land at Narita airport where 
both men went to their waiting cars.

Actions:

1> Visit the site of the Akita tsunami, pray, shake hands meet victims and 
aid workers and generally be shown caring on national TV because it's what 
the PM does in times like these. And personally examine the scope of the 
damage.
2> Ask the Diet to authorize the creation of a special tsunami relief fund 
which will be administered by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and be in 
total 26 billion yen. A complete record of all transactions made will be 
kept public and updated weekly on the ministry website for the sake of 
transparancy and to keep people from 'creative spending'.
3> Quietly talk to major Japanese contractors and twist their arms about 
donating some work on the relief effort, for future good will from the Sato 
government (this is Japan after all).
4> Hit up Canadian and US lumber companies that do buisiness in Japan for 
donations of timbers in order to help rebuild homes with the promise of 
official recognition for their help, and generally good PR.

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