There were drills taking place all over the city, but the main event took place in the Soga Sports Park, which is a huge area for sports that includes Fukuda Denshi Arena, the home stadium for Chiba's pro soccer team JEF United, Fukuda Denshi Arena, where my frisbee team has a big joint practice every month, and more playgrounds and fields.
I went with a couple of new arrivals to Chiba City, and although disaster prevention drills may not sound super exciting, it was actually really cool! We got to see things like tanks/helicopters/fire trucks/water trucks and other vehicles that get employed in disaster situations, other cool technology like a little plane that can be launched by hand to connect wireless transmissions over a wide area, and things like baths/showers/toilets that get set up in emergency areas (which was cooler than it sounds, I promise).
Other highlights included getting to see them make emergency rations and even get some, seeing them work on a replicated burning building, and getting to ride the earthquake truck, where we first felt a simulated earthquake of the same magnitude of how March 11 felt in Chiba, then how it felt in Tohoku. (It was pretty intense.)
PM Abe is in there somewhere, I promise |
Anyway, I thought I was pretty well-informed about disaster prevention before, but this was a good chance for a refresher and also get to some new information (and free stuff!), so I'm glad I went! Apparently the joint disaster prevention drill takes place in a different member city each year, too, so going this year was pretty lucky. :)
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