Posted on my other blog as well:

Mostly bad news. The nuclear emergency is only getting worse. I’ve read some extremely alarming things from pretty reliable sources. Of course it’s hard to be sure what to believe–even setting aside the likelihood that the Japanese government and the power company representatives would put a rosy spin on things to prevent panic, it must be very hard for even the people right at the scene to be sure exactly what’s going on or what will happen.

It seems very likely that there will be a major meltdown. The only chance to stop it seems to be a suicide mission by engineers at the site. There is no doubt in my mind that there are enough who will volunteer to carry out the mission, and those who do will be honored as heroes. What is uncertain is whether it will work.

The only good news is that the winds continue to blow out to sea which is normal and constant for this time of year, minimizing the land contamination and danger to the population, especially those of us in the south. But the high winds are also the reason that such things as dumping water from helicopters haven’t worked.

I have packed a backpack with water bottles and such, and I’ll get Junko to pack a bag too. We are going to coordinate with the rest of our family here on where to meet in case we need to move quickly to a shelter or even another city. Frankly we’d probably be better off sealing up the apartment and staying indoors if we got a dose of fallout. The chances of Fukuoka receiving dangerous levels of radiation are still quite small, but it feels better to be ready. And anyway, I should’ve put together a good emergency pack for each of us years ago.

I wouldn’t blame anyone for leaving Japan altogether at this point. A lot of my colleagues are traveling abroad right now, in fact, as it’s between school terms at the moment. I wouldn’t blame any who delay their return, either. But I have a wife, kids, grandkids…I’m not going anywhere. Not unless I can take them all with me.