Yesterday was the 10-year anniversary of the morning I woke up to the most violent earthquake I’d ever felt, with the skeleton of my apartment building roaring, actually roaring in pain as the walls and corners and doors twisted this way and that. I really thought the building was going to collapse. At that time I was single and lived in Takatsuki, Osaka, much nearer to Kobe than where we live now.

Because I come from Southern California, I knew exactly what was happening, but many people I talked to later did not realize it was an earthquake, as Kansai in the recent past had been relatively unshaken, especially compared with Kanto (Tokyo area). When it hit early in the morning, I didn’t bother with the ladder and jumped dowm off my loft and staggered to the door with the ground shifting underneath me, making walking difficult. People in Kobe near the epicenter whom I talked to later told me that walking was absolutely impossible. Data showed that ground shaking in Kobe was 100 times more powerful than in Takatsuki. I was lucky again. Earthquakes have so often happened around me, but never right under me.

The day before the disaster I had straightened up my apartment and bought candles, extra batteries for my shortwave radio and emergency water and food supplies. This was because the Northridge Earthquake in Los Angeles had occurred exactly one year earlier, Jan. 17, 1994, and the anniversary was on my mind. I moved to Japan exactly halfway between the two quakes, in July 1994. After the Hanshin Earthquake, some people called me “jishin otoko” (roughly, bringer of earthquakes) because of my unfortunately extensive experience.