Gone...sorry

Hello all,

You may be wondering where I have ben and why I have not been posting lately. Multiple reasons but the biggest is that I have no internet at my apartment or working computer. At the moment I am staying after work to type and post on my blog.

Since I have been gone almost 3 months now there are tons or pictures and stories to tell but I think I will only share a few pictures and then talk about the most recent event.

A few weeks ago Kumamon was downtown handing out fans.

Goofing around with one of the awesome students from Luther. This is Takuya, or Taki for short.

My elbow was given a clean bill of health, but my elbow does have pain moving in certain directions. Also a little bit of cracking or locking up.

My first baseball game in Japan. It was a blast! You are constantly cheering and banging sticks to make noise. Sadly my school lost 2 to 1.

The past few weeks have been semi hectic and at times a little scary. If you were unaware Kumamoto and the southern half of Japan was hit with record breaking rain and flooding. Here in Kumamoto the whole average rain fall for the month of July fell in 1 day. The rain Reached 90cm to 100cm an hour (30-40 inches of rain per hour) raining for a day and a half strait. If I remember correctly the measured rainfall was between 580cm to 640cm. That’s 228inches to 251inches or 19 to 21 feet of rain. What made matters worse was that the rain also fell to the north of Kumamoto on a mountain causing mudslides. Overall the death count is currently set at 28 and some people are still missing.

A block away from my apartment people were cleaning the side streets after they had been flooded.

About 2  blocks away from my apartment this intersection is on a major road and was flooded out.

Same intersection as above. This is part of a taxi depot that was under about a foot of water.

This is the same street going in the oposit direction of my apartment.

This is a piller for a new brige being built in the midle of the Shiragawa river. As you can tell the water is abover the 7 mark. Normaly the river is at 2 or less.

Water from side streets being pumped back into the Shiragawa river.

The flooded Shiragawa river. Normaly where the box is there is land and a palm tree. You can also see the stair case on the right side that is barely visable.

A road completly flooded out next to the large river about a 7 minute walk from my apartment.

After a day and a half of hard rain there was alot of destruction. One of the pasters in the area was going to go volunteer and I descided I would do the same. We arived at the house and you can see for yourself the damage...

Dirt and ash from the volcano (Mount Aso) traveled down the Shiragawa river to Kumamoto. This home and place of buisness was covered with a good foot or more of dirt. The car is now totaled. 

You can see just how deep the dirt and ash was.

When my group started cleaning you could see nothing but black. The floor is still very dirty but this is allot better then when we started.

Allot of what you are looking at has been destroyed by the flooding. This was a printing building so hundreds of dollars in paper alone was destroyed.

Another angle, look at where the ground is and then where the pile of garbage is.....oh and it started raining again.

 Well Sorry this is relitivly short for my normal posts but I want to go home beofre it rains again. The sky looks a little dark. Anyway, Hope you are all well and please keep the family and friends of those that have died in your prayers.

-Patrick