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Adam Jones
All personnel should implement normal storm and power loss procedures by limiting the opening of refrigerators, windows and doors for energy and heat conservation. Minimize the flushing of toilets, running of faucets and be aware of food spoilage issues. On base water sources have been confirmed by our Med group as fine...no special handling required.
Off base residents are directed by Misawa City public works officials to boil water for at least 20 min prior to drinking/bathing.
The Grissom dining facility is currently open to all Misawa AB residents. Meal times are: Breakfast 0530-0800; Lunch 1030-1300; Expressway 1300-1400; Dinner 1630-1930; Midnight Meal 2230-0030; Box lunches available 24/7.
Currently, we do not have a good estimate from our downtown commercial power provider as to when power will be restored. Outage is currently forecast to continue well into Saturday.
The commissary expects to re-open Saturday, 12 Mar 0900.
The towers are built to rigorous earthquake standards. All housing towers on Misawa AB have been inspected by CE and sustained no damage during this afternoon's earthquake. There are no issues with residents living in or returning to their homes.
Misawa Air Base's steam generation plants are functioning however; our steam distribution capability has been hampered in some areas. Facility managers must maintain vigilance on their buildings and immediately report any water or steam leaks.
Good Morning to the residents of Misawa Air Base. I'd like to take a few minutes to give you an update on what's happened, the condition of the base and our services and facilities and get the words to you about some things you need to know.
First of all what has gone on around us from the course of yesterday and the evening, for those of you who don't have any connectivity, the Japanese have suffered some very serious damage. There is a significant relief effort underway, international relief efforts, and we are being told this is a record level of earthquake for Japan. That beind said, locally here the fish port at Hachinohe has received a significant level of damage from flood waters as the Tsunami made its way up into the area. Flood waters made their way all the way to route 338, for those of you familiar with that and in fact, traffic is now blocked heading toward the beach of Hachinohe or anywhere past that road. Damage assessments are on the way at this time.
The U.S. has initiated Operation Komodaichi, it stands for the word "friends". And we will be providing a significant level of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. Again, the entire international community is participating. What that means to us is we may become a transportation hub for relief supplies arriving via air within and around Japan.
Moving on to the status of the base, we had one or two small sewage and water line outages that occurred and were fixed overnight. Near and dear to all of your hearts: The base heat. The boilers are functioning; however our ability to push the steam and distribute it around the base has been impacted by the power outage. We're doing our best to move generators into position to power those pumps and facilities in order to get that heat distribution going and it's important that it's ongoing today. Our Civil Engineers are doing some great things and are going as hard as they can go. As you know it's not working right now. We're doing our best to ensure its working before this evening.
The Grissom Dining Facility is open and serving everyone. All of our base population is welcome to join them. The have extended dining hours. There will be reset times between standard meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner. They do have a midnight meal. We'll publish those hours and get that word to you as quick as we can. But, they are open to all personnel, everyone living on Misawa Air Base. They are open 24/7 for cold meals, sandwiches and MREs and you can knock on the back door 24/7.
The Falcon Feeder is down. So, the only food service available is available at the Grissom Dining Facility.
We are working feverishly to establish a heat and hot water capability at the Potter Fitness Center so that for those who would like to shower and clean up we can make use of that large facility by putting a portable hot water boiler in place. We expect that to be operation in about four hours. So, hopefully that will be available to the entire base population as we get up, nobody wants to take a cold shower... that will be available to you.
On base our water supply is good. Our bioenvironmental folks have continuously tested the water through the evening and our water system, it is good to go and good to drink. Of note: the water in Misawa City is NOT. It requires boiling before its potable Our two systems are not connected and so you can have good reassurance what we have on base is good to go. In fact, we've offered some capacity to the city for distribution purposes.
On that note, please make sure you do hydrate regardless of the cold temperatures. We need to make sure we're drinking enough water and we don't start suffering health effects.
For those of you who live in the towers... They have all been individually inspected by CE and are 100% safe to occupy. You do not need to have any concerns with that. All of our facilities on base have been looked at and so far we've seen no critical structural damage whatsoever. We've been very lucky and our housing and tower units have been very well designed to withstand earthquakes.
Finally, we have a number of connectivity issues. Internet has been up and down due to our connections through other places in Japan. For example, Yokota and several other locations are having issues because we all have power and connectivity issues right now.
To that light, the DSN, Defense Switched Network, is in back up mode right now. So, the phone calls that are going to be made are in a very limited capacity and I want to ask all if they show up to work or perform their duties to minimize their DSN calling off base that is necessary to only what IS necessary because of our limited capacity.
We have our priorities set to get the basic services restored as quickly as we can. As far as the electricity goes, from the commercial power feed, the civilians are working as hard as they can go. But of note, a large number of power plants were shut down when the earthquake occurred as a safety measure. We don't know the level of damage to those power plants but obviously, bringing those back online is not a short term task. So both the ability to distribute and the capacity to produce have taken a short term impact. And, we have no further news as to when commercial power may be restored.
Again, we've been very lucky. We have not suffered any serious injuries or any loss of life to Misawa Air Base or even to the local area that we are aware of- much unlike others. So, please keep those folks in your prayers and we appreciate your patience as you watch us work through getting everything restored.
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