Hoping Against Hope

Last night while watching a movie, I started hearing sirens. Because our house is located in what constitutes farm country here, we rarely hear sirens but this was a lot of sirens and they were coming down my street. Now, my street if you follow it to the end runs into the East China Sea and when I got outside, that is where all the emergency vehicles were parked. There were two fire trucks, two trucks with trailers (one with a boat, and one with a jetski), 3 cop cars and an ambulance. It was about 9:30pm at night. I put shoes on and headed out the door. Wanted to see what was going but also wanted to help if a search party or something was needed. By the time I got the three blocks in, there were lots of neighbors outside waiting to see what had happened.

Turns out that an elderly (and elderly here is completely different from elderly anywhere else...Okinawans live forever) who frequents the beach at the end of street for octopus and other staples, had not come home that evening and her family was worried. We stayed out there for over an hour watching the truck with the big lights scan the ocean and beach, snorkelers with rescue printed on their wetsuits suit up and run down to the beach. We thought perhaps she just didn't come home on time but was going to be okay.

Eventually a lot of the searchers came back up. Some of them left. One set of snorkler's came back for a surf board. The truck with the big light manuevered even farther down the beach. Then I started to see flashing lights at another beach down the way and realized that they had moved the search down the beach.

I came home without knowing what was going on. I have heard sirens on our street twice today. Finally I decided to walk down towards the water and see what I could find out. Apparently they haven't found her yet. The Japanese coastguard has a big boat off the beach searching for her and the helicopters are out as well. I hope they find her okay but I am thinking that it is not looking good now. I feel terrible for her family. The live in our neighborhood because she just walks to the beach in the evenings.

I guess if I see the black and white stripes in the next few days, I'll know it didn't turn out good.

Update on 3/14: I still don't know the outcome but today I have not heard any sirens and yesterday they were looking for her all day. Heard a rumor that she turned up at home but I don't know anything for sure.