Our Impatience with Distant Events

As we watch the disaster unfold in Japan, I've noticed that our impatience has grown. We want solutions to be put into place immediately, but do not recognize why that is impossible. We want ample supplies delivered to hard to reach shelters. We want electrically operated safety measures at the affected nuclear plants put back on line right away. We want lots of things that are impossible.

In a disaster setting, nothing is easy. Nothing goes as quickly as it would under normal situations. It's just been reported that new power lines are close to reaching the reactor site. Why did that not happen earlier, some might ask? It did not because it could not. The work to do that started right away, but went unreported. In the best of times, erecting new power lines to this site, adequate to run the powerful safety pumps and other equipment, would take considerable time. In the worst of times, as they are now, they're working as fast as they can.

Getting supplies to tsunami damaged communities and their shelters is complicated by blocked roads, inadequate fuel supplies, and the sheer logistics of assembling and loading the supplies. They're on their way, and have been from the time the disaster occurred. We see videos from two days ago, and assume that is the situation throughout the region. We don't see videos of the supplies reaching shelters...only videos of shelters that are short of supplies. That's what gets broadcast.

For most of us, realizing the realities of the extent and severity of this disaster is very difficult. We have limited information, and much of it is repeated over and over again, even though it may be days old. Often, we don't even know when news footage is recorded when we see it broadcast, or find it on a blog or other site. It's just raw images that we can't properly interpret.

I take it for granted that efforts are ongoing in Japan, and have been since the earthquake first struck. I have no doubt that caring people are expending extraordinary efforts to get relief to those who need it and to take whatever measures are possible to minimize the damage from the nuclear plants. I can't imagine that everyone is not doing their absolute best to do everything possible. I may not be able to see it all happen, but I know those efforts are being carried out as diligently as possible. I'm impatient, too, and worried, and frustrated by being here and not able to help directly.

I think we all need to make the assumption that everyone is doing everything in their power to handle this disaster. It is, however, a major disaster, and recovery from it is far down the road. We all need patience. We all need to find ways that we can help, to the best of our ability, and to the extent of our resources. But we all need to assume that people are working to exhaustion in their efforts in Japan. I can't imagine that is not so.

We tap our toes in impatience whilst awaiting our lunch to be ready in the microwave... we get angry because all of our ills aren't cured immediately after electing Democrats... even television programming is created with short attention spans and impatience in mind.

A watched pot never boils... if you keep opening the oven door to check on the cookies, they will never be done... don't waste time that could be spent praying on worry... Granny was right about so many things.

No power, no fuel, no ice, no fresh food, roads blocked for weeks afterwards. You have to live through it to understand the degree of destruction in a major event. Power sub-stations are gone, lines are gone, transformers are gone. Frankly, I'm impressed they have managed to respond as quickly as they have.

severe than most people realize, and this one is a huge disaster. From what I can see, the Japanese people are more patient than we are here, thousands of miles away. That's typical, I think. The people who are actually affected by a disaster realize just how difficult things are, and understand why things don't happen instantly.