By MACKENZIE ISSLER
Recorder Staff
This morning, Greenfield resident Bob Picariello boarded a flight to Tokyo, Japan, with his final destination being Ishinomaki, a city heavily hit by the recent earthquake and tsunami.
Picariello, 64, is traveling with and is on the board of the nonprofit, Fuel Relief Fund, which is now distributing heating fuel in Ishinomaki and Onagawa, a city and town in the Miyagi prefecture, where thousands are estimated to have died and are still missing after the two natural disasters.
The fuel distribution is now being manned by the nonprofit’s chairman, Ted Honcharik, a fuel distributor from southern California.
Honcharik will stay with Picariello for a few days after he arrives to show him the ropes, but then he will be departing, leaving the operation to Picariello and a translator. He will be in Japan for three weeks to distribute oil. If there is time left and no money left for oil, Picariello plans to find a carpentry crew to work with. Picariello has spent half of his career in the building trades and the other half as a counselor.
Fuel Relief Fund began donating and distributing heating fuel in Japan on March 24, where temperatures in the northeast region drop below freezing at night. The kerosene is being mostly used in small heaters. The nonprofit is giving out 2.5 gallons to each person and has already served hundreds of people, Picariello said.
Picariello first met Honcharik when he was doing relief work in Haiti weeks after the devastating earthquake there. This spurred another trip to Haiti for Picariello, this time with Fuel Relief Fund, where he helped deliver fuel to areas within 50 miles of Port-au-Prince, the country’s capital.
When Picariello arrives in Tokyo, he has to find a way to get to Ishinomaki, which is difficult now because the trains aren’t running. So, Picariello said that he may have to hitchhike. Once he gets there, he will meet up with Honcharik, who arrived in Japan on March 16, and within five days got a 1,000gallon truck and translator and connected with the mayor of Ishinomaki.
Ishinomaki is about 40 miles northeast of quake- and tsunami- ravaged Sendai and is about 60 miles from the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. It is about 240 miles north of Tokyo.
Picariello said his reaction when asked to go to Japan was “excitement and a feeling of satisfaction to be able to do something.” But, he is prepared for the devastation and death that awaits him. “I am able to hold the sadness and still try to do something.”
He said he isn’t worried about the acute effects of the radiation being released by the crippling nuclear power plant because he won’t be directly exposed. He doesn’t know any Japanese and is bringing two sheets of paper with him that have different phrases to help him along the way.
One man’s account
“The only services being provided to the survivors are food and water, both supplied by the government,” said Honcharik on the nonprofit’s blog. “The people who remain have nowhere to go and live in shelters or up on hills where the tsunami didn’t hit. The bigger inland cities along the coast also lack food and water, but travel is easier, making it easier for people to help.”
“It is incredible how a country with such great wealth and resources still cannot do enough to help in a time like this. There are just not enough resources to help everyone. In many of these cases, I only see it getting worse before it gets better,” he said.
When arriving for the second day of fuel distribution in Ishinomaki, there were already 100 people waiting in line for the fuel truck and once distribution started there were about 200 more who showed up.
“After distributing for a while, we had to start counting the number of people in line,” said Honcharik. “We had to tell them what person would be the last to receive oil before we ran out for today … We informed the others that if they wanted to stay in line, we could send the truck back for more oil once we ran out, but the wait would be substantially longer.”
“When the fuel truck left, over 100 people were still waiting in line for the oil to return. Some of these people have been waiting as long as four hours since they got in line, but still they remain so appreciative and grateful. The people here keep complementing and thanking Fuel Relief Fund for what we are doing, it makes every moment here and every dollar received and spent worthwhile to see how happy these recipients get over very minimal amounts of oil to keep their families warm.”
After distributing in Ishinomaki, Fuel Relief Fund went east to a coastal town called Onagawa to see if officials were interested in its fueling program.
“It was unbelievable… I just do not have the right words to describe the devastation you witness and the emotions that go through you, when you see what these communities have endured and continue to deal with,” said Honcharik. “As we drove into the town, it looked as though 95 percent of the town was completely destroyed and just gone.”
When the nonprofit approached people from the town about providing free heating oil, Honcharik said he has “never seen such big smiles and immense gratitude from complete strangers the minute they heard this news.”
Honcharik says the “path and sheer size of the tsunami destruction are just so hard to describe, but this is the best I can do.”
“For anyone who has ever lived near the coast, imagine that all two-story homes are completely under water for at least a mile or two inland. From the roof of those homes you would still need to swim another 20 feet straight up to come close to the surface.”
“The problem is that it still does not begin to describe it. In addition to the height of this tsunami is the incredible force.” “This force of water is unbelievable, coming at you at a hundred miles per hour. It takes everything in its path with it. Tall, solid concrete buildings are no matches for this beast. The buildings are toppled over, completely destroyed, and now lay upside down or sideways a hundred yards from where they once stood.”
“To me this disaster is worse than all of these disasters that Fuel Relief Fund has helped in the past, combined.”
Honcharik said, after fueling an old man’s can, the man asked our fuel supplier for a cigarette, and was so happy to receive one.
“Not knowing Japanese, I waved him over to me and walked him to my car while carrying his can. I opened the car door and handed him a full pack of smokes, and he started to cry heavily.”
“He could not speak and continued to cry as he walked to where (the translator) was standing to say with tears in his eyes: ‘If America ever has something like this happen, I will do whatever I can to come and help.’” While in Japan, Picariello will continue blogging at http://fuelrelieffund.wordpress.com.
For more information on Fuel Relief Fund or to donate, visit: www.fuelrelieffund.org
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