Dengler, who participated in a post-Japan tsunami survey team soon after the disaster, will discuss connections between Northern California and Japan, including the geographic and tectonic settings, how the 2011 Japan tsunami and the 1700 Cascadia tsunami affected both regions and the links made by ocean currents.
“It’s a privilege to speak at the Tokyo National Museum at any time,” says Dengler, “but to talk on the occasion of the five-year commemoration of the 2011 earthquake is an extraordinary honor.”
She’ll also recount personal, geologic, and cultural connections between Japan and the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, including the journey of the small boat Kamome the tsunami swept into the ocean off the coast of Rikuzentakata, Japan. In 2013, it washed ashore the coastal Northern California town of Crescent City, about 350 miles north of San Francisco. Dengler was one of the experts who examined the boat and a part of the process that connected it back to Takata High School in Rikuzentakata.
With the help of a group of Del Norte High School students, the boat called Kamome was returned to Japan—an event that began a sister-school relationship between Del Norte High School and Takata High School.
Since then, groups of students have traveled across the Pacific to visit each other’s schools. A Del Norte group was in Japan in February 2014, and another group is currently there. A Takata High group visited Del Norte High in January 2015.
“This sweet story of the boat, something that was lost in the tsunami and then returned, is a wonderful way to get people on both sides of the Pacific talking about our similarities and shared hazards,” says Dengler. “We call Kamome the boat of hope–hope not just for Japan, but for us as well.”
The story of the boat and student exchanges are captured in the bilingual children’s book, “The Extraordinary Voyage of Kamome: A Tsunami Boat Comes Home.” Authored by Dengler and Amya Miller, Special Assistant to the Mayor of Rikuzentakata, and designed by local artist Amy Uyeki, the book was published in November 2015 and is the inaugural publication of Humboldt State University Press.
The boat, which was on display at the Tokyo National Museum for three months last year, is currently at the Nagoya City Museum. The boat will eventually become part of a permanent commemorative display in Rikuzentakata once a museum can be rebuilt.
About Lori Dengler
Lori Dengler is an expert in earthquake and tsunami hazards and hazard mitigation. She was part of post-tsunami survey teams to Papua New Guinea, Peru, Indonesia, Crescent City, Samoa, Chile, and Japan. She’s a founding member of the Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group, which works to reduce earthquake and tsunami hazards and to promote a coordinated and consistent mitigation program for all coastal areas.
Read about the boat and the book at humboldt.edu/kamome.