As I feared, it was raining when I went to work today as Typhoon 18/Typhoon Etau (aka Tropical Storm Etau) continued its path across Japan.

The news reported delays on part of a key train line so I figured there were going to be some delays. Right after I got to school, I was told that, although it hadn’t been announced officially yet, classes were going to be delayed.

Then, at 8:00 a.m. the intercom speaker crackled and we were informed that, because of the delays, classes would start an hour late and the classes themselves would only be 40 minutes long. This was a bit surprising as it was the longest delay since I’ve been at the school. I knew the situation must be pretty bad.

I quickly notified the other five teachers right about the time one of them walked in the door. A while later, another walked in.

The others contacted us and we set about planning for the day and making assignments. I then got a message from one of the other teachers that the delayed train line had stopped completely.

A few minutes later we saw a serious looking “all hands’ meeting of teachers taking place just outside our office door. A few minutes after that we were told classes had been cancelled.

This prompted another round of messages and one “did I read that correctly” phone call.

The three of that made it to school spent the next couple hours planning tomorrow and next week. I tried to figure out how to squeeze 16 days of lessons in a class that was only going to meet 15 more times. We didn’t yet know about the levee breaches in Ibaraki.

After I finished that work I went home and worked on my home computer and that’s when I learned about Joso and the flood which made paperwork seem dramatically less important.

Our family’s hearts and prayers are with the people of Joso. We hope the rain has stopped and the waters are receding.