What will you do if you cannot return home from campus? | Tomohiro Ichinose, Dean of the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies
The university has just finished its general entrance examinations, but students have already been on spring break since early February. I have introduced "Special Research Projects" before, and this spring break, I am teaching two projects, one of which I would like to introduce here: "Special Research Project B (SFC Disaster Response Project)." This project is handled cross-sectionally by four faculty members: myself, Associate Professor Seiko Oki, Associate Professor Shohei Matsukawa, and Associate Professor Naoki Wada.
As Associate Professor Oki reported in the December issue of "Okashira Diary," a disaster prevention drill assuming an earthquake directly beneath the Tokyo metropolitan area was conducted at the SFC Media Center. Universities have an obligation to prepare for various disasters. I also participated in that drill, and after checking the site, I waited at the headquarters. Even though I knew it was a drill, I felt my heart rate quicken at the reports of injuries and damage that kept coming in.
In this Special Research Project, we will conduct a drill assuming an earthquake occurs during a regular class period. A characteristic feature is that it involves not only the initial response but also actually spending a night on campus under the setting that returning home has become difficult due to the paralysis of transportation systems. During the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, many students and faculty members were unable to return home and were forced to spend the night at SFC. Note that while the SFC gymnasium is a designated emergency evacuation site and designated shelter for Fujisawa City, this is for local residents and is not prepared specifically for students.
Since the earthquake, Keio University has stockpiled food for three days and two nights, portable toilets, and drinking water at each campus in anticipation of people being unable to return home. However, at SFC, drills that actually utilize these supplies have not been conducted until now. In this project, while we cannot use the actual stockpiled items, we will prepare equivalent supplies and experience "remaining" (spending the night without going home) in a classroom with the students.
At SFC, in the event of a disaster, emergency power can be operated to provide minimum electricity and pump up well water. In the drill, we plan to gain practical experience that is usually not possible, such as touring these disaster prevention facilities and transporting the injured on stretchers. This time, the drill will be conducted on a scale of 40 to 50 people, including participants other than those enrolled in the course, but if a disaster strikes during an actual class period, even more students and faculty members will be affected on campus. To prepare for such unforeseen circumstances, we want to use this attempt to bring to light challenges that have yet to be seen.