Japan Quake and FFXI Server Shutdown

[Areya]

The earthquake off the coast of Japan a couple of days ago wreaked havoc on the country and caused death and destruction.  Our hearts go out to the victims.   

We have a couple of Lucky folks in Japan that we haven't heard from, if anyone hears from them, please let us know!  I know things are nuts over there and they may not have power or networks.

Also, due to the widespread disaster, this was posted:

An excerpt from the Caution posted on
TOKYO ELECTRIC POWER COMPANY (TEPCO)’s home page:

A big earthquake occurred in the northern part of Japan at 2:46PM of March 11th 2011. Because TEPCO's facilities have been seriously damaged, power shortage may occur.
TEPCO appreciates customers' cooperation in reducing electricity usage by avoiding using unnecessary lighting and electrical equipment.
We are taking all measures to restore power, however, we expect extremely challenging situation in power supply for a while. We kindly ask our customers to cooperate with us in reducing usage of power.

Because of this, SE has shut down FFXI and FFXIV for at least a week.  Also, they're not charging for April.  Hopefully things will recover and things will start to return to normal.

[Inafking]

We need to find a good charity to send our monthly subscription fees to.  (NOT the red cross)

[Majestica]

Power is slowly being restored to the base we used to live on in Japan, it's about 230 miles north of Sendai. They're working on the phone lines now there, my facebook updated they have 120 DSN lines now and like 46 commercial phone lines working right now. Some of the housing has power, but not all, some dorms are still without. Hope you hear from Selan soon, anyone know where he was staying exactly?

[Inafking]

http://www.japansociety.org

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/

Working on a link for the Fairfax County VA Search & Rescue. (first Americans on the ground.   They are usualy the first Americans anywhere something bad happens.)

Red Cross has a lot of overhead and a lot of the money is wasted.   But George Takei and the Japanase Embasy are endorsing them.

Donate to whoever you like, but whatever you do, don't just hang on to your April account fees.

[Zerila]

I'm waiting to donate until I find out if my work will be doing a donation match for this (they usually do, they did for Haiti and many other disasters). That way I get more bang for my donation buck.

Just make sure to check whatever charity you donate to, apparently there are scammers popping up all over trying to get money out of people (I'd call them vultures, but vultures actually have a purpose in nature  )

[Majestica]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110312/bs_ac/8044522_8_ways_to_help_japan_after_massive_earthquake_1

[Selan]

Hey Guys...

Thanks for everyones concern. I am lucky to be living in Hiroshima when this occurred.  Hiroshima was not affected by the tsunami or the earthquake. However, I know people in Japan are in pain. Today I went to school and no one really talked about it. You can tell though that people just wanted to forget the situation and move on. I guess that's a normal reaction. I do however have a friend who lived in my town last year. He moved to Iwate with his family and child. Basically, that's exactly where the tsunami hit the hardest. The whole town is gone. He is alright but he has nothing except for his clothes and his car. He was extremely fortunate that his wife and his child were at the hospital for checkups when the earthquake occurred. I imagine if she was not at the hospital, she wouldn't be here now considering her apartment was about a 5 minute walk from the beach.

The one thing everyone is really sensitive about in Hiroshima is the nuclear power plant problem. Hiroshima is known for the bomb and people are quite touchy about anything that deals with nuclear power. I just hope no meltdown or other problems occur in the coming days.

James (Selan)

[greenwood]

Good to hear that you're doing good Selan. If you need anything let me know... I'll help where I can.

[Majestica]

Awesome to hear from you Seran-wrap. We were all worried! I was looking at pictures of Hachinohe (A small fishing town on the coast near Misawa), remembering all the times we drove there and shopped and had lunch... the whole place is just gone. Swept off the map like it was in SimCity and someone just used the bulldoze tool. It's still a very personal thing, I can't even begin to comprehend what everyone there is feeling.  It's still bringing tears to my eyes thinking about it... Chris tried to get orders back there after his tour in Korea... what if we had got them? It's crazy! Anyways.... glad to hear you're ok, here's to hoping Japan gets a break for a little while now.

[Areya]

Yeah man, glad to hear you're safe and sound.

[Selan]

Another aftershock hit Shizuoka, which is the Mt. Fuji area. Somewhat close to Tokyo. Wasn't a 9.0 but was still a 6.2.

[Ennaor]

Do you feel the earthquakes in Hiroshima? 

[negotiator]

Glad to hear your ok

[Selan]

Yeah not really. Hiroshima is like another world from Northern Japan. I feel really bad though for the people in Sendai and Tokyo. The rolling black outs aren't cool.

[Areya]

Yeah, they're still having energy problems over there.  They've extended the game outage to the 22nd.  It'll likely get extended even more at that point.

[Areya]

Services are tentatively scheduled for restoration at 4:00am PDT on the 25th (Friday).  Says they cut off the A/C over there and reduced lighting in order to free up enough power to do that.  Thank goodness it's not summer over there or that would be evil.

[Majestica]

None of the housing on Misawa AB has air conditioning. Depends what part of the country they're in... there was only 1 really hot month in Misawa and it was August.... when I had Danny. I begged not to leave the nice air conditioned hospital lol. There were a few months where it was "Not snow" then all the rest were "Winter." lol