Since the evening of March 11, all of Cloud’s attention has been
on Japan and the damage her home country received by the
9.0-magnitude earthquake and a following tsunami, while her husband
Bill Cloud spent years working at the affected nuclear plants,
including at Fukushima.
Since the evening of March 11, all of Cloud’s attention has been on Japan and the damage her home country received by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and a following tsunami.
The 75-year-old Hollister resident was born and grew up in Sendai, Japan, before falling in love and moving to California 20 years ago. But most of Cloud’s family still lives in Northern Japan – and she is still worried, while her husband Bill Cloud spent years working at the affected nuclear plants, including at Fukushima.
His wife’s hometown, Namie, was hit hard by the earthquake and tsunami, Bill Cloud said.
“It was one of the hardest cities hit,” said Cloud, of Hollister. The two had met years back in Tokyo while he had been an engineer with General Electric Nuclear and she had been working for G.E. International.
The city is on the coast in Northern Japan. Ki Kue Cloud made contact with her nephew on Sunday for the first time and her family is doing well. But she wishes she could do more to help, she said.
With transportation problems in Japan, she was told by her nephew not to send supplies. She can’t fly to her home. All she has been able to do is send some monetary donations and watch the news for more information.
“All I can do is ask for everyone to pray for my mother country,” she said. “I have a firm belief they will recover.”
Most of her family has been accounted for as authorities still search through the rubble, she said. Despite electricity problems in Japan, she has sent and received a constant stream of emails to family members in the area.
She has been trying to tell her family to be patient, and that everything will be okay.
“I’m old enough to be patient, but I can’t do anything else to help because I’m not there to help,” she said.
Cloud’s husband is tied to the area as well, after working on the two units at the nuclear plant in Fukushima.
Years spent at nuclear plant
They have been affected by the large tsunami wave that knocked out their cooling systems.
Working for General Electric from 1967 to 1969 and 1975 to 1980, Bill Cloud was a part of the engineering team assigned to the two reactors.
After working on the reactors, he is well aware of the dangers they bring. The cooling system is the issue, he underscored.
The plant uses water to cool down the extremely hot fueling rods, but the tsunami damaged the reactor, removing the water. The plant’s backup plan had included use of diesel generators that were wiped out by the 22- to 33-foot surge of water.
“That was the beginning of the failure,” he said.
But the 88-year-old realizes he doesn’t have all the information to know what exactly is going on.
“We know what the news gives us,” he said.
Regardless of the damage and devastation in Japan, Ki Kue Cloud expects the country to recover in the next few years.
“If Japan can’t do it with all of its technology, who can?” she said.
