No.95 Response to Typhoon Disaster

In recent years, typhoons have become larger and slower each year, and tend to bring rain over longer periods of time to the same area. Great damage occurred again this year.
Typhoon No. 15, which made landfall near Chiba City just before 5 a.m. on September 9, 2019, is said to be the strongest typhoon ever recorded to have made landfall in the Kanto region. The city opened a voluntary evacuation center the night before, set up a disaster response headquarters at 9 p.m., and responded until 7 a.m. the next morning.
This typhoon had strong winds, causing many trees to fall in the city and causing major damage to crops. According to interviews conducted by the city hall and the agricultural cooperative, 15,160 kilograms of pear fruit fell during the harvest season, and the estimated damage amount was approximately 12 million yen.Although the amount is unknown, 16 vegetable farms were also damaged, and other agricultural facilities were also damaged. There was also some damage.
Chiba Prefecture was particularly badly affected, with approximately 640,000 households experiencing a large-scale power outage at its peak, the largest power outage since the Great East Japan Earthquake. It took more than two weeks to restore the water, and large-scale water outages occurred due to pumps at water purification facilities stopping.
The city loaded blue sheets, sandbags, and bottled water into two dump trucks and sent them to Kisarazu City as relief supplies. Additionally, we dispatched staff to Kimitsu City for nine days to help assess damage to houses and issue disaster victim certificates.
Typhoon No. 15 showed that prolonged power outages lead to water shortages. Each time a large-scale disaster occurs, the city has strengthened its efforts to secure drinking water and water for daily use in accordance with the anticipated expansion of damage, but we would like to learn from this situation as well.
Typhoon No. 19, which made landfall on the Izu Peninsula just before 7 p.m. on October 12, 2019, brought record heavy rain and caused extensive damage in the Kanto, Koshin, and Tohoku regions. The city established a disaster response headquarters at 10:30 a.m., completed the opening of all 21 evacuation centers for storm and flood damage at 11 a.m., and issued an evacuation advisory at 2 p.m. Around 4:00 p.m., the Tama River exceeded the flood level, and staff on site patrol reported that the Daimaru Yato River may overflow. If this tributary of the Tama River were to cause inland flooding, there was a risk that flooding would occur over a wide area, especially in the Oshidate area.Therefore, I asked the director of the Keihin River Office, which manages the Tama River, of the Kanto Regional Development Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, to conduct large-scale drainage. We requested the dispatch of a pump truck. This is the heavy equipment that participated in the local disaster prevention drill held on October 6, 2019, and many of you may have seen it. We left Chiba Prefecture and arrived at Inagi just after 10 p.m., and continued drainage work until around 3 a.m. on the 13th, which made it possible to prevent flooding.
This typhoon caused landslides in several places in the city, but there were no casualties. However, six rivers in Tokyo, including the Tama River and Asakawa, overflowed, causing flooding in Hachioji City, Ome City, Akiruno City, Chofu City, Komae City, Setagaya Ward, and other areas. As of the 16th, levees had burst at 90 locations in 59 rivers in seven prefectures, including the Chikuma River in Nagano Prefecture and the Abukuma River in Fukushima Prefecture, and flooding had occurred in 24 rivers managed by the national government and 229 rivers managed by 16 prefectures. It means.
In Soma City, Fukushima Prefecture, water facilities were damaged and large-scale water outages occurred. In the afternoon of the 13th, we received a request from the mayor of Soma to dispatch a water tanker, and we left the fire station at 8:30 p.m. that day and delivered it to Soma City Hall just after 2 a.m. on the 14th.
Typhoon No. 19 caused the first large-scale evacuation in the city, with 3,481 evacuees from 1,375 households at its peak, and unprecedented flooding across a wide area of ​​eastern Japan. We would like to continue our support and apply the lessons learned to prevent wind and flood damage in Inagi City.
We pray for the repose of the souls of those who lost their lives in the repeated typhoon disasters, and we also express our sympathies to everyone affected by the disasters and pray for their speedy recovery.