"The Towering Inferno." "Deep Impact." "The Road." Hollywood's notion of how communities react to a disaster is unequivocal: People panic, societies collapse and enemies take advantage of the chaos to settle old scores.
Had these cinematic assessments of the human character been accurate, then what occurred in Otsuchi, Iwate, after the March 11 earthquake ought to have been a bloodbath. Two days previously, Sea Shepherd environmentalists had arrived in the small coastal town to monitor the hunting of porpoise by local fishermen. The project raised residents' hackles, so when the tsunami swamped Otsuchi, cutting it off from the outside world, any armchair movie critic could have predicted what was sure to happen next: Hidden from the eyes of the law, the townsfolk would turn their harpoons on a new breed of land-based mammals.
However, Scott West, one of the Sea Shepherd crew marooned in Iwate that day, told The Japan Times what actually ensued. "Firemen led us and other stranded people to the small community where the survivors shared rice and soup with us. ... Later, we met a man who helped us out by arranging for someone to drive us over the mountain. We found great kindness and compassion."