The ground was still rolling when the calls came in from friends in Tokyo with details about the disaster. Their goal was to get the news out before the lines went down and the trans-Pacific network was swamped. By the next morning I concluded that the death toll would easily exceed 10,000 and could go to six figures. The million residents of Sendai were only given 15 minutes to evacuate, and thousands were swept out to sea. Trains packed with passengers were completely destroyed, as were busloads of fleeing residents.