Akiko Iwasaki (age 54) lives by the sea near Kamaishi City in Iwate Prefecture. The inn she owns and operates is hit by the tsunami, destroying the entire first floor. Just then, Ms. Iwasaki was running through the parking lot to escape up the hill but was overcome by the wave. She talks of how she was sucked under like a whirlpool, all went dark and she calmly thought about how she was going to die like this. But then she tried swimming, clambered up to the surface, and was saved by a hairsbreadth. She opens her ruined inn to 20 plus refugees, supplying her own food stocks and working hard, turning her place into a private evacuation shelter. Next the ruined inn is deemed hazardous for refugee living, and she receives an official order to shut down by the end of March. Akiko Iwasaki, the innkeeper who was sucked under by the tsunami and barely escaped with her life, is now, beyond her will, forced into transience.