Participants listen to presentations at the Disaster Evacuation Seminar at Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Japan, June 30, 2026. (Jonathan Baez/Stars and Stripes)
NAVAL AIR FACILITY ATSUGI, Japan — In a country struck frequently by tropical storms, typhoons, earthquakes and the occasional tsunami, it pays to be prepared and ready to evacuate, Navy families learned at a seminar here recently.
About 30 service members and their spouses spent 1½ hours June 30 at the Club Trilogy ballroom at NAF Atsugi learning evacuation protocols and picking up preparedness tips.
“We’ve got potential emergencies coming through all the time — earthquakes, typhoons. We cannot afford to not be prepared,” base commander Capt. Nicolas Leclerc told Star and Stripes after the seminar.
Good preparation includes a 72-hour kit, or “go bag,” on standby, with essential documents and knowledge of where to go when the word comes to move out.
The scheduled seminar proved timely.
Examples of 72- hour bags at the Disaster Evacuatioin Seminar at Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Japan, June 30, 2026. (Jonathan Baez/Stars and Stripes)
Two strong quakes rattled homes on June 16 and 26 on the Kanto Plain, where Atsugi is located.
Two tropical storms passed close enough to Tokyo in late June to dump drenching rains on the area, a reminder that Japan is also prone in places to flooding and landslides.
The base emergency management officer, Lt. Brooks McCall, reviewed the fundamentals of a 72-hour kit, a personally curated go-bag meant to help a family survive the first three days of a natural disaster before help arrives. Typical items inside the bag include medications, food, water and a first aid kit.
“Ready.gov has a list of what goes into a common 72-hour bag,” he told the audience. “If you don’t want to buy each of the items, you can buy a commercial all-in-one bag [at unchartedsupply.com] and update it to what your family needs.”
Petty Officer 2nd Class Miguel Arias, an aviation support equipment technician, said the seminar provided good information.
“I found it really useful, because it was things that I didn’t know, especially about the pets,” Arias said after the seminar. “My wife worked with the Fleet and Family Support Center, so she has all this knowledge about what we need, and she has done a really good job with our bags. The only part that we kind of screw up a lot is with the pet part on the food.”
A Power Point presentation by the Fleet and Family Support Center listed important documents to have ready, including personal and pet identifications, financial records, medical records and cash.
“This information will be shared. We’ve got a bunch of leaders from different commands here that can take it back,” Leclerc said. “A lot of families whose spouses are deployed are here, so they can share them with their returnees.”
Jim Reynolds discusses 72-hour bags at the Disaster Evacuation Seminar at Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Japan, June 30, 2026. (Jonathan Baez/Stars and Stripes)
Jim Reynolds, regional integrated prevention coordinator at the Regional Information and Personnel Center, during the seminar said families stationed in Bahrain had to evacuate at a moment’s notice when Iranian missiles rained down in response to Operation Epic Fury in February.
Many were unprepared, he said.
Atsugi and two other Navy installations in Japan are planning evacuation exercises July 20 to 24 to get people comfortable with those procedures, he said.
“This region [Japan] is more sensitive, we need preparedness,” Reynolds said.
