Swept Away

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Speaker 12 Everything just began to shake.

Speaker 12 Just kept asking, where is she? Have you seen her?

Speaker 12 I wouldn't know what I'd do without her.

Speaker 14 It looked like the world was ending.

Speaker 12 Growing up in Indiana, tsunamis and earthquakes are the things that you only see in Hollywood films.

Speaker 14 He was sure his world had ended. The love of his life was missing.

Speaker 12 That feeling that she's not all right began growing as each minute went by.

Speaker 14 Strangers in a strange land. They'd fallen in love.
Then the quake hit, and all he knew was that her town was gone.

Speaker 12 Literally, come hell or high water. I was getting into that damn town.

Speaker 14 And that's where he headed, right into that hell, willing to risk his life to try to save hers.

Speaker 12 There's fires on the hill, fire on the water.

Speaker 14 But could he get there in time?

Speaker 17 I never loved someone the way I loved Georgia.

Speaker 14 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 14 Here's Keith Morrison with Swept Away.

Speaker 4 Who can say what lurks out there past the horizon, waiting impersonally, utterly at random, as thousands of lives tick to their unknowing ends?

Speaker 13 And simple coincidence, a young man from Middle America made a single decision.

Speaker 15 Could you imagine back there in Indiana that you're about to make your life flip on its head this way?

Speaker 21 No, no, never.

Speaker 19 how could he know that on the other side of the world a young woman made exactly the same decision

Speaker 19 or that they'd meet practically on the eve of one of the biggest natural disasters in recent memory

Speaker 24 or how could he know that in the middle of disaster he'd lose her

Speaker 12 i wouldn't know what i'd do without her

Speaker 13 So coincidence, love, disaster.

Speaker 24 There is no fairness about these things.

Speaker 3 They just are.

Speaker 22 Zach Brannon turned 23 in 2010.

Speaker 28 Had just picked up a degree in history from a college in Indiana.

Speaker 30 No idea what to do next.

Speaker 9 And then he saw an offer for a job in Japan.

Speaker 32 A two-year stint teaching English to elementary school kids.

Speaker 22 No Japanese language skills required.

Speaker 15 Why Japan, of all places?

Speaker 12 I don't think there's any rhyme or reason to it. I think it was just offered to me, and I

Speaker 12 jumped on it.

Speaker 9 The town they sent him to in Japan, called Kuji, was a long, long way from his hometown of Nashville.

Speaker 6 Nashville, Indiana.

Speaker 26 On Sundays, he Skyped with his parents, John and Terry Whitgamma.

Speaker 12 How did he seem to be doing?

Speaker 34 It was rough at first.

Speaker 34 The language thing was the big thing.

Speaker 28 You were a stranger in a strange land.

Speaker 35 Yes, yeah.

Speaker 13 Was it a lonely feeling?

Speaker 36 Yeah.

Speaker 12 It was. But it was made better by the fact that there were other foreign teachers in town.

Speaker 24 Along with the teachers, there was one other person, a volunteer, who helped the foreign teachers adjust.

Speaker 9 A local English-speaking businessman named Kenji Harayama.

Speaker 22 Kenji, a pretty accomplished guitarist, found out that Zach was too.

Speaker 17 I was very amazed by his songs, his original songs.

Speaker 22 Also, he played guitar very well.

Speaker 10 Kenji pulled out an old Gibson, handed it to Zach.

Speaker 12 And he said, consider it yours while you're here.

Speaker 33 Zach took that guitar to school, trying to break the ice.

Speaker 12 I think that that kind of helped break down that barrier a bit.

Speaker 13 But just three weeks in, overwhelmed by homesickness, he called his parents.

Speaker 17 He had had enough.

Speaker 12 As maybe embarrassing as it is, I was actually crying. And I said to him, you know, I can't do this anymore.

Speaker 40 I want to come home.

Speaker 41 And we said,

Speaker 41 no, you made a commitment.

Speaker 42 You're a man. You gave your word.

Speaker 37 How hard was it to say that?

Speaker 41 It was really hard.

Speaker 40 It was really hard, though.

Speaker 12 And I may have probably hung up the phone a bit angry at him because it wasn't the answer I wanted to get, but in retrospect, I'm really glad.

Speaker 27 But Zach tried to make it work.

Speaker 33 And then one night when the teachers got together, there was someone new.

Speaker 4 Another teacher just returning from a sunny vacation.

Speaker 12 There was this beautiful, tanned Georgia coming back from Croatia.

Speaker 9 23-year-old Georgia Robinson, a recent university graduate herself from New Zealand.

Speaker 21 She'd been teaching and living in a nearby town on the coast called Noda.

Speaker 21 In October, they all went to a karaoke bar.

Speaker 12 I found out she was a huge fan of Kiss.

Speaker 12 So, you know, myself loving rock and roll, and that sparked my interest.

Speaker 2 Didn't seem to be the same the other way around.

Speaker 12 Well, no, actually,

Speaker 37 because

Speaker 12 I didn't hear anything from her after that night.

Speaker 22 No idea but back in New Zealand George's cousin Chelsea started hearing about a guy named Zach.

Speaker 44 She said that he was really outgoing and really nice person who was interested in all the same sort of things as her, like the same music and the

Speaker 44 same movies.

Speaker 22 And then a few weeks later she called him.

Speaker 12 And then from then on we ended up spending progressively more and more time together.

Speaker 19 It was a happier young man who went home to Indiana for Christmas.

Speaker 32 Zach introduced his parents to Georgia, sort of.

Speaker 41 I met her on Skype, but bless her heart, she had the flu.

Speaker 3 What did you think about this relationship with a girl so far away?

Speaker 34 We weren't putting that much stock in it.

Speaker 41 We were grateful that he had someone to spend time with.

Speaker 12 I was talking to my mom, and she's like, so you really, you really care for Georgia, don't you? And I was like, yeah. And my mom got a bit choked up.

Speaker 12 She's like, well, what happens if you move to New Zealand? And I had to assure my mother and say, that's never going to happen, mom.

Speaker 22 Come January, Zach seemed eager to get back to Japan.

Speaker 4 And then two months later, Friday, March 11th, 2011, the day before his father's birthday.

Speaker 12 I'd actually spent a lot of the day writing my dad a nice big birthday email. I had hit send on that email and was talking to Georgia on Gmail chat.

Speaker 12 Boom.

Speaker 12 Everything just began to shake.

Speaker 12 Well, I was in an office chair with wheels, and so immediately as it started, the chairs just kind of began to slide.

Speaker 13 Zach had never been in an earthquake, but his co-workers knew this one was big.

Speaker 19 Worried that the building might collapse, they ran downstairs and out to the parking lot.

Speaker 27 But soon they were told it was okay.

Speaker 38 It was over.

Speaker 11 But when the shaking stopped, the disaster was just beginning.

Speaker 43 There was a monster out there over the horizon called Fate.

Speaker 28 And it was coming very fast.

Speaker 22 Almost as soon as Zach got back to his desk, warning sirens went off.

Speaker 19 And even Zach knew what that meant.

Speaker 21 And if the tsunami was heading to his town of Kuji, two miles inland,

Speaker 21 what was it going to do on the coast in Noda, where Georgia was?

Speaker 14 What had happened to Georgia? Had anyone in her town survived the tsunami?

Speaker 44 It was unrecognizable. The buildings were destroyed.

Speaker 14 Zach knew he had to find her. And a world away, Zach's parents still hadn't found him.

Speaker 41 This can't be happening. Are you sure it's where Zach is?

Speaker 45 Friday morning, March 11th, 2011.

Speaker 22 In Nashville, Indiana, John and Terry Whitcomb had barely had a sip of their morning tea when the news jolted them awake.

Speaker 12 This was a very powerful earthquake. The images are stunning out of Japan.

Speaker 19 An epic earthquake had hit northern Japan 9.0 near the top end of the Richter scale.

Speaker 4 And then a huge tsunami crashing up the coast.

Speaker 28 It was like watching a disaster movie.

Speaker 24 This one horribly real.

Speaker 28 And John and Terry's son, Zach, was now right in the middle of it.

Speaker 7 What did you think?

Speaker 40 Unreal.

Speaker 41 This can't be happening. Are you sure it's where Zach is? And

Speaker 41 we were looking at maps and, you know, everything was pointing to, yeah, it's exactly where Zach is.

Speaker 41 And

Speaker 34 so we just prayed.

Speaker 30 The enormous waves were hitting Noda and Cooji, the towns where Zach and Georgia were teaching.

Speaker 9 The frantic calls began

Speaker 13 to no avail.

Speaker 12 And what happened when you tried this phone?

Speaker 41 It would say all circuits are busy

Speaker 41 and that you'd get a busy signal.

Speaker 18 And then the minutes went by.

Speaker 18 And then an hour and two hours.

Speaker 11 What did that feel like?

Speaker 40 Hell.

Speaker 35 Yeah.

Speaker 34 As a parent, you never think, oh, my child's been killed. You don't think that.

Speaker 38 You just wait.

Speaker 34 You just wait and just pray for the best.

Speaker 21 And remember, Zach had wanted to come home months earlier, but Terry and John had encouraged him to stay, to live up to his commitment.

Speaker 32 How much did you beat yourself up about that?

Speaker 41 I did.

Speaker 13 Seemed right then.

Speaker 35 But now?

Speaker 41 It was just the helplessness of we're way over here and

Speaker 41 there's not a thing we can do.

Speaker 28 George's family in New Zealand, including cousin Chelsea, were just as scared and just as helpless.

Speaker 44 One of my friends got a text to say there'd been a massive tsunami in Japan. Obviously, we all freaked out because George was over there.

Speaker 2 We turned on the TV and saw images from Noda.

Speaker 22 the little coastal town where Georgia was based.

Speaker 44 It was unrecognisable from the images she had sent to us. The buildings were destroyed.

Speaker 41 There was debris everywhere.

Speaker 32 And Georgia, though they tried and tried, was unreachable.

Speaker 44 We really thought that she'd gone. Kind of lost hope, I guess.

Speaker 16 Tonight we're watching the rising death toll. The world is watching Japan and our coverage.

Speaker 7 Back in Indiana that night, the news ever worse, John turned on his computer.

Speaker 17 and read that last email from Zach.

Speaker 34 He sent it at literally 10 minutes before the earthquake hit.

Speaker 39 That was a birthday greeting.

Speaker 34 Birthday greeting.

Speaker 11 It said what?

Speaker 39 Happy birthday. Love you.

Speaker 6 It said much more than that, though.

Speaker 34 Dearest Rock and Poppy, happy birthday.

Speaker 34 Woohoo, the big 5-0.

Speaker 34 The more and more time we spend apart, the more and more I realize how amazing of a father and friend you have been to me over the years, and have always given me a perfect example of how a man and a husband is to treat a woman and his wife.

Speaker 34 Oh my gosh. And I was thinking, God, is this the last

Speaker 34 thing I hear from my son? You know?

Speaker 39 And it's that.

Speaker 18 Yeah.

Speaker 41 Good morning. Disaster in Japan.

Speaker 5 Growing furious.

Speaker 3 Saturday morning.

Speaker 22 More than 24 hours since they've had any communication from their son.

Speaker 34 By 8.30, and we still hadn't heard anything. and still woke up to more, even more horrible images, and then even had time to think about the death tolls and

Speaker 34 all that. It was just compounding and compounding and compounding.

Speaker 25 And then, about the moment all seemed lost, another email arrived.

Speaker 28 Not from Zach, it was from Kenji, that volunteer mentor in Japan.

Speaker 3 Just a few words, and they meant everything.

Speaker 41 Branham's son

Speaker 41 survived. Basically, that was all it said.

Speaker 17 What was that like?

Speaker 39 Of course, we went into more

Speaker 41 relief.

Speaker 10 Zach was alive, all they needed to know for now.

Speaker 17 But Georgia, still no word.

Speaker 10 While his parents worried about him at home, Zach was riding out the chaos in Cooji.

Speaker 12 I wasn't really

Speaker 12 sure what was going on at first.

Speaker 28 After the shaking stopped, Zach and his co-workers moved up to the top floor of the Cooji City Hall, a sort of crow's nest with a view of the whole city and the coastline.

Speaker 2 So if something's going to happen, this is where you'd see it.

Speaker 36 Yeah.

Speaker 32 And then he saw something about the rivers that split the city and normally flow out to the sea.

Speaker 12 The river was beginning to flow in the opposite direction. The water began to change color as well.
It began going from this kind of bluish color to being very murky.

Speaker 24 Even four stories up, Zach could hear the roaring river.

Speaker 12 It went from just having, you know, small debris like trees and other rubbish that was around the harbor and stuff coming into

Speaker 12 boats and to vehicle, you know, to much larger and much more substantial things coming in.

Speaker 21 Vehicles, cars and things that coming along in the

Speaker 12 fields picked up along the coast.

Speaker 15 That is getting scary then, right?

Speaker 35 Yeah.

Speaker 22 Of course, Zach hadn't seen the footage that everybody outside the country had seen.

Speaker 21 Towns wiped off the map, thousands missing.

Speaker 24 You couldn't know how bad it was. Did your mind turn at all when you were up here to what's going on down there where Georgia is?

Speaker 12 I hoped she would be doing the same thing. I was, that she would be in a safe location.

Speaker 29 A safe location?

Speaker 22 Was there such a thing where Georgia was?

Speaker 22 As the water around him began to recede and Zach and his co-workers came downstairs, you realized everybody was incredibly quiet.

Speaker 12 And people's expressions... had changed so drastically to these looks of

Speaker 12 genuine fear.

Speaker 12 That's when I thought, you know, I myself was scared.

Speaker 22 Now he understood.

Speaker 21 If the wave got as far as his town further inland, it had to have hit Georgia's town, right on the coast.

Speaker 3 What happened to all those people there?

Speaker 32 To Georgia?

Speaker 6 And suddenly he knew he had to find this girl.

Speaker 3 Just had to.

Speaker 12 I wanted to see her and I wanted to comfort her as well.

Speaker 22 No idea what would be waiting for you at that end.

Speaker 12 No,

Speaker 12 not the slightest.

Speaker 20 There's a moment in some lives that defines everything that comes after.

Speaker 11 A test, a trial.

Speaker 10 This was Zach Branham's test.

Speaker 25 To pass or fail.

Speaker 46 Coming up.

Speaker 12 I never loved someone the way I loved Georgia.

Speaker 16 But sometimes love doesn't conquer all.

Speaker 12 There's fires on the hill, fire on the water, and it was a complete scene of destruction.

Speaker 14 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 22 Zach Branham didn't fully comprehend how bad it was.

Speaker 19 The tremendous earthquake and the deadly wall of water that followed it was snuffing out more than 18,000 lives.

Speaker 24 Tens of thousands of homes, whole towns were being swept away. But Zach didn't know that yet.

Speaker 12 I just wanted to find Georgia, my best friend, and also I just wanted to make sure she was all right.

Speaker 22 Zach kept telling himself she was all right.

Speaker 43 Noda, the small town on the coast where Georgia lived, was protected by massive concrete sea walls and barriers.

Speaker 49 So your first thought wasn't, oh god, she's in trouble.

Speaker 40 It was more, thank God there's a wall.

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 12 It's there. There's just no possible way that it could could have gotten over that how'd you find out that you were wrong

Speaker 24 well i decided i i just left i left work back in indiana zach's parents relieved their son was alive got another email zach was going to look for georgia now a whole new set of concerns like

Speaker 34 i wasn't even exactly sure where she was so once we figured that out and we looked it up on the map well it wasn't far away but

Speaker 41 we just it was even closer to the coast it was closer to the coast wondering what he might find yes and he was over there by himself you know and what would he do if he didn't find her you know it was just it was all those things

Speaker 21 Zach hopped in his car and began the eight-mile drive down the winding road from Cooji to Noda

Speaker 12 as I come down the hill I start noticing people are walking on the side of the road no cars but they're they're just walking, whole families walking. And I'm just thinking to myself, well, that's odd.

Speaker 12 You know, that's strange.

Speaker 12 As I got closer, I could see what looked like to be a house on its side,

Speaker 12 just in the middle of the road.

Speaker 12 I was really confused.

Speaker 12 Because where were the tsunami walls?

Speaker 9 Police had set up a barricade.

Speaker 11 And beyond it, what did you see over there?

Speaker 12 It was just

Speaker 12 complete destruction, you know.

Speaker 12 There had been a, like, for a lot of the houses, they're heated with kerosene. Yeah.

Speaker 12 So kerosene tanks had been knocked over throughout the tsunami, and because of the downed power lines, it actually sparked fires.

Speaker 12 There's fires on the hill, fire on the water.

Speaker 40 Debris everywhere.

Speaker 12 So, I mean, it was

Speaker 12 just a complete scene of destruction, really.

Speaker 27 Zach, almost in shock, walked toward the barricade, blocking the road.

Speaker 12 There was a police officer, and he just said to me, dangerous, no, and just kind of began kind of trying to escort me back towards where I had parked my car.

Speaker 10 So Zach got in his car and drove back to Cooji, trying to tell himself it would be okay, that Georgia was fine.

Speaker 11 That the scene behind the barricade was chaos, disaster was obvious. That there were many casualties was pretty clear.
How many was impossible to know.

Speaker 11 But Zach understood as he was turned away by the guard that one person's anxiety could not be allowed to trump public safety.

Speaker 36 And yet, at that very moment, he understood with absolute clarity.

Speaker 10 He had to find out what happened to the girl behind the barricade.

Speaker 43 He had to, if she was alive or dead or injured.

Speaker 32 Had to because

Speaker 11 she was the love of his life.

Speaker 22 He sent message after message by text.

Speaker 12 In vain, you know, knowing that they weren't going through, but just hoping.

Speaker 12 You know, little messages of encouragement. I love you.
I hope everything's all right. I'm going to come look for you.
You know, I've tried. Just know I'm coming.

Speaker 22 What were you thinking?

Speaker 12 I wouldn't.

Speaker 12 I wouldn't know what I'd do without her.

Speaker 49 I guess that's the first time you really had to confront it in a serious way, right?

Speaker 35 Yeah.

Speaker 12 I had um

Speaker 17 I had never loved someone the way I loved Georgia.

Speaker 17 And uh

Speaker 37 so I

Speaker 12 I guess I just hoped that she was going to be all, you know,

Speaker 12 she was going to be fine.

Speaker 17 I was going to.

Speaker 28 Probably didn't sleep much that night.

Speaker 5 No, no.

Speaker 22 The aftershocks went on all night.

Speaker 19 So did tsunami warnings.

Speaker 12 So you're thinking, is there going to be another tsunami coming through?

Speaker 12 You know, it's.

Speaker 50 So now I didn't really sleep.

Speaker 20 By 5:30 a.m., he knew what he had to do.

Speaker 29 He left a note on his apartment door, just in case Georgia made it there.

Speaker 12 And I said, Georgia, I'm coming to look for you. If for some reason you make it into Cooji, stay here.
If I haven't found you by sundown, I'm coming right back here. So know I'm coming back.

Speaker 27 And then he got in his car again and headed toward the coast.

Speaker 12 And I just decided, literally, come hell or high water, I was getting into that damn town.

Speaker 35 But how?

Speaker 48 He'd certainly be facing hell and high water.

Speaker 3 But perhaps the biggest problem was the Japanese army blocking the road.

Speaker 14 Coming up, was time running out for Georgia?

Speaker 16 Had Zach lost the love of his life?

Speaker 12 That feeling that she's not all right, it began growing as each minute went by.

Speaker 22 As the sun rose over the ruined coastal towns of northern Japan, Zach Branham approached the barricade outside George's town, Noda.

Speaker 28 determined to get past it.

Speaker 13 No idea how.

Speaker 12 I parked a little further out this time and

Speaker 12 started walking in and they still had the police officers and the defense force there with their roadblock. But I noticed what looked like to be a group of locals with shovels and other gear.

Speaker 12 I'm assuming to go in to try and start clearing paths through the town.

Speaker 15 So I thought that's my way in.

Speaker 28 Those civilian volunteers seemed to have official permission to get in and clearly knew where they were going.

Speaker 12 So I

Speaker 12 just pulled my hood up and hopped in line with them. And at that point, no one was really kind of looking around.

Speaker 13 He slipped past the police line, followed the group up a path away from the main road.

Speaker 9 He knew where he'd go first, if he could.

Speaker 22 So your first destination was her apartment.

Speaker 17 Yes,

Speaker 12 hoping that I'd find her sitting there on her floor, reading a book.

Speaker 17 The path led up a hill, descended back down.

Speaker 9 to a horrific scene.

Speaker 22 Noda was almost unrecognizable.

Speaker 12 There were these massive walls of debris, of these houses toppled over, of boats, of, you know, just anything you could imagine, you know. I mean,

Speaker 12 metal electric poles just bent as if someone had just come through and just

Speaker 22 but he knew George's place was on a hill.

Speaker 21 If she'd gone there before the tsunami hit, she'd be all right.

Speaker 35 But when he got there.

Speaker 12 No sign that she was there. Everything was still left exactly the way we had left it from

Speaker 12 the previous morning when we both went to work.

Speaker 20 As he went back outside, Zach could see down into the center of town.

Speaker 38 That's where Georgia's office was, where she was when the earthquake hit.

Speaker 7 And what he saw chilled him to the bone.

Speaker 12 What I couldn't see of the central part of the village that was so destroyed in my mind, it just, I could not see how.

Speaker 49 Nobody survived in that city building.

Speaker 25 Well, yeah.

Speaker 10 Shaking that from his mind, Zach thought Georgia might have gone to help out at one of the three schools where she taught.

Speaker 27 But when he got to the kindergarten, his heart sank.

Speaker 12 The kindergarten was completely gone.

Speaker 39 Wiped away.

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 12 All that was left was a bit of the fence and some of the foundation.

Speaker 12 So.

Speaker 24 A kindergartner would have been occupied?

Speaker 12 I had hoped not.

Speaker 22 Later, he found out those children were safe, evacuated before the tsunami hit.

Speaker 24 But now Zach went to another school, found a group of teachers huddled in their office.

Speaker 26 Unable to speak Japanese, he passed around George's business cards with her photo.

Speaker 12 And I went in and I just kept asking, you know, Georgia-sensei,

Speaker 7 you know,

Speaker 12 where is she?

Speaker 39 Have you seen her?

Speaker 48 They had not.

Speaker 17 But they did give Zach some hope.

Speaker 12 They said...

Speaker 37 Chugako.

Speaker 12 Chugaku. Go junior high.
Junior high. So I take that as, oh, she's at the junior high.

Speaker 29 So Zach sprinted there, made his way to the teacher's room.

Speaker 12 And I asked them, you know, have you seen Georgia? And they said they hadn't, had not seen her. And I

Speaker 12 kind of lost it a bit

Speaker 12 at that point.

Speaker 10 Zach staggered outside, out of options, his despair now total.

Speaker 1 What was happening in your mind?

Speaker 37 Just

Speaker 12 feeling so lost, that feeling that I've been trying to suppress, the feeling of she's not all right,

Speaker 12 it began growing in size immensely as each minute went by.

Speaker 28 One of the teachers came outside to comfort him with a cup of tea.

Speaker 12 Telling me, you know, it's okay. Daijo Bu, Daijo Bu, it's okay, it's okay.

Speaker 30 Hugging me and patting me on the back because I'm crying.

Speaker 35 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Then, out of nowhere, a van pulled up.

Speaker 19 Two men hopped out.

Speaker 20 Zach recognized one as a colleague of Georgia's.

Speaker 13 They didn't look happy.

Speaker 17 Zach tried to ask them.

Speaker 12 Georgia, you know, where is she? Where is she? And they didn't say,

Speaker 12 because they spoke no English and I spoke no Japanese. They just pretty much...

Speaker 12 Yush, like, let's go, pointing to the van and just kind of pushing me into the van, you know.

Speaker 9 They were taking him to City Hall.

Speaker 11 As you were being driven in that van, did you have any idea what they were driving you to see?

Speaker 40 No.

Speaker 11 Did you know that they had been taking bodies to the City Hall?

Speaker 13 No, I no.

Speaker 1 Didn't know that.

Speaker 21 Didn't know. City Hall had, in fact, become the temporary morgue.
Was that where he'd find Georgia?

Speaker 2 Coming up, the news everyone had been waiting for.

Speaker 44 He was very brave for what he did.

Speaker 18 He was very brave. But you do do that for people that you love.

Speaker 14 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 22 Two men had pushed Zach Branum into the back of a van, which was now picking its way through canyons of urban rubble, apparently toward the Nota City Hall.

Speaker 22 Had Zach known the place had been turned into a temporary morgue, he'd have understood the meaning of the looks on their faces.

Speaker 3 The van stopped.

Speaker 13 The men got out.

Speaker 12 They said, don't get out, you know, like

Speaker 12 motioning for me to stay in the van. And that was it.

Speaker 13 He steeled himself for whatever was coming next.

Speaker 6 What he did not expect was what he saw.

Speaker 12 Around the corner,

Speaker 12 he walked out towards a

Speaker 50 and I saw this baseball cap

Speaker 50 over

Speaker 50 by a car, and

Speaker 50 there he was, the last person in the world I expected to see trudging across the mud in his gum boots. There was Zach.

Speaker 42 How was that?

Speaker 50 It was

Speaker 50 a pretty awesome moment after

Speaker 50 the absolute insanity of the last 24 hours. It was surreal, but it was an amazing feeling at the same time to see him there.

Speaker 12 Hair all a bit frantic, you know, like she had had no sleep like the rest of us. Big hug.

Speaker 50 Yeah, of course.

Speaker 12 She cried, and I cried.

Speaker 12 It was one of the best hugs ever, you know, knowing that

Speaker 12 she was safe.

Speaker 2 Nice to know that somebody

Speaker 25 will

Speaker 11 go through the barricades, do whatever is needed to get to you.

Speaker 50 I just couldn't understand how Zach had arrived with his baseball cap in the middle of all this.

Speaker 50 It was insane.

Speaker 25 Well, that's the way the boy girls heart.

Speaker 25 Yeah.

Speaker 36 Yeah.

Speaker 32 And Georgia's story?

Speaker 2 Well, if Zach had been ringside, Georgia was center stage.

Speaker 28 And although she'd been through earthquakes before in New Zealand, this one was much, much different.

Speaker 50 That's the first time I've found it hard to walk or stand in an earthquake.

Speaker 10 Still, everyone around her seemed okay.

Speaker 22 She thought it was all just kind of exciting.

Speaker 40 Even when the tsunami siren went off, it was like, oh, cool, like this is really exciting.

Speaker 32 But others knew better and Georgia soon learned this was very, very bad.

Speaker 50 They said you need to go upstairs.

Speaker 50 So I followed everyone. We went upstairs, looked out the window and

Speaker 50 Noda was gone.

Speaker 35 Oh my gosh.

Speaker 13 Georgia saw much of the town of Noda flowing by the window.

Speaker 11 We're standing right here looking out there.

Speaker 50 This exact spot, yep.

Speaker 28 It's just quite awesome. Like the half the town is up there.

Speaker 26 Yeah.

Speaker 39 And there's a roof here?

Speaker 50 Yep, there's a roof. There's actually a house wedged in under the

Speaker 50 entrance. It's been almost broken in half.

Speaker 35 Unbelievable.

Speaker 1 And there's another house.

Speaker 39 It's drifted across the road.

Speaker 50 This house is not usually there. That's just in the middle of the car park.

Speaker 24 Just phenomenal.

Speaker 40 Wow.

Speaker 20 She felt safe up here, somehow detached from the horror she was witnessing.

Speaker 6 And then it hit her.

Speaker 50 There was this moment where it was absolutely silent. And you could hear a dog barking off in the distance and occasionally there'd be a shout.
But other than that, it was so surreal, so silent.

Speaker 25 Wow.

Speaker 50 Yeah.

Speaker 41 I won't forget that moment.

Speaker 24 Water and debris piled up almost to the second floor. No one could leave.

Speaker 15 What was that like?

Speaker 50 That was the worst night of my life.

Speaker 19 A sleepless night, huddled in her boss's office, missing Zach but thinking he was okay further inland.

Speaker 22 And the next morning, a jolting aftershock and more tsunami sirens.

Speaker 32 But then Zach found her, and together they looked at what was left of the town.

Speaker 19 38 people lost their lives in Noda, a tiny percentage of the more than 18,000 who died up and down the coast.

Speaker 24 But half of Noda was simply gone.

Speaker 50 It was like someone had just driven a bulldozer through and it was all gone. It was

Speaker 50 how a wave can do that,

Speaker 50 I don't know.

Speaker 12 Lifting complete houses up off their foundations, so all was left was the shell.

Speaker 50 The front stairs leading up to nothing.

Speaker 26 And then they went to the safest place they could think of, their mentor Kenji's office in Kuji, where the other teachers had gathered.

Speaker 12 And you know, Kenji being Kenji, he found all the food that he could find in his house, anything that we could eat, which included, you know, there's lots of beer and sake on hand.

Speaker 8 And music.

Speaker 27 Zach and Kenji got out the guitars, tried to shut out the world.

Speaker 12 To kind of give ourselves some sense that everything was all right, I bet, you know.

Speaker 22 And then cell phones chirped back to life.

Speaker 12 So everyone frantically had their phones out, sending emails to our families being able to tell them, you know,

Speaker 13 we're okay.

Speaker 28 Back in Indiana, Zach's parents finally got the news they've been praying for.

Speaker 41 It took me hours and hours, but I found her and she's alive.

Speaker 41 And so the first thing I did was call Brenda, George's mom.

Speaker 41 And she was in bed. She wasn't asleep.
She was trying to sleep.

Speaker 18 But

Speaker 41 I said, Zach, found her. She's alive.

Speaker 41 And she just screamed and started crying.

Speaker 44 Mum came in and told me that Zach had found her

Speaker 44 and that she was safe and she was alive.

Speaker 44 And that was the most amazing feeling I've ever experienced.

Speaker 44 He was very brave for what he did.

Speaker 25 He was very brave.

Speaker 18 But you do that for people that you love.

Speaker 13 The danger wasn't over, of course.

Speaker 4 We all know what came next.

Speaker 39 So So you find out that he's okay, she is okay.

Speaker 17 Now what?

Speaker 8 I mean, um...

Speaker 34 Fukushima.

Speaker 46 Coming up.

Speaker 14 A different kind of aftershock.

Speaker 41 He said, have you checked your email yet? And I said, no. And he said, why don't you guys look at your email together?

Speaker 41 And so I said, oh, Zach, what now?

Speaker 7 The Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Speaker 14 Rescue efforts have been complicated by damage to a nuclear power plant.

Speaker 9 It filled the airways.

Speaker 22 Potential meltdown.

Speaker 10 Nuclear Armageddon.

Speaker 21 The president was calling for Americans to get out.

Speaker 14 Yesterday, we called for an evacuation of American citizens who are within 50 miles of the plant.

Speaker 41 We were seeing on the news that it's melting down. It's just a matter of time.
They can't stop it.

Speaker 11 And it could infect the entire country and an entire region of the earth.

Speaker 8 Right.

Speaker 38 Zach had thought the worst was over.

Speaker 12 So you never think you'd ever experience a tsunami or earthquake, and now you're experiencing

Speaker 12 a meltdown of a nuclear power plant.

Speaker 41 But

Speaker 41 we wanted him to come home. We wanted him.

Speaker 41 I mean, here we were the ones saying, you have to stay. You made a commitment.

Speaker 34 Yeah. Now it's time for you to come home.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 41 But

Speaker 41 there was no travel, of course, anywhere.

Speaker 27 Then Zach got a call from a U.S.

Speaker 3 Air Force officer.

Speaker 12 He said, we'll take you to the Air Force Base and we'll fly you to a safe location.

Speaker 36 So what'd you say?

Speaker 12 Well, I said,

Speaker 12 you know, I actually lied and said Georgia was my fiancé. I said, my fiancé is a New Zealand citizen.

Speaker 1 Can I bring her along? Yeah.

Speaker 12 And he said, you know, I'm really sorry. We can only offer this to U.S.
citizens at this stage.

Speaker 12 And I can't leave her behind.

Speaker 35 Zach and Georgia were 200 miles north of Fukushima.

Speaker 4 And as the days passed, they began to feel the danger from the radiation, at least where they were, was subsiding.

Speaker 19 So they stayed, even helped with the cleanup.

Speaker 3 And then about a month later, funny how these things go, Zach and Georgia got another shock.

Speaker 19 Another one of those life-changing developments.

Speaker 21 Zach told his parents about it during one of their regular Sunday phone calls.

Speaker 41 And he said,

Speaker 41 have you checked your email yet? And I said, no. And he said, why don't you guys look at your email together?

Speaker 41 And so I said, oh, Zach, what now?

Speaker 8 After all the worry and dread they'd experienced over their son's time in Japan, Zach Branham's parents weren't quite prepared for the next bit of news.

Speaker 41 So we opened the email, and there's an ultrasound picture.

Speaker 30 A baby was on the way.

Speaker 1 We were literally speechless.

Speaker 34 One of the few times in my life I've been speechless.

Speaker 41 So we nicknamed it Baby Bean because it looked like a little bean.

Speaker 50 It just

Speaker 50 felt right in a way.

Speaker 1 We

Speaker 50 were obviously, are obviously

Speaker 50 in love, and the timing wasn't amazing, but it had happened so let's just go with it

Speaker 22 still it was one last step zach hadn't been quite ready to take it before but when he came home to indiana to see his family

Speaker 12 while i was in indiana in june my mom and my sisters went with me and

Speaker 12 we went engagement ring shopping what Did he intend to do that?

Speaker 2 Would he have done that without a little push, you think?

Speaker 35 I don't know.

Speaker 41 I know that I said,

Speaker 41 Would you marry her if she wasn't expecting a baby? And he said, Yes. And I said, Then she needs to know that.

Speaker 41 She needs you to ask her to marry you, not just it be expected that I'm doing the right thing.

Speaker 41 And so, yeah, maybe I did push him.

Speaker 20 When Zach went back to Japan, he was ready.

Speaker 25 Or so he thought.

Speaker 21 Georgia met him at the train station.

Speaker 12 As we're walking to the car, I, I don't know, I just, I said, you just have to, you just have to stop.

Speaker 50 And I was like, what are you doing? It's freezing. Like, let's get in the car.
Let's go. And he said, just wait.

Speaker 50 And then all of a sudden, he turned around and he is shaking, but he's holding a ring box.

Speaker 12 And I got down on my knee and I just said, I love you. And I...

Speaker 12 I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I don't care if it's in Japan or if it's in New Zealand or, you know, if we're in Siberia, I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

Speaker 13 And I, you know, will you marry me?

Speaker 50 And I said, Yes, of course. I had to put him out of his misery.
He looked like he was going to collapse.

Speaker 12 So I was engaged, and we didn't really know what we were going to do from there or where we were going to go, but we knew we were having a baby and we were going to get married.

Speaker 12 And in fact, you got married twice.

Speaker 42 Yeah, we did.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 40 Yes, two weddings.

Speaker 28 The first in Indiana, the second one in New Zealand.

Speaker 22 And there was a special guest at that one, two-month-old Sebastian.

Speaker 21 Throw that one.

Speaker 25 Yeah,

Speaker 50 getting real, getting some good distance.

Speaker 1 After promising his mother it was never going to happen, sure enough, Zach and his family now live in New Zealand.

Speaker 9 He works for the government, Georgia, at a recruitment agency

Speaker 7 in 2014.

Speaker 9 We brought them back to Japan for the first time since it all happened.

Speaker 50 My name is Georgia.

Speaker 50 Georgia Zach! Georgia Zach!

Speaker 28 This teacher and her students knew about Georgia and Zach.

Speaker 24 Many here looked upon their story as one positive thing that came out of that horrible tragedy.

Speaker 11 Do you ever, and this is a totally unfair question, do you ever sometimes sit together at night and say to yourselves, boy, if it hadn't been for that day,

Speaker 11 would we be here?

Speaker 11 Would we have Sebastian? Would we be in this life together?

Speaker 50 All the time.

Speaker 12 If someone would have told me three years from now, you will be living in Wellington.

Speaker 50 Married to an American

Speaker 12 married to a Kiwi with a two-year-old son.

Speaker 50 I would have said you're crazy.

Speaker 12 Would have thought they were crazy, you know.

Speaker 24 So

Speaker 12 could have never imagined this.

Speaker 17 Helped along

Speaker 22 by an earthquake, a tsunami, and God knows what else.

Speaker 36 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 37 It's kinky now.

Speaker 14 That's all for now.

Speaker 16 I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 14 Thanks for joining us.

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