Station Blackout by Charles A. Casto

Author:Charles A. Casto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Radius Book Group
Published: 2018-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

• CHAPTER 13 •

KEEP CALM AND GET ORGANIZED

“At some point during discussions with Ambassador John Roos, [a senior NRC engineer] said something to the effect that, ‘If this gets much worse or if that containment breaches, then I’m leaving. I’m going to leave the country.’”

At the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the people in headquarters and the first two responders to Japan, the senior reactor analysts (SRAs), were essential to the American response. Literally hundreds, if not thousands, of NRC staff worked exceptionally hard in those first days and throughout the response and recovery to the accident. These are extremely dedicated and talented people. In particular, the two SRAs who responded to Japan in those first few days contributed significantly to the American success in the embassy, along with the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations team in Atlanta and those INPO people dispatched to Japan, as well as the consortium of nuclear industry people in America. They are all remarkable individuals. I hesitate to list names, because I’ll leave someone out, but each person who worked on the response gave his or her best. Those Americans can be extremely proud of their work.

After addressing some of the immediate crisis and safety issues, I could finally turn to organizing our efforts. In that first week, more than ever, I was thinking about thinking, or meta-thinking. Epiphanies can help you construct a mental model of the future while you continue to see what is immediately ahead. When facing a crisis, it’s important to hit the pause button long enough to think about thinking. As a leader, you have to foresee the decisions and place your staff where they can bring you the proper facts when decisions need to be made.

We knew we had considerably more incorrect than correct data. We needed to navigate through random, fused, and missing data to organize the groundwork—to establish a battle rhythm, interpret the technical conditions, and provide an interpretation to the ambassador and other politicians that would help them grasp the picture.

In an extreme crisis, under unfathomable conditions, it is especially tricky to make sense of the situation you face. Developing a mental model in a complex, volatile situation is very difficult. High-risk-oriented organizations, such as the military and first responders, use an incident command structure (ICS), in which different entities within the organization are responsible for different elements of the response. After Fukushima, TEPCO implemented ICS at their Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant.

At Daiichi, I think the challenge for Plant Superintendent Yoshida was that all the elements of an incident command fell on his shoulders. He was the most qualified, most trained, most knowledgeable, and most experienced person on-site, but it was still an unbelievably onerous burden for one person to try to organize and lead the people through those circumstances. At Daini, Masuda was spared having to deal with exploding buildings and high radiation levels; nevertheless, he faced a monumental challenge as well.

I knew from previous experience that one of the key elements of establishing a mental model is mastery of the technology.

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