Station Blackout

Inside the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster and Recovery

Charles A. Casto

• Publisher: Radius Book Group
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781635764031
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Science & Technology Biographies
• Index: Technology & Engineering

The nuclear safety expert shares a gripping, blow-by-blow account of how he led the response to the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. On March 11, 2011, fifty minutes after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit eastern Japan, a forty-five-foot high tsunami engulfed the nuclear power plant known as Fukushima Daiichi, knocking out electrical power and all the reactors' safety systems. Three reactor cores experienced meltdowns in the first three days, leading to an unimaginable nuclear disaster. The Tokyo Electric Power Company called Dr. Chuck Casto for help. In Station Blackout, Casto, the foremost authority on responding to nuclear disasters, shares his first-hand account of how he led the collaborative team of Japanese and American experts who faced the challenges of Fukushima. A lifetime of working in the nuclear industry prepared him to manage an extreme crisis, lessons that apply to any crisis situation.

• CHAPTER 1 •

THE MAKING OF A CRISIS LEADER

It took me years to realize that my emergency management education started in my youth.

As you must have gathered by now, I had a unique role to play during the Fukushima nuclear disaster. For me, it started on Tuesday, March 8, 2011, three days before the earthquake. I was sitting in a Regulatory Information Conference (RIC) in Washington, an annual gathering of leaders in the nuclear industry, to discuss the state of things and learn from one another. As I listened to one of the speakers, my mind drifted. I thought about the fact that I wouldn’t be at the following year’s conference because I was about to retire. I reflected on my career and felt proud of what I’d achieved but wondered if I could have done more. I couldn’t have known that my life would change dramatically just a few days later, and that I’d have many opportunities to prove myself further in a role that I’d unknowingly been preparing for my whole life—a role that I and my team would play for a full year.

My father had been an operator at a large oil refinery and told me stories of problems he’d encountered there, including fires, component failures, and many other challenges that arise when operating a large refinery. For decades, he was also a volunteer firefighter. We lived on the Ohio River. I watched as he recovered the bodies of children and others who had drowned in the river. I watched as the firefighters doused building and car fires. It took me years to realize that my emergency management education started in my youth.

As a young man, I served five years in the Air Force as an explosive ordinance disposal technician. In that job, I learned a great deal about risks. My biggest challenge in those years was responding to the second uprising at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Detonation of several homemade bombs occurred after the killing of two FBI agents on June 26, 1975. Tensions were extremely high on the reservation, and during the uprising, we had to clear the town of any unexploded improvised explosive devices. Because they’d lost colleagues, the FBI responded in force—in fact, it was the largest assembly of FBI agents in history. Their presence raised tensions further. I remember traveling to Pine Ridge in an FBI Ford LTD, which was the most obvious vehicle on the reservation. As the agent drove 90 miles per hour down narrow roads, locals pulled out in front of the car, attempting to run it off the road. At one point, the agent pitched a handgun into the back seat where I was sitting and said, “Here, you may need this!” I immediately tossed it back to him and said that I needed him to protect me.

BROWNS FERRY

In 1978, after leaving the Air Force, I started my commercial nuclear career in nuclear construction but soon found myself in reactor-operator training. I studied the ins and outs of how the plants worked and how to operate them. I became an entry-level operator at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, a three-reactor plant in Northern Alabama. I couldn’t have known it at the time, but that first job was fateful: The Browns Ferry reactors were almost identical to those at Fukushima Daiichi and Daini.

Four years before my arrival at Browns Ferry, a fire broke out in the Unit 1 reactor building, engulfing a containment building and disabling the emergency core-cooling systems. Workers had caused the accident by using an open, lit candle to look for air leaks in a reactor containment penetration seal. The seal caught fire, and the fire spread rapidly. The loss of key electrical systems from the fire resulted in steam pressure building up in the reactor—much as it would at Fukushima Daiichi more than three decades later.

In the control room, the control board lights were blowing up in their sockets as the fire caused low-voltage systems to mix with high-voltage systems. This threatened the operators with electrocution if they touched the control boards. Eventually, the lights simply went out. There were no functioning normal or backup water systems remaining. Thus, reactor core cooling was impossible. As the operators tried desperately to control the safety systems manually, smoke filled the reactor building.

One operator showed ingenuity. He remembered an alternate way to open key valves that would enable reactor core cooling.

Crisis averted! And, to take care of the fire, another level-headed operator took matters into his own hands, tying a fire hose to some scaffolding and pointing it at the fire. The fire was out in a matter of minutes. At Fukushima thirty-six years and eleven days later, with no electrical power and no water injection systems available, another heroic operator would remember an alternate way to connect fire trucks and pump water into the reactors.

The heroic individuals who saved Browns Ferry were my mentors. Neither they nor I understood how important their wisdom and leadership were until I faced the challenges of Fukushima.

I worked the entry-level operator position at Browns Ferry for a few years and enjoyed manipulating the valves and controls in the field to control the reactors. My mentors taught me details about the plant that went far beyond what most engineers and operators know. We held contests to see who could name the manufacturer of the most innocuous valves in the plant, just to stump the rookie! Those contests were a big part of my growth as an operator.

After a few years in my entry-level position at Browns Ferry, I trained for and passed an initial operator examination administered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). During my time as a reactor operator, the NRC initiated a new type of requalification examination for operators. Many of my mentors—the ones who had saved the reactor—failed the exam. My supervisors tasked me with conducting remediation training for my mentors: It was my turn to help them.

A few years later, I took an operator-training instructor position at Carolina Power and Light’s Brunswick plant, a two-reactor plant almost identical to Fukushima Daiichi. There, I passed an NRC Senior Reactor Operator Instructor Certification examination. A few years after that, I went to work for the NRC as an operator licensing examiner. NRC examiners write and administer those government exams that my mentors had failed, as well as initial exams for an operator license. The examiner job exposed me to many types of operators and reactors and strengthened my knowledge of the foundations of plant operations and how operators respond to accidents—especially the Fukushima design.

THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

The NRC is responsible for ensuring safety in our nuclear plants. The U.S. president appoints its five commissioners, who are then confirmed by the Senate for five-year terms. The president also picks the chairman, but it is Congress and not the executive branch that oversees this agency. During my early NRC career, I served as an assistant to the executive director of operations and NRC chairman. Perhaps most significant, I was selected for a fellowship as a legislative assistant to a U.S. senator, working in his office on the Hill. This assignment was key in my education as a diplomat and another crucial building block in my training for Fukushima. These positions exposed me to policy, diplomacy, and strategic issues, and I learned how to deal with senior officials as well as politicians.

My first international nuclear crisis experience came in 2003. I was asked to join an International Atomic Energy Agency expert mission at the Paks reactor in Hungary, after an accident in a spent nuclear fuel pool caused the release of a small amount of radiation. The public was outraged, and the Hungarian government was compelled to seek out independent nuclear experts to review the causes and consequences of the accident.

The night we arrived in Hungary, we had dinner with the plant superintendent. He told me that, in the aftermath of the accident, the people of Hungary believed him to be incompetent or a liar or both. This perception struck me as significant. I immediately recognized that when you become a sinner in the public eye, the best way to become a reformed sinner is to borrow the credibility of someone else until you regain your own. The Hungarians very much needed the credibility of international experts at that moment.

The most significant leadership lesson from Paks was our discovery that production pressure had forced the utility to use supervisors to conduct independent safety reviews for a new plant component. Supervisors are always available and can be forced to work longer hours. Once the supervisors had completed their (inadequate) safety reviews, they turned their findings over to their staff for the safety review process. Of course, the subordinates assumed that their bosses had done the review correctly, and they passed the analysis straight through. No matter what the industry’s record is or how routine a task might be, breakdowns in safety can still occur suddenly and without notice.

This was another experience vital to my readiness for the Fukushima assignment. Paks exemplified the value of independent assessment in penetrating the “myth of safety,” as I’ll explain later. As I progressed in my career, each assignment I took on helped me hone my skills.

Nearing retirement, as I reflected on my career, I felt prepared for the Japan assignment. I departed the RIC on March 10, 2011, thinking that soon I would announce my departure and fade off into the sunset.

That didn’t happen. What happened instead makes up the bulk of this book.

Why a book and why now? I have contemplated writing a book ever since the Fukushima accident, but two activities kept me busy: my consulting business and the completion of my doctorate. During my doctoral work, I traveled back to Japan to interview the operators and their leaders who were involved in the accident. As I heard the operators’ heroic stories, I was moved all over again. Many of them suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and still became overwhelmed with emotion as they spoke of their experiences. One told me that they all felt like American Vietnam veterans. They believed they had fought for a noble cause, for which some had given their lives, yet their countrymen continued to think of them as villains. They didn’t feel they could tell their stories in Japan.

Those operators knew me from the time I had spent with them. They insisted that they wanted me to tell their stories—not as an official account or the reportage of investigators or the press, but their real-life, behind-the-scenes stories. That heartfelt plea, more than anything else, was my reason for undertaking this project. And, beyond the experiences of these individuals, I wanted to write about the role of the U.S. nuclear experts and embassy staff after Fukushima. I want to help leaders learn from the heroic acts of the Fukushima operators.

• CHAPTER 2 •

EXTREME-CRISIS LEADERSHIP

In an extreme crisis, leaders may face imminent death, but they must cement their feet.

There is a unique category of leadership known as extreme-crisis leadership. An extreme crisis is defined as “a discrete episode or occurrence that may result in a great and intolerable magnitude of physical, psychological, or material consequences to or in close physical or psycho-social proximity to organization members.”¹

An extreme crisis is one that is beyond the fathomable, where conditions threaten the physical welfare of the leader(s) and followers themselves. We often think about this in a military context or about first responders. Yes, leaders in those situations are extreme leaders, but in those contexts, death is an acknowledged risk. The military considers this potential for loss of life in their training, housing, and strategy for developing those war-fighters.

But in most businesses, we do not go to work expecting to face death.

I became interested specifically in extreme crisis within a business context—a context that does not usually prepare its participants for such a thing. Most businesses prepare for such things as fire, flood, or an active shooter. In those crises, the strategy is usually to remove leaders and workers alike from the crisis as quickly as possible. In an extreme crisis, however, leaders may face imminent death, but they must cement their feet.

In my doctoral dissertation² I examined several extreme events to better understand the role they can play in expanding our existing knowledge of crisis leadership. I interviewed those who played direct leadership roles during extreme events such as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor explosions, the Fukushima Daini response, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, Superstorm Sandy, and other big events. I spoke with members of the Red Cross; U.S. and Japanese military officers; and the president and chief executive officer of the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations, Admiral Robert Willard. I also interviewed individuals involved in national leadership, for example, those who have played roles in the White House Situation Room.

My findings confirmed the research³ about extreme-crisis leadership—and went beyond. Those studies concluded that the performance of leaders is second only to the cause of the event itself in determining the outcome of a disaster. In my research, I found that different leadership skill sets are needed for different types of disasters. Each disaster brings specific demands for extreme-crisis leadership. Ultimately, there is no one unified theory of extreme-crisis leadership. In this book, you’ll read about leaders whose specific personal skills made a difference in the outcome of the Fukushima accident. This book is about the extreme-crisis leaders of 3/11.

Let’s begin by reviewing the heart-wrenching stories of leaders like Taylor Anderson and Monty Dickson, the young educators in the Tohoku region I mentioned earlier, along with educators, principals, and students in Sendai. As I shared, Monty and Taylor were both English-language teachers in the Japan and English Teaching Program (JET; participants were also individually called JETs), both saved students, and both lost their lives horrifically, swept away by the tsunami. I consider them to be two of the heroes of that terrible day, though many other educators—principals, teachers, administrators—rose to the unexpected challenge and joined their ranks, saving children and helping others. Even some of the children became extreme-crisis leaders.

In Japan, it is common for schools to practice emergency procedures for earthquakes and tsunamis. But, for the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, the planning had not been sufficient. This quake and subsequent waves were much bigger than anyone could have imagined, and the waves traveled much farther inland than anyone could have predicted. Schools were caught unprepared and many individuals perished.

People who used some of the extreme-crisis leadership skills discussed herein performed heroic, almost miraculous, feats. I’ve read two books on how school administrators and students reacted to the events of 3/11: The Power of the Sea by Bruce Parker (Palgrave Macmillan, St. Martin Press, NY, 2012) and Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry (MCD-Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NY, 2017). They provide extensive insight into the destruction in the Sendai area, along with detailed accounts of the response of the school districts.

The earthquake and tsunami struck during the dismissal of children from school Friday afternoon. Parents were already on the road to pick up their children, children were eager to get home, and principals and teachers were ready for the workweek to end. Within minutes, a sunny day like any other was thrust into an extreme crisis.

Kama Elementary School—a mile from Ishinomaki Bay and near two rivers that connected to the sea—was far enough away that it was thought to be safe from tsunamis. In fact, it was a designated tsunami shelter. During the tsunami warning, ne...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• STATION BLACKOUT
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• CHAPTER 1: The Making of a Crisis Leader
• CHAPTER 2: Extreme-Crisis Leadership
• CHAPTER 3 : Overview
• CHAPTER 4 : March 11, 2:46 p.m., the Great East Japan Earthquake Strikes
• CHAPTER 5 : Next Challenge: Venting
• CHAPTER 6 : Desperation
• CHAPTER 7 : How the Other Fukushima Survived
• CHAPTER 8 : Our Arrival
• CHAPTER 9 : Heroic Acts
• CHAPTER 10 : Pump Up the Volume
• CHAPTER 11 : Starry, Starry Day
• CHAPTER 12 : Fears for Unit 4
• CHAPTER 13 : Keep Calm and Get Organized
• CHAPTER 14 : “Help Me”
• CHAPTER 15 : Flood the Building
• CHAPTER 16 : Radiophobia
• CHAPTER 17 : Kantei Meetings/Hosono Process
• CHAPTER 18 : Kondo Theory
• CHAPTER 19 : J-Village and First Trip to Daiichi and Daini
• CHAPTER 20 : Little Texas
• CHAPTER 21 : The Big Takeaway
• CHAPTER 22 : June 2014 Trip to Fukushima Prefecture
• Notes
• Index
• Meet Chuck Casto In Person