![]() ![]() Until the last reactor went into cold shutdown, Masuda and his team took nothing for granted. While they acted, some things became more certain (“What’s broken in the plant, and how can we fix it?”) some became less so (“Am I in danger from radiation?”) and some remained as unpredictable as ever (“Will these aftershocks lead to more flooding?”). He shared the burden of uncertainty and doubt, engaging in what the organizational theorist Karl Weick and others have described as the “sensemaking” process: He arrived at a common understanding with his team members by revising and communicating what they “knew” so that they could together adapt to each twist and turn.Īs a result, workers at Daini didn’t lose focus or hope. But more important, Masuda acknowledged the evolving reality in which they were operating. His technical competence, knowledge of the plant, and diligence helped him earn their trust. He knew he had to persuade people to act-against their survival instincts. To assess the damage and begin the dangerous work of restoring power to the reactors, Masuda didn’t simply make decisions and issue orders. The tsunami wasn’t a single dreadful wave but a series of them. The earthquake had been days in the making and would generate aftershocks for more than a year. What had happened here? How could the workers move forward and take action when all their expectations had been so violently shattered? Hanging over these questions was an even scarier one: Was the worst really over? Natural disasters aren’t discrete events. But the team was still reeling from a natural disaster of almost supernatural dimensions. To achieve cooldown and prevent the kind of devastation that was unfolding at Daiichi, Masuda and his team had to connect those reactors to Daini’s surviving power sources. In two minutes, the tsunami overwhelms Daini. But three of the four reactors lacked sufficient power to run a critical component of their cooling systems. That single power line supplied electricity to the control rooms, where plant operators could monitor the water level, temperature, pressure, and other vital metrics for each reactor and containment vessel. It was left with just one diesel generator and one power line intact. ![]() But the site superintendent, Naohiro Masuda, and the rest of Daini’s 400 employees charted their way through the chaos, and the plant survived without a meltdown or an explosion.Īt a magnitude of 9.0, the earthquake was the largest in Japan’s recorded history, and the waves it generated were three times as high as what Daini had been built to withstand. In so volatile an environment, none of the usual rules for decision making and organizational behavior applied. To shed light on how leadership shaped the outcome, we’ve reconstructed that story here-from several firsthand interviews detailed reports by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the utility that owns both plants the Nuclear Energy Institute and a number of public sources. Less well known is the crisis at Fukushima Daini, a sister plant about 10 kilometers to the south, which also suffered severe damage but escaped Daiichi’s fate. Since the tsunami, Daiichi has been consumed by the challenge of containing and reducing the radioactive water and debris left behind. Without electricity to run the plant’s cooling systems, managers and workers couldn’t avert catastrophe: People around the world watched grainy footage of the explosions, gray plumes of smoke and steam blotting the skyline. When we hear the words “Fukushima disaster,” most of us think of Fukushima Daiichi, the nuclear power plant wracked by three core meltdowns and three reactor building explosions following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Daini survived the crisis without an explosion or a meltdown. With each new problem they encountered, it recalibrated, iteratively creating continuity and restoring order. Until the last reactor went into cold shutdown, Masuda’s team took nothing for granted. Luck played a part, but so did smart leadership and sensemaking. In a volatile environment, Masuda and Daini’s hundreds of employees responded to each unexpected event in turn. To prevent the disaster experienced up north, the site superintendent, Naohiro Masuda, and his team had to connect them to the plant’s surviving power sources. The world is familiar with Daiichi’s fate less well known is the crisis at its sister plant, Daini, about 10 kilometers to the south.Īs a result of nature’s onslaught, three of Daini’s four reactors lacked sufficient power to achieve cooldown. ![]() In March 2011 Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was devastated by three reactor explosions and three core meltdowns in the days following a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami that produced waves as high as 17 meters. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |