The disaster in Japan as seen on TV gives an appearance of
the end of the world. The devastation is beyond comprehension.
Each day brings more and more images that are unbelievable
in their views of the misery the people are suffering.
It’s
amazing to realize someone had a camera in their hand to
record events as they unfolded. The footage of boats
appearing to be washed over the edge of a waterway, then
driven by the waters force under a bridge and crushed defies
belief.
Houses and cars seen floating down what had once been a roadway.
Ships and shipping containers, along with new cars and trucks
ready for shipping, all floating in what was once a major
ship harbor.
We can all feel the sorrow of those looking for missing family
members and their disbelief at what has taken place.
Videos of explosions at nuclear sites seem to have all those
who were once thought to be able to handle any disaster clambering
for answers. It was said the cooling water needed to divert
disaster had been well thought out time and time again. Systems
were developed to provide it; electricity to run the pumps
to keep the cooling water flowing and petroleum pumps. The
petroleum pumps kicked in as expected when the earthquake hit
but, perhaps understandably, human error allowed them to run
out of fuel. A third system, battery powered, was used until
the batteries went dead. This led to the last resort of using
sea water, pumped onto the fuel in an attempt to cool it. Fire
apparatus was used initially followed by helicopters dumping
loads from above.
It appears with all the brilliant engineering used to design,
build and put into place complex systems, Mother Nature has
overtaken all of it. Although the events are taking place almost
half way around the globe, can it affect us? Yes, of course
it can and will.
It
will disrupt our trading for months, perhaps years. It will
affect travel between our two countries and likely
wipe
out
some manufacturing operations, many backed by U.S.
companies. The first person I spoke to after witnessing the
event
said, “There
goes the stock market.” I agreed but think there
may be an even greater impact than that. It could mean,
there
goes nuclear power as we now know it.
When
this possibility was discussed among those supposedly knowledgeable
of the possibilities, I have to wonder
if these were the same people that failed to plan
for such
a disaster.
How could they have better predicted? They seemed
to know now that Japan was located on the Ring of Fire,
where most
faults
occur in the world. They also knew that earthquakes
can and do cause tsunami’s. Didn’t they ever consider the
two at the same time occurring (which appears to be common)
when locating nuclear plants right along its path. Didn’t
they know it could spell the biggest disaster known
to mankind?
If this possibility was overlooked in the past, what else has
been overlooked in the design of plants in our country? Are
there steps we can and should take that will help divert such
problems? If the answer is yes, where and when do we start?
It
will be and is being said it’s not likely
we would have an earthquake or tsunami such as
the one that
hit
Japan but we can only assume no one thought Japan
would have them
either.
It
would seem all have forgotten, “It’s
not nice to challenge Mother Nature.”
As I see it, will we change our thinking, do anything differently,
take any actions or will we, as we did with our recent Gulf
disaster, just let it pass and go on to the next disaster?