Reflections on Fukushima

NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014
NRC Reflections on Japan

Three years after the March 11, 2011, natural disaster and nuclear 

accident in Fukushima, Japan, the leadership and staff of the 

U.S.Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) continue to express their 

sadness at the loss of life and destruction caused by the earthquake 

and tsunami. At the same time, the NRC stands in awe and admiration 

of the resilience and determination of the Japanese people as they 

rebuild their communities and their lives. The NRC sees Japan as 

an inspiration to the world and commends its Japanese colleagues 

for openly sharing the lessons learned from the accident with the 

international community. The knowledge gained from this work 

is invaluable and allows both nuclear power plant operators and 

regulators around the world to better understand the effects of 

extreme natural events and to take actions to enhance safety.
Air filtering system for the Unit 4 Diesel Generators at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Site. 
Destroyed store in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.

NRC Team and members of the Japan Nuclear Regulation Authority.
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 i

Acknowledgments

Organizing and executing an international trip for a group of 14 people was a significant task. Many hours were put into the effort, 

both here in the United States and in Japan, to ensure that this trip was a success. The senior leadership team wishes to extend the 

following acknowledgement and personal thanks to those who contributed significantly to the successful execution of this activity:

The People and Government of Japan. We want to thank the people and government of Japan for 

hosting our visit and for providing us with access to the sites. We are grateful to the leadership and staff 

of the Japan Nuclear Regulation Authority for assistance and engagement with us during this visit. Our 

strong cooperative relationship allowed this visit to be a success. We especially want to acknowledge 

and thank the staff and leadership of the Tokyo Electric Power Company, Inc. (TEPCO), especially Mr. 

Takafumi Anegawa, Secretary-General of TEPCO’s Nuclear Reform Special Task Force; Dr. Takeyuki 

Inagaki, the Daiichi Maintenance Manager during the accident; Mr. Ikuo Izawa, the Daiichi Shift 

Manager during the accident; Mr. Naohiro Masuda, the Daini site manager during the accident; and 

Mr. Takeshi Takahashi, the current Daiichi site manager. Your open and candid discussions with us on 

the events surrounding the accident at Fukushima made the trip invaluable. We also want to thank Dr. 

Dale Klein, President of the TEPCO Reform Commission and former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission (NRC), for his assistance in facilitating this visit and the staff and management 

of Toshiba and IHI Corporation manufacturing facilities. 

The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. We want to convey personal thanks to the staff, especially 

Christopher Hulick and Junko Nagama, for facilitating this visit during a period when their time and 

resources were stretched. We also want to thank and acknowledge the translators that were secured for 

our visit. The support was outstanding.

The Office of International Programs. Many thanks to the team for their support, especially Mary 

Carter, for ensuring that each of our travel logistics were taken care of and for ensuring that we had 

ground transportation and interpreters. We want to especially recognize Kirk Foggie, the NRC Office 

of International Programs Desk Officer for Japan, for providing outstanding support on this trip. Kirk’s 

expert knowledge in Japanese culture, NRC-Japan relations, and layout and locations on the ground and 

his network of personal relationships in Japan were invaluable to us. 

The Japan Lessons-Learned Project Directorate of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. Many 

thanks to Dave Skeen and the Japan Lessons-Learned Project Directorate for their support in providing 

the team with the necessary background on the accident at Fukushima and for information on Japanese 

regulations. We want to specifically thank Billy Jessup for his assistance with the trip’s Sharepoint site.

The Office of Public Affairs. We want to thank the Office of Public Affairs, specifically Roger Hannah, 

for expert work in capturing and preparing the knowledge management video and arranging various 

permissions to allow us to capture this activity. 

The Office of the Executive Director for Operations. We want to convey our thanks to the staff in 

the Office of the Executive Director for Operations for its support in this endeavor and to acknowledge 

Olga Kasaskeris for ensuring that we had the necessary contracts and requisitions in place for travel. We 

want to especially acknowledge and thank Cindy Rosales-Cooper, our Executive Technical Assistant for 

Research and International Activities, for taking the vision, organizing it, and executing it successfully. 

We are grateful for the long hours that you put in on this trip and its subsequent knowledge management 

activities. 
ii United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Decontamination/clean-up worker in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 iii

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Overview of the Accident . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Purpose of the Visit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Overarching Insights from the Visit to Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

In Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Compilation of Essays—Personal Reflections

Michael R. Johnson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Eric J. Leeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Glenn M. Tracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

James T. Wiggins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

William M. Dean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Victor M. McCree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Cynthia D. Pederson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Marc L. Dapas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

K. Steven West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Scott Flanders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

David L. Skeen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Roger D. Hannah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Cindy Rosales-Cooper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Kirk Foggie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
iv United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Japan and U.S. Flags at the NRC delegation meeting with the Japanese Nuclear Safety Institute (JANSI).
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 1

Introduction 

The senior leadership of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission’s (NRC’s) reactor and preparedness programs 

visited Japan from February 16–23, 2014. The purpose of 

that visit was to provide an opportunity for the group to 

gain firsthand experiences and insights into the March 2011 

accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant site.

This NUREG report is a compilation of personal reflective 

essays from the group of senior managers and staff that 

participated in the February 2014 visit to Japan and includes 

a video of individual interviews and the April 24, 2014 

Knowledge Management Seminar: Reflections on Fukushima. 

The titles and offices of the senior managers and staff reflect 

individual positions as of February 2014.

Overview of the Accident

On March 11, 2011, at 2:46 p.m. (Japan Standard Time), the 

9.0-magnitude Great East Japan Earthquake (Tohoku) moved the 

country of Japan approximately 8 feet eastward1 and dropped its 

northeastern coastline by about 2 feet.2 It occurred 80 miles east 

of Sendai, Honshu, Japan, at a depth of 18.6 miles and resulted 

in massive damage to much of Japan’s north coastline. This 

earthquake set off a chain of tsunamis from the Pacific Ocean floor 

ranging in height from 9 to 38 feet that traveled at approximately 

435 miles per hour.3 The largest of these tsunamis destroyed about 

347 square miles of the Japanese eastern coastal region and resulted 

in over 19,000 deaths.4 One of these tsunamis, approximately 

50 feet (15 meters) in height, flooded the Fukushima Daiichi and 

Daini nuclear power generating stations within 1 hour after the 

earthquake and precipitated events that caused the meltdown of 

Daiichi Units 1, 2, and 3.5 A series of tsunamis then inundated the 

Daiichi site just 8 minutes after the first one. 

The reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini are located 

6 miles apart in the Japanese Prefecture of Fukushima. The 

Daiichi site has six boiling water reactors (BWRs) and is located 

just outside the towns of Okuma and Futaba. Daini, which 

is south of Daiichi, has four BWRs and is near the towns of 

Tomioka and Naraha. Both sites are owned and operated by 

1 Japan’s coastline was thrust 2.4 meters eastward (U.S. Geological

 Survey).

2 See the World Nuclear Association Web site at http://www.worldnuclear.org/info/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushimaaccident/.

3 The information was obtained from the U.S. Geological Survey.

4 None of these deaths were the result of the nuclear accident. 

5 Daini was hit by the first tsunami wave 37 minutes after the 

earthquake. Daiichi was hit at 4 minutes after the earthquake.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, Inc. (TEPCO). The reactor 

units at Daiichi and Daini responded as planned to the 

earthquake; all units experienced a normal reactor trip, and 

the safety systems functioned as designed. Approximately 

41 minutes after the earthquake, the Daiichi site was inundated 

with water and debris from the tsunami. The tsunami 

destroyed the diesel generators, electrical switchgear, batteries, 

seawater pumps for the main condenser circuits, the auxiliary 

cooling circuits, and the residual heat removal cooling system. 

This destruction led to a complete station blackout. To further 

complicate the situation, Daiichi almost immediately lost 

the 125-volt direct current batteries for Units 1 and 2 and 

subsequently for Unit 3, thus leaving the operators without 

instrumentation, controls, or lighting. Within 4 days, Units 

1, 2, and 3 would experience significant core damage. Many 

official reports document and catalog the core damage. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) categorizes 

the accident at Fukushima Daiichi as a Level 7 event on the 

International Nuclear Event Scale (the highest on the IAEA 

scale). It is considered the worst civil nuclear accident in the 

past 30 years.6 Three Daiichi and Daini staff members lost 

their lives as a result of the earthquake and tsunami; however, 

no loss of life has been attributed to the nuclear accident at 

Daiichi. 

Purpose of the Visit

The scale of the accident, the actions taken, and the 

consequences of the Fukushima accident made it very 

important for this team to visit the Fukushima site and to 

obtain firsthand insights of the actions taken both during and 

after the accident by the TEPCO operators and managers, 

the Japanese regulators, and nuclear industry representatives. 

From an historical perspective, the greatest changes to the U.S. 

nuclear regulatory system were instituted in the aftermath of 

the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island (TMI). For example, 

after the accident at TMI, the NRC did the following: 

• Focused on all human aspects of nuclear power 

operations. TMI illuminated the need for operators and 

managers to ensure that plants are staffed with properly 

trained operators and that qualified engineers are 

available on site in responsible positions to help diagnose 

and cope with a severe accident.

• Enhanced the analysis and communications of operating 

6 Note that the 1986 Chernobyl accident is considered the worst 

civil nuclear accident in history. The 1979 accident at TMI is 

considered the worst civil nuclear accident in the United States.
2 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

experience between the NRC and industry.  After 

TMI, the NRC began to systematically use its generic 

communications process to issue bulletins and generic 

letters to licensees to apprise them of emerging issues with 

generic implications.

• Changed its internal processes and practices, including 

revisions to the emergency response procedures and 

staffing and to the NRC’s inspection and oversight 

process. These changes improved the emergency 

preparedness and response program, for example through 

the issuance requirements, and also included the staffing 

of resident inspectors at each nuclear power plant site. 

Before TMI, the NRC had resident inspectors at only 

some sites.

Within days of the accident at Fukushima, the Commission 

convened a Near-Term Task Force of experts to review 

the accident and to make recommendations to enhance 

reactor safety in the United States. The task force issued its 

recommendations in July 2011, and the NRC organized a 

Japan Lessons-Learned (Fukushima) Steering Committee 

and subsequently a Directorate with staff to implement these 

lessons. The team of senior managers that traveled to Japan 

represents the majority of the Fukushima Steering Committee. 

Additionally, these senior managers are responsible for 

leading the NRC’s efforts to ensure that the U.S. nuclear power 

plant fleet is adequately prepared to withstand or mitigate an 

accident scenario similar to what Fukushima experienced. 

The responsibility to ensure that U.S. industry has taken the 

necessary steps to implement the lessons learned from Japan 

rests within the programs of these leaders.

The timing of this visit was important as well. Although the 

accident at Fukushima has many lessons learned, the NRC has 

primarily focused on issuing orders, initiating rulemaking, and 

requesting information to address several of those lessons that 

the Commission determined that the agency should address 

without delay. The NRC is currently at a critical time in its 

post-Fukushima activities because the staff is in the process of 

reviewing licensee plans to meet orders to ensure that they are 

sufficient, and the agency will soon be engaging licensees to 

verify their implementation of these orders at all sites.

Overarching Insights from 

the Visit to Japan

To properly reflect on and compare insights, the senior 

management team built time into its schedule for 

reflective discussions. During these discussions, the team 

aligned around the following three key messages from its 

week in Japan:

1) Ensure that the nuclear industry and the NRC are 

prepared for the unexpected. 

The team came back from Japan with the overwhelming need 

to ensure that the nuclear industry and the NRC are prepared 

for the unexpected. Although the agency recognized the 

importance of preparing for the unexpected within days 

of the accident, the experiences and insights that the team 

gained on this trip reemphasized its significance. The Daiichi 

Units 1 and 2 shift manager during the accident told the 

team that he and the other operators at Daiichi “had been 

trained and were convinced that what happened could have 

never happen[ed].” He further stated, “What we saw was 

much worse!” At the 2009 30th anniversary of the accident 

at TMI, Edward Frederick, the TMI Unit 2 reactor operator 

who turned off the makeup pump that partially caused the 

accident, stated that “the entire industry, NRC included, [were] 

completely unprepared for what...happened” at TMI. The 

accidents at TMI and Fukushima reinforce a common insight 

that the nuclear industry and the NRC must prepare for the 

unexpected by accomplishing the following:

• Recognize and accept that the unexpected can occur 

and remain vigilant to identify and address previously 

unrecognized hazards and vulnerabilities, and address 

these hazards and vulnerabilities in a timely manner.

• Ensure the development of strategies (e.g., procedures, 

hardware, trained personnel) to address the unexpected.

• Ensure the capability of installed equipment to provide 

time to execute these strategies. 
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 3

2) Ensure that licensees have a deep understanding of 

their plants and that both the NRC and the industry 

maintain technical expertise.

The team developed a greater appreciation for the importance 

of ensuring that licensees have a deep understanding of their 

plants and that both the NRC and the industry maintain 

technical expertise. In the meetings at TEPCO headquarters, 

Mr. Takafumi Anegawa, Secretary General of TEPCO’s 

Nuclear Reform Special Task Force, told the team that one of 

TEPCO’s main lessons learned from Fukushima was that it 

has to invest more in training to ensure that operations staff 

and managers understand the plant. He said that before the 

accident, TEPCO functioned as a management company with 

little technical expertise and relied heavily upon contractors 

to know the design and details of the plant and to perform 

maintenance and plant modifications. As a result, TEPCO had 

only a small number of employees who really knew the Daiichi 

plant at a detailed design level. This situation is a striking 

comparison to one of the main lessons learned from the TMI 

accident—“the need for operators and managers to ensure 

that plants are staffed with properly trained operators and 

that qualified engineers are available onsite.” The NRC must 

ensure that: 

• The agency maintains a core group of managers and 

staff (the right people with the right knowledge and 

experience), in house to be able to react quickly and make 

logical decisions during an accident, and who understand 

the importance of the modifications, procedures, 

and training made at individual plants as part of the 

Fukushima lessons learned.

• Licensees maintain a core group of managers and 

staff (the right people with the right knowledge and 

experience), in house to be able to react quickly and make 

logical decisions during an accident, and who understand 

the importance of the modifications, procedures, 

and training made at individual plants as part of the 

Fukushima lessons learned.

3) Ensure that U.S. licensees fully implement, maintain, 

and appropriately exercise the measures that will be 

established based on the post-Fukushima actions 

directed by the NRC. 

Lastly, the senior management team returned home with a greater 

resolve to ensure that U.S. licensees (1) fully implement, (2) maintain, 

and (3) appropriately exercise the measures that will be established 

based on the post-Fukushima actions required by the NRC. The 

Near-Term Task Force recommendations, as modified and expanded 

by the Fukushima Steering Committee, provide a logical set of 

activities that the NRC and industry need to implement to enhance 

safety at U.S. nuclear power plants. Although significant progress 

has been made to define the necessary safety enhancements since 

2011, the tangible implementation of those enhancements, although 

they are currently underway, will not be completed for a period of 

time. The NRC needs to ensure that the plans are (1) appropriate, 

(2) completed in a timely manner, and (3) maintained.

In addition to its focus on the above three overarching insights, 

the team had the following personal reflections and thoughts on 

the additional key insights. The personal reflective essays of each 

person who traveled to Japan further discuss these insights. 

• Achieve the appropriate balance between prevention and 

mitigation.

• Maximize the lessons learned from Japan into the NRC’s 

own regulatory framework.

• Ensure that licensees are appropriately protected against 

natural hazards.

• Ensure that the NRC maintains a regulatory culture 

that does not disincentivize operators/industry to make 

improvements.

• Reinforce the incident response decisionmaking regime 

with the NRC’s Federal partners.

• Take action to prevent and to mitigate the unexpected 

accident to preserve the public trust.

• Consider whether significant gaps exist in the NRC postFukushima approach for U.S. licensees.

• Consider the unexpected offsite consequences. 

• Recognize that the Japanese did their best under 

extremely challenging circumstances.

• Recognize that we should not expect heroism.

• Reflect on the international cooperative aspects of the 

NRC’s engagement with Japan. 

• Consider the approaches implemented in other countries.
4 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

In Japan

The senior management team began its visit in Japan with tours 

of Toshiba’s manufacturing facilities in the Yokohama region 

of Tokyo. This portion included a tour of the IHI Corporation 

nuclear component manufacturing facility. The second day 

afforded a visit to the seven-unit Kashiwazaki-Kariwa site that 

is located on the west side of Japan. This site has undergone 

significant safety upgrades as a result of a very large earthquake 

in 2007 and is currently implementing additional changes in 

response to the Fukushima accident. The team spent the third 

day in Tokyo in meetings with the Japanese Nuclear Regulation 

Authority (JNRA), the NRC’s counterpart agency; the newly 

created Japanese Nuclear Safety Institute, which is modeled 

after the U.S. industry’s Institute of Nuclear Power Operations; 

and TEPCO’s headquarters office. The team visited the fourunit Fukushima Daini site on the fourth day and the six-unit 

Fukushima Daiichi site on the fifth day. 

Nearly 3 years after the earthquake and tsunami, life has 

returned to normal in many ways for the vast majority of 

people. On the train ride from Tokyo to Iwaki, the group saw 

business men going to work in their suits with their briefcases 

or backpacks, blue collar workers going to work in their work 

clothes with their lunch kits, and children in their school 

uniforms on their way to school.

On the 18-mile bus ride from Iwaki city to J-Village, which is 

located just outside the 12-mile exclusion zone (approximately 

14 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi site), the team saw 

that the Japanese had repaired much of the damage from the 

earthquake and tsunami. Just outside J-Village, which was a 

training center in Japan for the men’s and women’s national 

soccer teams before the accident, most roads have been rebuilt, 

homes and businesses have been repaired and are reopened, 

and boats and cars that were deposited along the coastline by 

the tsunami have been removed. However, many reminders 

of the destruction are still evident. J-Village is now the staging 

area for workers going to the Fukushima Daiichi site. There 

are remnants of the many once green soccer fields that are now 

muddy parking lots for the 4,000 workers who are bused to the 

plant site every day or that are being used as storage areas for 

equipment and material bound for the site. 

After each member of the visiting NRC team received a 

whole body count, the team members boarded another bus 

to the Fukushima site. The bus took them through the police 

barricade on the road to the plant site. Driving to the site 

on this road enabled team members to see abandoned rice 

paddies that are now overgrown with weeds and grass. Many 

of the abandoned fields now have stacks of large black garbage 

bags of contaminated soil or long rows of green tarps covering 

contaminated soil, plants, and other material. Driving through 

the town of Tomioka, which is outside Daini and is only about 

8 miles from Fukushima Daiichi, allowed team members to see 

concrete evidence of earthquake damage to several buildings 

with broken terra cotta roof tiles, cracks in some buildings, 

some houses that were visibly leaning, awnings that had 

fallen off, broken windows, empty store fronts with products 

still on the shelves, and diners with plates and silverware on 

the tables. Near the beach front on the lower end of town 

where the tsunami struck, a once thriving train station had 

been swept away; only the concrete platform and the railroad 

track remain. The back end of a car that was picked up by the 

tsunami and smashed into the front of a beachfront restaurant 

still protrudes from the restaurant onto the sidewalk. 

The following pages of this NUREG knowledge management 

report contain the personal reflections of each member of the 

group of NRC senior managers and staff who traveled to Japan 

on this trip. Some of the insights and reflections are similar; 

however, these similarities reinforce the overarching insights 

that the team developed while visiting Japan.

Temporary cables at the Fukushima Daini Nuclear 

Power Site. 
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 5

Abandoned stores in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.

NRC Team looking at Units 3, 2, and 1 of the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Site.
6 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Michael R. Johnson

Deputy Executive Director for Operations

I had entertained the idea of 

travelling to Japan with the 

office directors and regional 

administrators for some time. I 

knew it would require a significant 

investment of resources at a time 

when we could potentially face 

another Government shutdown 

or sequester. We were also dealing 

with many high-priority issues, 

including the oversight of operational safety and security of the 

operating units, implementation of Fukushima lessons-learned 

orders, requests for information (the mitigating strategies 

order and seismic and flooding reanalyses), and oversight of 

units under construction. However, we pressed ahead, and I 

was rewarded with one of the most impactful experiences of 

my career.

Of course, the earthquake, tsunami, and resultant accident at 

Fukushima had been well chronicled by the time we arrived, 

and actions to address the lessons learned are well underway 

by the NRC and our licensees. Yet, riding through towns 

and past houses and businesses that still lay abandoned 

with weeds growing up through cracks in parking lots and 

sidewalks; seeing the damaged plants at Fukushima Daiichi; 

speaking with operators and supervisors who were on site on 

March 11, 2011; and visiting Fukushima Daini (which faced 

similar challenges as a result of the earthquake and tsunami but 

avoided an accident) strengthened my resolve to ensure that 

improvement actions are effective and lasting.

I left with many insights, but the one that is most prominent for 

me came as a result of an afternoon meeting we had at TEPCO 

headquarters. We spoke with the maintenance supervisor who 

was on duty in the Emergency Response Center at Fukushima 

Daiichi and the shift supervisor who was on shift at the time of 

the earthquake and tsunami. They described the tremendous 

challenges that they faced during the first 100 hours. In 

the Unit 1 and 2 combined control room with no lighting 

or instrumentation and with little communications; in the 

plant amid debris in darkness, high temperatures, and high 

radiation; and onsite during repeated aftershocks and tsunami 

warnings, the operators worked heroically under great stress 

and fatigue to restore functions and to attempt to mitigate 

the damage. The challenges they faced were unexpected 

and unprecedented. The shift supervisor (speaking through 

an interpreter) stated, “[Before the accident] we frequently 

conducted drills. I was convinced we would never see 

anything worse. What happened was totally bigger. Today my 

view is 180 degrees different. I have come to know, you must 

always be prepared for something worse.” 

We must prepare for the unexpected. Implied in this statement 

is recognition of the fact that the unexpected can occur. 

Certainly the accident at Fukushima Daiichi demonstrates 

this with unmistakable clarity. To prepare, we must be 

continuously vigilant to uncover new information and to 

understand emerging potential safety or security concerns, and 

we must take appropriate actions to address them. We must 

ensure that plants are adequately protected against expected 

hazards. TEPCO, in its lessons-learned report states that 

the accident at Fukushima Daiichi might have been avoided 

through ample preparation. In addition, we must ensure that 

plants have equipment and strategies that can be successfully 

employed to address challenges beyond what is expected. 

Just 12 kilometers south of Fukushima Daiichi, Fukushima 

Daini also struggled with the earthquake and tsunami. At 

Daini, operators developed and implemented strategies to 

deploy portable equipment and materials “on the fly,” enabling 

the plant to survive the unexpected. In an accomplishment 

that is legendary, the site superintendent deployed 200 

people, who successfully laid 9 kilometers of temporary cable 

in 30 hours in order to restore reactor core cooling from 

electrical sources on site that survived the flooding. For me, 

this reemphasizes the importance of the actions that the 

Commission directed through orders that plants develop, 

implement, and maintain strategies and equipment to maintain 

and restore core cooling, containment, and spent fuel pool 

cooling following beyond-design-basis external events. In 

addition to the importance of the use of strategies and portable 

equipment at Daini, I noted that the installed equipment 

that remained functioning following the earthquake and 

tsunami (although slight) contributed to the successful 

efforts of plant personnel to mitigate the event. For example, 

control room lighting, instrumentation, and communications 

between the control room and the Emergency Response 

Center were maintained throughout the event. Although 

in no way diminishing the enormity of the challenges faced, 

the availability of this equipment helped the operators and 

personnel maintain awareness of plant parameters, develop 

restoration strategies, and determine the effectiveness of 

actions being implemented. Thus, Fukushima Daini also 

reemphasizes the important role that installed plant equipment 

plays in enabling plants to survive the unexpected.
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 7

“...we must be continuously vigilant to uncover new information and to understand 

emerging potential safety or security concerns, and we must take appropriate actions to 

address them.”

Michael R. Johnson

Photo courtesy of TEPCO. 

Paper cranes (Japanese symbol of hope) made by NRC employees on display in the Emergency Response Center at 

Fukushima Daiichi.”

Daiichi Unit 3.
8 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Eric J. Leeds, 

Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor 

Regulation

At the end of almost every day 

of our visit, the group of senior 

NRC managers took time to 

reflect, to discuss what we learned, 

and to record our thoughts. The 

trip, what we saw and what we 

experienced, reinforced to us that 

the Fukushima lessons learned 

that we are requiring the industry 

to implement are critical to 

ensure an accident like the one at Fukushima does not happen 

in the United States. Our message is that we have to ensure 

that the licensees fully implement, maintain, and exercise the 

Fukushima lessons learned. Those words—fully implement, 

maintain, and exercise—were chosen very carefully, with 

distinct meaning and relevance.

First, “fully implement” means that we are resolved that each 

licensee must implement each Fukushima lesson learned 

thoroughly and completely. Because these actions will take 

years to fully implement, we must ensure that we do not allow 

the licensees to lose focus or to allow the business of the day 

to obscure our vision. Following the TMI accident, the NRC 

published a listing of TMI action items in NUREG-0737, 

“Clarification of TMI Action Plan Requirements,” issued 

November 1980, to ensure that all the actions required were 

captured for knowledge management. About 7 or 8 years 

later, a member of Congress asked the agency to provide 

a status update of the TMI action items. The staff had not 

kept adequate records and had to scramble to recreate an 

accounting. Once the dust settled, we found that although 

many licensees had fully implemented the TMI lessons 

learned, some had not. We are resolved that we do not repeat 

that experience with the Fukushima lessons learned.

What we mean by “maintain” is that once the lessons learned 

have been implemented, the NRC staff should routinely 

inspect and ensure that the equipment, procedures, and 

capabilities developed by the licensees remain intact. Once 

again, past experience has indicated that not all licensees will 

maintain these actions without NRC oversight. Following the 

Fukushima accident, the NRC issued a temporary instruction 

to our inspectors to examine the equipment and procedures, 

under Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations

(10 CFR) 50.54(hh), that had been established after the 

terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. Our inspectors found 

that some licensees had not maintained the equipment. Hoses 

were missing, pumps had been moved, and modifications 

at some plants had been made to the plant so that the 

supplemental equipment could no longer be used to perform 

its intended function. We must ensure that licensees maintain 

the equipment, procedures, and capabilities that are required in 

response to the Fukushima accident.

And finally, we expect licensees to exercise the mitigating 

strategies and other procedures and processes learned from the 

Fukushima accident on a regular basis. While surveying the 

damage at Fukushima Daiichi, we were struck by the operators’ 

reports that they had never contemplated many of the 

strategies they tried to implement to save the plant. They had 

never practiced these emergency actions. Operators could not 

find the connections to allow emergency equipment to provide 

power or water. Many operators were asked to use equipment 

and take manual actions that they had never before attempted. 

The first time that an operator is required to use an emergency 

procedure cannot be on the day of the event. We must ensure 

that licensees regularly exercise the strategies and emergency 

procedures developed in response to the Fukushima accident. 

This course of action is the best method to successfully save a 

stricken nuclear power plant. 

 

Snow on the Japanese countryside on the way to the 

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power site.
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 9

“The first time that an operator is required to use an emergency procedure cannot be on 

the day of the event. We must ensure that licensees regularly exercise the strategies and 

emergency procedures developed in response to the Fukushima accident.”

Eric J. Leeds

Water storage tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Site.

NRC delegation inside Unit 4 of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Site.
10 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Glenn M. Tracy

Director of the Office of New Reactors

Our comprehensive tour of key 

reactor sites and our extensive 

interactions with Japanese officials 

regarding the details and impact 

of the March 2011 earthquake and 

subsequent Fukushima Daiichi 

accidents are, without question, 

the most impactful experiences 

I have had during my 32 years 

in the nuclear field. I feel very 

fortunate to work for an agency 

that provided me this unique and important experience as a 

regulator.

Like my NRC colleagues, the images of the damaged reactor 

site and nearby uninhabitable villages and the horrific 

conditions under which operators displayed their courage 

and conviction through their heroic attempts to prevent core 

damage and mitigate the consequences of the multiple-unit 

accidents are indelible. 

Several themes from this experience resonated with all of 

us, including ensuring that (1) the NRC and industry are 

prepared for the unexpected, (2) our licensees fully implement, 

maintain, and realistically exercise the post-Fukushima 

actions directed by the agency, and (3) the NRC and industry 

maintain the depth and breadth of their technical expertise. 

Additionally, my continued reflections lead me to emphasize 

certain matters I consider particularly important. 

First, time during any crisis is both limited and precious. Our 

Japanese colleagues repeatedly emphasized that, without 

question, time was the most important factor during their 

response following the massive unexpected tsunami. Time is 

an asset; the lack of time is an overwhelming handicap. The 

very nature of any crisis includes uncertainty, complexity, and 

frequently agony, combined with time restrictions during 

which action must be taken to avoid disaster. Planning for a 

future crisis mandates addressing the critical need for ample 

time amidst unforeseen obstacles.

Second, when adding defense in depth to nuclear reactors, we 

must strive to achieve the proper balance between hardened, 

installed safety systems and portable backup equipment. The 

insights I gained from our tour and detailed discussions with 

management at Fukushima Daini emphasized for me the 

limitations and potential vulnerabilities of an overreliance 

on portable equipment. Our Japanese colleagues deem 

the prevention of a core melt at Fukushima Daini, through 

the use of portable assets, as “a close call,” and I agree. They 

described the extraordinary, innovative, and heroic actions to 

implement solutions to avoid core meltdown. The complexity 

of the challenges that they faced highlight the difficulty and 

limitations in implementing operator mitigating actions with 

portable equipment. They also demonstrate the need for time 

to successfully complete such actions amidst unexpected 

challenges or extreme conditions. Clearly, the availability of 

hardened systems, installed plant safety systems, or alternate 

hardened systems can provide crucial additional time for 

operators in a crisis. 

Lastly, the NRC staff should continue to closely monitor 

and reflect upon the actions that our international partners 

have taken in response to the Fukushima Daiichi accident. 

Several nations have installed additional flooding barriers 

and alternate safety equipment, have ensured the timely 

availability of portable equipment, have established associated 

system connections, and have exercised their use with local 

responders. The actions of our international partners can 

continue to inform our own regulatory actions with respect 

to additional defense in depth and the proper balance for 

installed or portable equipment. These insights can also help 

focus our timely, efficient, effective, and realistic regulatory 

action for any new proposals to address seismic and flooding 

requirements or other safety measures.

In conclusion, the energy source we oversee demands respect. 

The potential consequences to our communities, loss of public 

trust, and costs for postaccident cleanup are significant—as is 

our duty to protect the public and the environment.

 

Unit 4’s Spent fuel pool at the Fukushima Daiichi 

Nuclear Power Site.
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 11

“The energy source we oversee commands respect. The potential consequences to our 

communities, loss of public trust, and costs for post-accident cleanup are significant—

as significant as is our duty to protect the public and the environment.”

Glenn M. Tracy

The NRC Team at the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 Spent Fuel Pool.

Original signage at the J-Village National Soccer Training Center.
12 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

James T. Wiggins

Director of the Office of Nuclear Security and 

Incident Response

The visit to the Daiichi plant and 

its surroundings provided us 

with the opportunity to see what 

TEPCO has accomplished since 

the accident. Although we should 

not downplay the importance 

of the accident and the effects 

of the accident on the plant, the 

staff, and the nearby population, 

TEPCO has clearly done much 

to stabilize the units, to lower the state of contamination on 

site, and to recover large parts of the surrounding area to the 

point at which the population can reenter the area for at least 

part of the day. The team came away from the visit impressed 

with the dedication that the site staff displayed during the event 

and with what TEPCO has accomplished over the last 3 years. 

The team heard a number of accounts by TEPCO staff that 

were present during the early stages of the event that spoke to 

the resilience of members of the staff as they were forced by 

circumstances to perform tasks that could be characterized as 

heroic and for which the outcome of those actions was highly 

uncertain. We heard of the long hours of continued work, 

without relief, in harsh environments on site. During our 

visit, we observed that the site staff appeared to be diligently 

focused on the continuing need to address radioactive water 

at the facility and to continue actions that were moving the site 

toward decommissioning. We saw no signs of complacency in 

the site staff ’s approach.

For me personally, upon getting to the site, I expected to see 

much worse conditions both on site and off site. Likely, the 

difference between the conditions I saw and what I expected 

speak to the industriousness of the plant staff and the 

fundamental ruggedness of the designs of the facilities. The 

Daiichi plant survived the earthquake reasonably well because 

of the inherent conservatism in the design of its systems, 

structures, and components; the tsunami drove the problem, 

causing the long-term loss of electrical power, instrumentation, 

and eventually core cooling and the containment. Hydrogen 

explosions likely caused by core damage significantly 

affected three of the units. However, the spent fuel pools, 

including those in the affected units, all remained intact. The 

local population evacuated the area before people received 

significant dose. Therefore, at some level, there was success 

among all the failures.

At the Daiichi plant, we learned from a discussion with a 

TEPCO manager that, before the event, the Japanese regulator, 

the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, had imposed a 

facility change process that, in his opinion, provided TEPCO 

with a disincentive against making safety and reliability 

improvements to the plant. He told us that, for a change to 

be made at the facility, the regulator required the licensee to 

submit for review an analysis that must explain why the change 

was necessary and why the prior condition was “wrong.” To the 

team, this seemed to introduce a dynamic in which the licensee 

would have to indicate or admit that its prechange design or 

operations were unsafe, which is something that licensees 

are not apt to do. This regulatory process seemed to provide 

an unintended barrier to making enhancements. The team 

did not try to validate this assertion by the TEPCO manager. 

However, we came away from the discussion with a reminder 

that well-intended regulatory actions might lead to significant 

unintended effects. We need to be careful that our processes 

promote enhancements to safety and security and that they do 

not introduce unnecessary, artificial, or hidden barriers. 

 

Corroded switch gear at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear 

Power Site.
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 13

“We need to remember that well intended regulatory actions might lead to significant 

unintended effects. We need to be careful that our processes promote enhancements 

to safety and security and that they do not introduce unnecessary, artificial, or hidden 

barriers.”

James T. Wiggins 

Aerial photo of the Daiichi site projected onto the floor at the TEPCO Fukushima Visitor and Educational Center.

Contaminated waste storage in Fukushima Prefecture.
14 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

William M. (Bill) Dean

Regional Administrator of Region I

Regional administrators do not 

travel internationally very often 

due to the necessary focus we 

must maintain on the safety and 

security of the NRC’s reactor and 

material licensees. Therefore, 

the trip that the regional 

administrators made to Japan 

with other NRC senior managers 

was a unique experience on many 

levels. Most importantly, it enabled us to observe firsthand 

the far-reaching impacts of a nuclear disaster—not only its 

physical effects on the facility and the surrounding countryside 

but also its impact on a nation’s psyche and its people. Every 

organization we met with, whether they represented industry 

or the regulator, offered us a heartfelt apology for their role 

in allowing the accident to occur and for adversely affecting 

the worldwide nuclear community, revealing how deeply this 

event has affected the country.

What resonated with each and every one of us is that we 

cannot allow a Fukushima-like event to occur in the United 

States. What we saw and heard bolstered my confidence 

that the NRC has appropriately focused its attention on the 

most important lessons learned from Fukushima. I firmly 

believe that the NRC’s regulatory framework and its dedicated 

and knowledgeable staff have provided a great service to 

our Nation in fulfilling our public health and safety mission 

over the years. However, as Fukushima taught us, we cannot 

predict how or when the next “unthinkable event” will occur. 

Therefore, the ongoing efforts to provide for greater defense 

in depth and to enhance safety through the implementation 

of post-Fukushima lessons learned will make nuclear power 

plants in the United States more resilient when the unexpected 

occurs. These efforts will also ensure that we do not have to 

rely on heroic efforts of plant operators, such as the individuals 

who devoted themselves to combatting the challenges that they 

faced at Fukushima Daiichi and Daini.

The agency’s primary mission-essential function is to 

monitor and respond to safety and security events involving 

NRC-licensed facilities or associated materials. The Nation’s 

incident response framework has evolved through the years, 

most recently following events, such as the terrorist attacks 

of September 11, 2001; the Gulf oil spill; and hurricanes 

Katrina and Sandy. The NRC’s incident response framework 

has likewise evolved. For example, the recent comprehensive 

emergency preparedness (EP) rulemaking incorporated 

a number of changes based on lessons learned from the 

2001 terrorist attacks and our (and the Federal Emergency 

Management Agency’s (FEMA’s)) experiences over decades of 

conducting EP exercises and responding to events. Similarly, 

we are pursuing changes to our EP regulations to incorporate 

lessons learned from Fukushima. Most notably, these changes 

involve how a licensee can better (1) respond to a multiple-unit 

event and (2) harmonize emergency operating procedures 

with severe accident management guidelines or other similar 

procedures.

For me, this trip underscored how important it is to have a 

well-structured radiological incident response regime that is 

periodically exercised, including the use of postulated events 

that exceed a plant’s design basis. We frequently engage with 

licensees, FEMA, and our State and local emergency response 

organizations in exercises that do this very thing. Although 

this well-practiced radiological EP framework has not been 

necessary during an actual response to a radiological event, it 

has been a significant contributor in the successful response 

to several real-life nonradiological events. However, we also 

need to periodically engage with our other Federal partners 

to ensure that national decisionmaking protocols are well 

understood, especially as they pertain to the roles and 

responsibilities of local officials, States, the NRC, and the rest 

of the Federal Government. The national exercise involving 

an incident at a nuclear plant, which is scheduled to occur in 

2015, is a perfect example of the type of evolution that will 

support this need. 

 

Unit 4’s Spent fuel pool at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear 

Power Site.
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 15

“A highlight of the trip was to hear the first-hand accounts of what transpired at 

Fukushima Daiichi during the early hours and days of the accident from Mssrs. Inagaki 

and Izawa, who were among the heroic ‘Fukushima Fifty’.”

William M. (Bill) Dean

Cables and hoses at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Site.

NRC delegation with 2 of the Fukushima Fifty heroes at the TEPCO headquarters in Tokyo, Japan.
16 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Victor M. McCree

Regional Administrator of Region II

What I saw and heard during 

our visit to Japan was truly 

unforgettable. Among the 

many things that made a 

lasting impression on me were 

the vivid personal accounts 

of what occurred when the 

earthquake and tsunami struck 

the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini 

sites. As I listened to people’s 

moving personal accounts of that 

day and the days that followed, the anguish in their voices was 

apparent. I learned that the operators at Daiichi and Daini 

were faced with unprecedented plant conditions, including 

the loss of normal and emergency alternating current power 

(causing station blackout). At Daiichi, the event included the 

loss of direct current power, requiring operators to work in 

total darkness with no plant control room instrumentation. 

In their efforts to mitigate the impact of the event, workers 

displayed remarkable professionalism, perseverance, and 

heroism as they labored under extremely dangerous working 

conditions. Numerous strong aftershocks occurred, and 

the threat of additional tsunamis persisted. Operators and 

emergency responders worked for days without sleep and had 

to combat fatigue and frustration from frequent setbacks. At 

Daiichi, the onsite hazards and elevated radiation levels were 

a particular concern. As a result, many operators expressed 

fear of being injured or killed. Despite these fears, they showed 

remarkable courage in carrying out their duties to the best 

of their abilities. At Daini, operators laid almost 6 miles of 

temporary electrical cable in 24 hours and replaced critical 

motors to restore cooling water flow to protect the reactors. 

At Daiichi, operators withstood dangerous conditions and 

high-radiation levels to establish a ventilation path to reduce 

containment pressure. In addition, many workers did not 

know for weeks about the fate of their friends and family 

members. 

When asked for his thoughts on the most significant lesson 

from the Fukushima accident, Mr. Ikuo Izawa, shift manager 

for Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 and 2 on March 11, 2011, 

stated, “The impact of the tsunami was totally bigger than 

what we expected, trained, prepared for, or believed was 

possible—it was unimaginable. We must always be prepared 

for the possibility that something much bigger can happen.” 

As I reflected on the experiences of the operators at both 

Fukushima sites, I became even more convinced that operators 

at U.S. plants should never be placed in a position that requires 

heroic efforts to ensure the safety of the plant. This position 

is not meant to devalue the importance of personal qualities 

when faced with unexpected events—qualities, such as 

knowledge and experience to handle crisis, persistence and 

focus to face adversity, and optimism and endurance to combat 

fear. Instead, it recognizes that the NRC and industry should 

not rely on heroic efforts alone to prevent or mitigate, or both, 

the adverse consequences of an accident; they should ensure 

that an appropriate balance of capability exists in equipment, 

processes, procedures, and people. 

It has been said that the “price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” 

I believe that the accident at Fukushima Daiichi proves that 

the price of safety is also eternal vigilance and that it provides 

evidence of how “well and faithfully” we discharge our official 

duties. The lessons from Fukushima should deepen our 

vigilance as we display a questioning attitude and verify each 

licensee’s compliance with its current license. This vigilance 

includes ensuring that plants are adequately protected against 

expected hazards and confirming the appropriateness of 

licensee actions to address potential safety issues. Fukushima 

also reminds us to remain vigilant by being alert to new 

information that could affect plant safety and to ensure that 

equipment and strategies employed to address challenges 

beyond what is expected are actually capable of doing so. 

 

Decontamination/clean-up worker in Tomioka, 

Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 17

“We must ensure sufficient prevention and mitigation capability and not expect heroism 

from operators.”

Victor M. McCree

Destroyed home in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.

Left to Right: Cynthia Pederson, Victor McCree, Eric Leeds, and Michael Johnson listen to Mr. Naohiro Masuda, 

former Daini Superintendent, explain the events of March 11, 2011.
18 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Cynthia D. Pederson

Regional Administrator of Region III

I feel very fortunate to have 

had the opportunity to join my 

colleagues in visiting Japan in 

February 2014. The experience 

was truly enlightening and 

sobering. Our hosts were very 

gracious, and you could tell 

that they were deeply bothered 

by what had happened in their 

country and at their plants. Even 

though it was nearly 3 years after 

the accidents, you could still hear the anguish in their voices as 

they apologized to us and to the world. 

As the bus took us through the communities adjacent to 

Fukushima Daiichi and Daini, we could see the damage 

caused by the devastating earthquake and tsunami of 

March 11, 2011. However, what struck me even more was the 

impact of radioactive contamination—huge mounds under 

tarps composed of contaminated soil that had been scraped off 

the rice fields, stacks of large black bags that contained other 

contaminated materials in the fields waiting to go to some 

unknown disposal location, and workers in anticontamination 

clothing trying to recover the vast areas that had been lost to 

the accident at Daiichi. 

These used to be thriving communities with people living 

regular lives, working and raising families, with implicit trust 

that they were being protected from nuclear calamity. In the 

village of Tomioka, we saw how these lives had been disrupted. 

There were empty buildings, abandoned cars in driveways, 

products left behind on store shelves, and cups still sitting 

on the tables of a local restaurant. Currently, Tomioka has 

no electricity or water in an effort to prevent people from 

returning. We came upon a building that looked deserted and 

overgrown with weeds and were told this had been the visitors’ 

center for Daini. TEPCO had to bring in temporary power to 

the building to show us a video of people in the community 

and at the nuclear plant before the accidents. In an auditorium 

without heat, we were the first ones to see this video since 

the accident. It was nearly surreal to watch what had been 

and realize what was outside. It left me with an incredible 

emptiness and sadness. This I will not forget. 

The people of Tomioka are not allowed to return and may not 

be for years to come. However, they are the lucky ones—the 

ones who will be able to reclaim their homes one day. People 

from other communities may not be so lucky. 

These citizens and families trusted that the company operating 

the plant and the regulator would keep them safe. I cannot 

imagine that those families ever thought they would be forced 

from their homes. Their hopes and dreams and the lives that 

they knew were washed away on those days in March 2011, 

along with the trust that they had in the nuclear plant and 

the regulator. Now that it is lost, how can it ever be regained? 

What can be done? We do not have answers to these questions.

My experiences confronted me with indelible images of what 

happens if we fail to “act to prevent and prepare to mitigate.” 

As a result, my commitment to prevent such accidents is 

even more personal. I believe that we must adopt a mindset 

of continually challenging ourselves to ask questions, such 

as the following: What have we not thought of? What is the 

next unimaginable thing that could happen, like TMI or 

Fukushima? Where is that weakness or set of circumstances 

that we have not yet identified that can lead to another nuclear 

disaster? Our cautionary tale is that the Japanese did not think 

an accident could happen at their facilities. 

If prevention fails, we must be prepared for the unexpected by 

having the equipment, procedures, training, and emergency 

plans to mitigate unknown events. The nuclear industry; 

individual licenses; and we, the regulator, must ensure that 

an accident can be mitigated before any offsite impacts occur. 

Having permanent and temporary equipment available to 

combat the situation, having the people on hand or accessible 

to respond to what will likely be a totally unexpected and 

unanticipated set of conditions, and having the command 

and control to do the right thing to protect the public are 

vitally important. In this regard, I feel strongly that the 

licensees in this country must fully implement, maintain, and 

exercise the measures that are being established based on the 

post-Fukushima actions directed by the NRC. If we are not 

successful, we too will breach the public trust. 

The last line of defense is to evacuate the public to ensure its 

safety through the use of emergency plans. However, if we ever 

find ourselves at this point, I will feel as if we have failed. 

I do not ever want the NRC or our colleagues, here and 

in other countries, to have to face the aftermath of such 

accidents and to fail the public in such a catastrophic way. It is 

imperative that we all do our part to keep the public safe. 
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 19

“My commitment to prevent such accidents is even more personal. I believe that we must 

adopt a mindset of continually challenging ourselves to ask questions... If we are not 

successful, we...will breach the public trust.” 

Cynthia D. Pederson

Photo of Japanese citizens near a train station in Tokyo, Japan.
20 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Marc L. Dapas

Regional Administrator of Region IV

The trip to Japan in February 

was a remarkable experience for 

me. It was highly informative 

and particularly rewarding in 

terms of the insights provided 

by our Japanese counterparts 

with respect to the impact of the 

Great East Japan Earthquake 

and associated tsunami on the 

Fukushima sites, the significant 

safety measures being established at all of the operating reactor 

sites, the tremendous recovery efforts underway to clean 

up the land contamination from the Fukushima accident, 

and the country’s revised regulatory structure. In particular, 

the description by the various TEPCO operators and site 

management directly involved in the event response to the 

Great East Japan Earthquake and associated tsunami at both 

Fukushima Daini and Daiichi was compelling in terms of the 

almost unimaginable challenges faced by TEPCO in trying to 

prevent core damage to the associated reactors.

Many of the insights derived from our discussions with 

the various TEPCO employees, Japanese regulators, and 

industry/vendor representatives were reinforced by our direct 

observations. Even though it has been 3 years since the Great 

East Japan Earthquake occurred, the extent of devastation 

caused by that earthquake and resulting tsunami is clearly 

visible.  Driving through the surrounding towns of Tomioka 

and Naraha, one of which had been a vibrant seaside village 

and resort community, we saw countless houses and businesses 

that had been reduced to mere rubble, evidence of large 

landslides and uprooted trees, huge piles of top soil cleared 

from fields under large green tarps as a result of the extensive 

ongoing land decontamination efforts, police enforcing 

access restrictions at various checkpoints, and numerous 

workers wearing protective clothing to prevent personal 

contamination.  For me, one of the more striking visuals was 

a roadside café in which I could still see coffee cups and plates 

on the counter, almost as if people were in the midst of having 

breakfast or lunch when they had to get up and evacuate due 

to the natural disaster and associated radioactive releases from 

the plant.

I was also struck by the resiliency and perseverance of the 

TEPCO operators, shift management, and emergency 

response center staff in responding to the Fukushima accident 

despite daunting challenges, the almost continual setbacks 

encountered, the risk of personal injury or death in dealing 

with the extreme plant conditions, and the fact that they did 

not know for weeks whether their families were safe. Hearing 

these TEPCO employees describe what they faced and then 

seeing the actual physical configuration of equipment at the 

Fukushima sites left an indelible impression on me regarding 

the importance of being prepared for the unexpected. In that 

context, I considered the safety measures and enhancements 

that the NRC has required the U.S. industry to follow in terms 

of both accident prevention and mitigation in followup to 

the recommendations of the Near-Term Task Force that was 

chartered to identify lessons learned from the Fukushima 

accident. I concluded from what I saw and heard that we 

do not have any significant gaps in the approach that we are 

exercising here in the United States to ensure that both the 

regulator and the industry are prepared for the unexpected. 

The key in my view is to ensure that these safety measures are 

rigorously implemented and maintained.

Another important lessons learned that TEPCO shared 

with us relates to overreliance on contractors. The extensive 

use of contractors by TEPCO to accomplish work activities 

presented an unanticipated challenge in that after contractors 

had been directed to evacuate the site, the remaining onsite 

staff did not possess the knowledge or skills to accomplish 

critical recovery actions. These actions included installing and 

connecting instrumentation and temporary power supplies, 

terminating cable ends, and operating fire trucks and portable 

equipment. This previously unrecognized lack of skills by the 

onsite staff limited the effectiveness of some recovery actions 

and, therefore, required alternative approaches, all of which 

cost TEPCO valuable time in responding to the accident. 

This lesson learned underscores the importance of ensuring 

that event response staff have the requisite skills to complete 

required actions in a timely manner to ensure that public 

health and safety are not put in jeopardy.

David Skeen and Scott Flanders in Unit 5 Spent Fuel Pool 

at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Site.
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 21

“We must ensure that both the regulator and industry are prepared for the unexpected.”

Marc L. Dapas

Earthquake damaged home in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.
22 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

K. Steven West

Deputy Director of the Office of Nuclear 

Regulatory Research 

During February 2014, I traveled 

to Japan as a member of a team 

of NRC senior executives. The 

trip was a unique opportunity 

to explore with the Japanese the 

2011 earthquake and tsunami, the 

reactor accidents at Fukushima 

Daiichi nuclear power station, 

and the far-reaching effects and 

consequences of those events. 

In response to its lessons learned from the Fukushima events, 

Japan has made substantive changes to its regulatory system. 

Intent on improving nuclear safety and restoring public 

trust, it established clear separation between promotional 

activities and regulatory activities. It created a new regulatory 

system, including the new JNRA, with a chairman and four 

commissioners. It developed and adopted new regulatory 

requirements for reactors, it enhanced its EP system, and it is 

working to improve its transparency and openness with the 

public. Most recently, to improve its technical competence and 

capabilities, JNRA merged its technical support organization—

the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization—into JNRA. 

During discussions with JNRA, we learned that it was in the 

process of creating a new safety research and standards office 

similar to ours. 

I was impressed with the extent of the regulatory reforms 

that Japan has implemented in a fairly short period of time. 

During a meeting with the team, the JNRA staff demonstrated 

its commitment to implementing its new regulatory system 

and to improving nuclear safety and public confidence in its 

country. During a tour of the Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant, we 

observed several plant modifications that TEPCO had made to 

comply with JNRA regulations. These modifications include 

redundant hardened filtered vents to control containment 

pressure and a 50-foot tall seawall constructed between 

the Sea of Japan and the power station. We first learned 

about the extent of some of the modifications, such as the 

redundant vents, when we saw them during the site visit. 

Seeing one installed filtered vent side by side with a second 

under construction was enlightening. Moreover, such finds 

were thought-provoking. On the one hand, outside of Japan, 

some might view two filtered vents for a single containment 

as unnecessary. However, when this measure is considered 

within the Japanese paradigm, which would almost certainly 

include large sites with many reactors, a history of powerful 

earthquakes, tall tsunamis, uninhabitable towns and villages, 

and a desire to restore public trust and confidence, the need for 

redundant vents could be viewed in a much different light. 

Over the years, cooperation on research programs of mutual 

interest between the NRC and the Japanese regulator proved to 

be an effective way to share data and information. The results 

of our cooperative and collaborative projects have contributed 

to public health and safety in both countries and have added 

value to many regulatory decisions and applications.  Visiting 

and touring the Kashiwazaki Kariwa and the Fukushima 

stations and seeing firsthand some of the technical issues that 

the Japanese regulator and industry face as they contemplate 

the possibility of restarting their nation’s reactors under a new 

regulatory system while decommissioning the Fukushima 

Daiichi reactors emphasized to me the vital roles that research 

and development, technical information exchanges, and 

operating experience should play as they move forward. The 

NRC and nuclear regulators around the world also stand to 

gain through Japan’s initiatives in these areas. Consequently, 

it was satisfying to learn that the new JNRA will continue its 

cooperative and collaborative projects with the NRC and is 

considering new collaborations. Examples of ongoing and 

future JNRA research involve probabilistic risk assessments 

and their applications, fire safety, severe accidents, human 

reliability analyses, and seawater injection. 

The perspectives I have shared here only scratch the surface of 

what I learned while in Japan. Before closing, I will share the 

two experiences that most impressed me. The first was seeing 

firsthand the damage and the evidence of human suffering 

caused by the earthquake, the tsunami, and the radioactive 

contamination around the Fukushima station. Many survivors 

were displaced from their towns and villages. We were told 

that those who left the most heavily contaminated areas may 

not be allowed to permanently return. The second experience 

was touring the two Fukushima nuclear power stations and 

hearing from individuals who experienced the earthquake 

and tsunami and who responded to the resulting events. Their 

stories about unexpected and changing plant conditions and 

setbacks; extreme working conditions, such as total darkness, 

elevated temperatures, and radiation levels; fears of injury and 

death; and the fact that they did not know the fate of family 

members were riveting and inspiring.  

In Japan, I gained new insights into how the Japanese view 

nuclear safety, how their views were changed by the accident at 

Fukushima Daiichi, and how their new ways of thinking have 

been applied by both the regulator and the nuclear industry. 

I am satisfied with what I and the team accomplished, knowing 
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 23

“I left Japan secure in the knowledge that our Near Term Task Force Report has served 

us well and that the actions that we have taken are appropriately focused on the lessons 

learned from Fukushima Daiichi and on public health and safety.”

K. Steven West

Row of fire trucks at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Site.

that those we met from both the regulator and the industry 

valued the opportunity to share their stories and answer our 

many questions. They also appreciated our views on the lessons 

learned from Fukushima Daiichi and on subjects, such as reactor 

safety, safety culture, and event response. I left Japan secure in 

the knowledge that our Near-Term Task Force Report has served 

us well and that the actions that we have taken are appropriately 

focused on the lessons learned from Fukushima Daiichi and on 

public health and safety. Through our continuing commitment 

to complete our post-Fukushima actions, we will achieve the 

necessary safety enhancements for our commercial nuclear fleet. 
24 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Scott Flanders

Director of the Division of Site Safety and 

Environmental Analysis, Office of 

New Reactors

In February 2014, I had the 

privilege to travel to Japan with 

a team of NRC senior managers. 

Having the opportunity to spend 

a week visiting three nuclear sites, 

including the Fukushima Daiichi 

site, and meeting with operators 

from the Fukushima Daiichi and 

Daini plants and the JNRA with 

this team of senior regulators was 

truly a rewarding experience. Each day, we met to reflect on 

the day’s events, culminating with a session that reflected on 

the full week. In each session, we discussed what we heard and 

saw and how it relates to the actions we are taking in response 

to the Fukushima Daiichi accident. The diversity of experience 

and perspective from the team members made the group 

discussions very enriching. 

Traveling by bus from Iwaki to Daini and Daiichi, we observed 

towns that suffered tsunami and earthquake damage. As we 

got closer to the sites we observed more damage, and then we 

began to see rows and rows of green tarps that covered neatly 

stacked bags of contaminated soil. Our guide informed us 

that access to certain towns was restricted to daytime hours 

and that access for others was not permitted without special 

approval. After hearing the guide’s discussion, I concluded 

that many of the people who resided in these areas either chose 

not to return, or were not permitted to return, to rebuild their 

homes and towns. 

Once we arrived at the Daini site, the plant manager, along 

with several plant operators, explained the impact that the 

earthquake and tsunami had on the plant and the actions they 

took to protect it. Before visiting the Daiichi site, we were given 

a similar briefing by the maintenance manager and one of the 

operators in the control room at the time of the earthquake. 

This particular operator worked for 36 straight hours without 

knowing whether his family was safe. To hear his story and the 

accounts of many of the other plant employees who responded 

to the event was truly moving. The discussions were very 

valuable because of how forthright they were in describing 

the event, the actions they took, and their emotions during 

the event. 

Following the discussions, we toured the site and observed 

much of the still evident damage resulting from the event. We 

saw remnants of the concrete sea wall; damaged switchgear, the 

insides of which were completely corroded from the saltwater; 

and shredded steel structures. We even saw a light fixture that 

still had water inside it. Although it is difficult to assess seismic 

damage solely by visual observation, based on the discussion 

with the managers and operators, the safety systems performed 

as expected until the tsunami hit. Frankly, this was not a 

surprise to me given the ground motions experienced at the 

site, the inherent seismic margin typically found in a nuclear 

power plant as a result of all the nonseismic loads that a plant 

is designed to withstand, and the extensive seismic work that 

the Japanese undertook following the 2007 Great Chuetu-Oki 

Earthquake that affected the Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant. The 

operators and managers with whom we spoke lauded TEPCO’s 

decision to construct seismically isolated emergency response 

centers at all three of their sites; all the operators and managers 

said that these facilities were vital in their efforts during the 

Fukushima event. 

Just as the Japanese worked to implement lessons learned 

to their plants after the 2007 earthquake, they are working 

earnestly to implement lessons learned from the Fukushima 

event. At the Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant, we observed 

a number of enhancements being made to the plant, 

many of which are similar to the Near-Term Task Force 

recommendations. Based on the work of my Division, I 

focused on the changes being made to protect against flooding. 

Failure to protect structures, systems, and components 

important to safety from flooding is critical because a “cliff 

edge” may exist beyond the height or capacity of the flood 

protection such that potentially significant safety consequences 

could occur if a flood were to exceed the height or capability of 

the available flood protection. 

Some of the changes being made at Kashiwazaki Kariwa to 

protect against flooding include physical barriers with a margin 

well beyond the design-basis tsunami hazard, enhanced seals, 

and mitigating strategies to help protect the plant against 

floods that exceed even the new flood barriers. Clearly, these 

changes reflect a philosophy that we heard several times 

during the week: “Be prepared for the unexpected.” Although 

we heard this philosophy several times during the week, this 

concept was not new to our team. Some of the key Fukushima 

lessons-learned actions that we are implementing, including 

mitigating strategies, are based on that same philosophy. 

Extreme natural events, such as the one that occurred in Japan 

in 2011, are typically thought of as rare or not expected. Our 

understanding of what is expected, both the frequency of 

occurrence and the consequences, is based on our level of 
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 25

knowledge. Continuing to increase our knowledge of natural 

hazards is critical to improving our ability to determine what we 

should expect so that we ensure that plant designs and licensing 

bases are appropriate. Similarly, increasing our understanding 

of how rare natural events can affect our facilities is important 

so that we can be as prepared as is reasonably possible for the 

unexpected. Being prepared for the unexpected is a goal that we 

must continually strive to meet. The consequences, like those 

we saw on our bus ride to Fukushima Daini and Daiichi, are too 

great. Although the impacts of natural hazards are devastating, 

we must endeavor to ensure that they are not compounded 

by a nuclear power reactor accident. This trip has reaffirmed 

my belief that Near-Term Task Force Recommendation 2 is an 

important step toward ensuring that U.S. plants are adequately 

protected against natural hazards. 

“Continuing to increase our knowledge of natural hazards is critical to improving our 

ability to determine what we should expect so that we ensure that plant designs and 

licensing bases are appropriate.”

Scott Flanders

Scott Flanders and Glenn Tracy listening to Mr. Naohiro Masuda in the Fukushima Daini Control Room simulator.
26 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

David L. Skeen

Director of the Japan Lessons-Learned Project 

Directorate, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation

Even though this was my third 

trip to Fukushima in the last 

3 years, watching the small towns, 

farms, and rice paddies in the 

countryside roll by as I sit on 

the Super Hitachi 3 train from 

Ueno Station in Tokyo during the 

2-hour trip to Iwaki Station in 

Fukushima Prefecture and then 

the 50-minute bus ride from Iwaki 

to the staging area at J-Village, I am once again amazed by the 

resilience of the Japanese people. A lot of progress has been 

made in the last 3 years.

I first visited the Fukushima Daiichi site in December 2011—

9 months after the accident—and then again in December 2012 

with Chairman Macfarlane before my latest visit with NRC 

senior managers in February 2014. I am fortunate to have 

been able to observe firsthand the progress being made in and 

around the site over the last 3 years. My third visit to the site 

is much different from the first. When we first visited the site, 

we had to dress out in full anticontamination clothing (Tybek 

suits) and respirators at J-Village (the former training facility 

for the Japan national soccer team) and had to pass through a 

police checkpoint as soon as we left J-Village, which is about 

14 miles from the site. On this third visit, we did not have to 

pass through the police checkpoint until we got much closer to 

the plant, nor put on the Tybek suits and respirators, until we 

arrived at the plant site—a clear sign that the levels of airborne 

and fixed contamination have dropped significantly in the 

areas beyond the boundary of the plant site.

It is also evident from traveling to the site on the two-lane 

highways that much work has been done to rebuild them 

because some of them had been reduced to one-lane roads due 

to the earthquake damage when we visited in 2011. We also 

saw decontamination crews working in some areas along the 

way to the plant site to remove contaminated vegetation, and 

we saw neat rows of tarp-covered mounds of contaminated soil 

and vegetation that were several hundred feet in length or rows 

of large black plastic garbage bags filled with similar materials. 

None of this activity was evident during our first visit. 

Upon arriving at the entrance to the Fukushima Daiichi site, 

we saw that it still looks very much like a typical nuclear power 

plant at the main entrance gate. A guard house with many 

security guards checks vehicles entering and exiting the site, 

and an administration building that processes workers houses 

some offices and conference rooms. As we pass through the 

security check point on the bus, the first things that come into 

view are the rows and rows of tanks storing contaminated 

water that continues to be generated at the site every day to 

cool the fuel debris in the three damaged reactors. 

One of the first things that I notice is the sheer number of 

tanks that are now occupying what was once a forest area or 

open ground when I first visited the site. There are thousands 

of tanks—blue horizontal cylindrical tanks and vertical gray 

bolted tanks—and concrete pads where even more storage 

tanks will be located. Still, that is the only sign that this is not 

a typical nuclear power plant—until the bus rounds the corner 

and crests the hill. Then, laid out below is the unbelievable 

sight of the canvas-covered Unit 1 and the still intact Unit 2 

with its blue background and white clouds painted on the 

sides. Unit 3 has now had most of the debris from the upper 

portion of the reactor building removed with only remnants 

of the refueling machine, which fell into the spent fuel pool, 

still sticking up above the refueling floor. The new Unit 4 fuel 

removal structure is in place and covers the refueling deck. 

Although Units 1 and 2 appear much the same as they did 

the first time that I saw them, the progress made on Units 3 

and 4 is impressive. On my first trip, the debris had not yet 

been cleared from the Unit 3 or Unit 4 reactor buildings, and 

the remnants of the steel and concrete upper floors and the 

collapsed roofs were still in place. Even on my second visit 

1 year ago, the debris had been removed from the Unit 4 

refueling deck; however, only a hole in the ground was 

beside Unit 4, and rebar was being installed in preparation 

for pouring the basemat for the new fuel removal structure. 

Remarkable progress has been made over the past year to 

complete construction of the massive Unit 4 fuel removal 

structure and to clear debris from the top of the Unit 3 reactor 

building. The Unit 3 debris removal is perhaps even more 

impressive because it all had to be done using robotic cranes 

and cutting tools due to the high levels of radiation on the 

refueling deck resulting from the Unit 3 explosion. 

Although much progress has been made, the view of the 

destroyed reactor buildings from the hill overlooking the site 

is still as unbelievable as the first time that I saw the site after 

the accident. It is still hard to believe that anything could have 
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 27

caused this type of destruction that Japan will have to deal with 

for the next 30 to 40 years. Three years ago, I would never have 

believed that a single event could so completely destroy a single 

reactor, let alone four reactors at the same site—and yet right here 

in front of me, the truth is undeniable.

As a nuclear safety regulator, what have I learned from this 

previously unimaginable event? During the last 3 years, I have 

read many accounts of the accident and have discussed with my 

Japanese colleagues the actions taken by operators on shift at 

various stages of the accident, including accounts from some of 

the operators themselves. I have concluded that those operators 

and their managers, who tried to prevent the cores from melting 

and then dealt with the subsequent hydrogen explosions, did 

everything they possibly could to prevent that terrible outcome. 

They are all heroes, although they are not viewed as such by many 

of their countrymen. The failure was not due to the operators’ 

efforts; instead, it was due to the fact that neither the licensee 

nor the regulator had prepared the operators to cope with such 

a scenario. When we asked the operators at both Fukushima 

Daiichi and Fukushima Daini (which survived the tsunami) what 

they learned from the accident, we got very similar answers. The 

most important thing that they said is to be “prepared for the 

unexpected.” Many of the operators told us that they just did not 

believe that such an event could actually happen, and, therefore, 

they had never prepared for such an event.

In the United States, we are currently taking steps to “prepare 

for the unexpected.” The major contributors necessary for 

preparing for the unexpected include orders that we have 

issued to ensure that licensees can cope with an extended loss 

of alternating current power and a loss of the ultimate heat sink, 

the installation of additional spent fuel pool instrumentation to 

ensure that operators are aware of the inventory in the pool, and 

the installation of containment venting systems that are capable 

of operating even after a core damage accident. Had similar 

preparations been in place 3 years ago at the Japanese units, 

“Fukushima Daiichi” may never have become such a well-known 

name because the operators may have been able to prevent the 

cores from melting, and the subsequent hydrogen explosions that 

caused widespread contamination may have never occurred.

“Three years ago, I would never have believed that a single event could so completely 

destroy a single reactor, let alone four reactors at the same site—and yet right here in front 

of me, the truth is undeniable.”

David L. Skeen

Aerial photo of the Fukushima Daiichi Units 1, 2, and 3 after the accident.

Photo courtesy of TEPCO. 
28 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Roger D. Hannah

Senior Public Affairs Officer, Region II

I feel fortunate to have been part 

of the trip, hearing from those 

who were there when the accident 

happened and seeing firsthand 

the stark effects. If I had to pick a 

single word to tie my experiences 

in Japan together, that word would 

be the people—

• the people who once occupied 

the abandoned homes and businesses and schools near 

the plant—some of them knowing they can never go 

home again

• the people who worked at the plant during and 

immediately after the accident, desperately trying to keep 

the situation from worsening 

• the people who now work at the site, donning 

protective clothing each day as they slowly tackle the 

mammoth cleanup

• the people across Japan who are struggling with their faith 

in their country’s government and companies and with 

their view of nuclear power

During our trip, we spent many hours talking about the 

technical aspects of the accident, the heroism of the operators 

and other plant staff, and how those lessons are being applied 

to U.S. nuclear plants. Although some discussion of people did 

arise, most of us could apparently not even find the words to 

adequately express what we had seen and heard.

Although we were able to hear from some people who were 

working at the plant during the accident, I wish I could have 

talked to more people who have been displaced or affected in 

some other way. I also wish I could have spent more time in 

the area; however, even the few hours that we were there placed 

images in my memory that will stay with me.

I have always felt that the most important people for the NRC, 

nuclear plant operators and all others concerned about nuclear 

safety, should be those people inside or closest to the plants. 

Seeing the abandoned homes and businesses in Japan gave me 

the strongest evidence that my feelings have been right.

As all of us at the NRC go about our daily activities, whether 

inspecting facilities, reviewing information, writing 

regulations, or answering questions, we need to always 

remember that the most important people are those people 

working at, and living closest to, the facilities that we regulate. 

We can do our best to ensure that it never happens; however, 

if something does go wrong, the people nearest the event have 

the most to lose.

Safety signs at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear 

Power Site.
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 29

“Abandoned cars and the absence of people harshly illustrate the lingering effects of the 

accident on the people who once lived and worked near the plant.”

Roger D. Hannah

Contaminated waste storage near Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.
30 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Cindy Rosales-Cooper

Executive Technical Assistant for Research 

and International Activities, Office of the 

Executive Director for Operations

When Michael Johnson 

approached me about organizing 

and participating in a senior 

leadership visit to Japan, I knew 

this was a rare opportunity. 

Having spent my entire NRC 

career involved with international 

activities, I knew that what he 

envisioned was extraordinary 

and precedent setting for the 

leadership and the knowledge management activities of 

this agency. The visit to Japan proved to be one of the most 

rewarding international activities I have been a part of. 

We built time into the itinerary for the team to have daily reflections 

and opportunities to share thoughts and insights gained from our 

meetings and site visits. I found these reflection times extremely 

interesting as I listened to the leadership team speak passionately 

about how we at the NRC must do all that we can to ensure that 

an accident with the magnitude of Fukushima never happens 

in the United States or anywhere else. If I step back and observe 

these discussions as a member of the public, I come away with 

the assurance that the nuclear safety watchmen on our towers are 

awake, aware, and ready. 

Although I felt that this zeal for ensuring that an accident like 

Fukushima never happens in the United States is admirable 

and necessary, I also felt like the leadership team was taking 

on an extremely heavy burden. I want today’s leadership 

and the NRC’s leadership 20 years from now to never forget 

that—unlike TMI or Chernobyl—the accident at Fukushima 

was precipitated by extreme natural hazards that are beyond 

human control—an earthquake and a tsunami. Nevertheless, 

as TEPCO has acknowledged, if it had instituted certain 

protocols in advance of the tsunami, the core melts could have 

been prevented or better mitigated. Therefore, I feel that the 

work that our agency is doing in implementing the lessons 

learned from Fukushima is of paramount importance and will 

help us prepare for the unexpected.

On the fourth day, I boarded the train to Iwaki with 

mixed emotions. I had seen pictures and video clips of the 

devastation in the Fukushima Prefecture and expected that, 

once face to face with it, I would become emotional. I had 

tears in my eyes the night before as we listened to Dr. Takeyuki 

Inagaki, the Daiichi maintenance manager, walk us through 

the first 100 hours of the accident. I could not imagine what 

he and the other workers felt as they struggled in the dark to 

save their community. As we listened to the conditions the 

plant workers were subjected to, such as lack of food, water, 

medicine, or sanitation accessories and facilities, I was left 

dumbstruck. I could not imagine what it was like for women 

and men to be stuck in a place without lights, water, and 

properly equipped bathrooms. I think we owe it to operators 

and regulatory staff alike to ensure that they have what they 

need to meet their basic needs during an emergency. 

As we boarded the bus at J-Village, I remembered how 

enthusiastic I had felt on March 10, 2011, sitting in a meeting 

with our Japanese counterparts discussing plans for future 

collaboration and compared it to what I felt the very next day 

as we watched the devastating incidents unfold. However, 

as we pulled onto the two-lane, patched, and battered road 

to the town of Tomioka, what I saw and felt were familiar 

pangs brought on by the sight of utter devastation. I saw 

destruction—lifeless towns, empty houses, overturned cars, 

buildings with caved roofs, and abandoned preschools and 

playgrounds. I suddenly remembered how I felt going back 

to my hometown of New Orleans 3 months after Hurricane 

Katrina and helping my grandfather dig through the wreckage 

of his house. My mother and brother forged through muck 

and mud to salvage items that held precious memories. I 

recalled how it felt to see my beloved high school in rubble. 

As I looked out the window of the bus, I remembered well the 

damage that water and immense flooding can cause. There was 

one major difference here, however. New Orleans had no land 

contamination or exposure to radiation that would prevent 

residents from returning home. 

I imagined that returning home is what was and still is on the minds 

of the 135,000 residents and evacuees of Fukushima and other 

nearby Prefectures still living in shelters as a result of the nuclear 

accident and the tsunami. I was extremely saddened when I learned 

that approximately 1,600 of these evacuees died, not because of 

the earthquake, tsunami, or even the nuclear accident, but simply 

because the shelters were not prepared to provide for their physical 

and mental needs. Many of these deaths were elderly people who 

died within weeks to a month after the disaster. This additional 

tragedy leaves me with a sense of urgency that more attention needs 

to be paid to offsite consequences. Although I recognize that the 

NRC’s regulatory responsibility is limited beyond the site boundary, 

we owe it to the public to ensure that lessons like these are shared and 

properly implemented with the Federal, State, and local authorities 

responsible for evacuees and shelters. I cannot help but pause and 

think that a majority of these 1,600 people lost their lives at places 

that they were told to go to in order to save their lives.
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 31

“I want today’s leadership and the NRC’s leadership 20 years from now to never forget 

that—unlike TMI or Chernobyl—the accident at Fukushima was precipitated by extreme 

natural hazards that are beyond human control—an earthquake and a tsunami.”

Cindy Rosales-Cooper

A ferry rests on top of a building as a result of the Tsunami in Iwate Prefecture, approximately 100 miles north of 

Fukushima Daichi.

Shoreline drive from the town of Iwaki on the way to J-Village.
32 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Kirk Foggie 

International Relations Officer, Lead for Japan 

Activities, Office of International Programs

During the past 8 years, I have 

been fortunate to be the primary 

liaison for the NRC with its 

regulatory counterparts in Japan. 

I have accompanied many NRC 

staff and leaders to Japan, and I 

knew that I should not pass up 

the opportunity to support the 

February 2014 senior executive 

delegation visit to Japan. 

In March 2011, the NRC staff traveled to Japan to support 

the U.S. Embassy during the Fukushima accident. Senior 

management asked me to join the first group of NRC staff 

members going to Japan shortly after the accident to assist 

in this effort. During the initial response, the NRC Japan 

site team needed to convey opinions and messages to the 

ambassador and other Japanese government officials that 

required a special skill set to minimize the possibility of rapidly 

changing perceptions of the situation. Throughout the first 

weeks of the Fukushima accident, I participated in Japanese 

senior level meetings as part of the site team. This was an 

honor because most foreigners are not invited to observe 

closed meetings in Japan. As more site team members were 

invited to meetings, we became more comfortable with the 

structure and further engaged our counterparts. The NRC 

staff and their Japanese counterparts found great value in 

these interactions, which increased in frequency over time. 

The NRC site team interaction with the Japanese during the 

accident and my interaction with the support of the staff of 

the Japan Lessons-Learned Project Directorate is the current 

foundation of the agency’s rapport with Japan. To have this 

group of senior executives travel to Japan for continuing 

discussions on the NRC’s cooperation on Fukushima furthers 

the level of communication between the United States 

and Japan.

During the February 2014 mission, the Japanese opened 

each meeting with a heartfelt apology to the world for the 

inconvenience that Fukushima had caused the nuclear 

industry. They provided detailed descriptions of actions 

taken and open and frank answers to the questions raised by 

the delegation. Many of the senior executives were surprised 

by the level of openness and transparency that our Japanese 

counterparts showed. These actions expressed by our 

counterparts reemphasized the maturity of the cooperative 

relationship with Japan. The humility of the Japanese industry 

also surprised the delegation; however, for the Japanese, the 

accident is still a personal loss, and they are determined to 

share their lessons with the world. 

Having visited the Fukushima site 2 months before the senior 

executive site visit, I was surprised at the amount of progress. 

The Japanese are resilient in many ways, including their 

determination to rebuild and move forward. The Japanese 

continue to make strides in cleaning the Fukushima area, and 

although the focus of the senior leadership visit was on the 

accident sequence, I believe all NRC staff members who visit 

Fukushima and the surrounding affected area can learn much 

from the postaccident cleanup activities. 

NRC team tour the Torus Room of Unit 5 at the 

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Site.
Reflections on Fukushima — NRC Senior Leadership Visit to Japan, 2014 33

“Many of the senior executives were surprised by the level of openness and transparency 

that our Japanese counterparts showed. These actions expressed by our counterparts 

reemphasized the maturity of the cooperative relationship with Japan.”

Kirk Foggie

Victor McCree and Kirk Foggie exit the J-Village visitor center.

Residential area in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. 
34 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

California elementary student Jack to Fukushima Daiichi workers displayed at J-Village.

NUREG/KM-0008

December 2014