This is what preparedness looks like.

[swan_tower]

A really good post laying out the basics of Japan's response to the earthquake and tsunami.

The thing we need to bear in mind (other than the fact that Japan is a very long country, and most parts of it are hundreds of miles from the epicenter) is that there is no place in the world better-prepared for seismic trouble than Japan. Read through that post. Read about the checklists. Read about the architecture and the failsafes and the emergency warning systems. This is still a tragedy and a disaster, and no amount of human planning can completely mitigate that; ultimately, the planet is stronger than we are. But this would be a much larger tragedy and disaster if they hadn't been ready for it. (Even the situation at the Fukushima reactors isn't as bad as it could have been, though I can't confirm if the writer of that post is right about the scale of leakage there. I hope he is.)

Remember this, the next time some politician in your locality or nation proposes cutting funding for emergency preparedness, be it earthquake, tornado, hurricane, volcano, blizzard, or whatever. It's an easy cut to make in the short term, when you're trying to make a political point about "fiscal responsibility." But I put that inside sarcasm quotes because what you're really doing is gambling that nothing bad is really going to happen, and sooner or later, you lose that bet. Japan knows better than to gamble on that; they're home to some absurdly high percentage of the world's earthquakes. But other countries -- like the U.S. -- aren't so sensible, and places like New Orleans pay the bill.

I want to be more like Japan. I live in California, and I want to believe my state is equally ready for when the Hayward Fault blows. But I don't think we are.

Comments

[wldhrsjen3.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU for this post. While my heart aches for the people of Japan, I am also cheering them on. They are prepared, organized, motivated, and highly capable people - this disaster is TERRIBLE and nothing can mitigate the losses they've suffered - but it could have been so much worse. I'd say, given the circumstances, they are handling things with as much energy and grace as possible. It drives me crazy watching the American mainstream media pandering to the sensational, using alarmist language to describe things they blatantly DO NOT UNDERSTAND. The nuclear situation is especially frustrating - my dad is a well-regarded nuclear engineer so I tend to take comments like "This could be another Chernobyl!" personally.

But yes - I hope our country recognizes the importance of preparation and I hope cuts aren't made to long-term technology developments that might maintain the integrity of our power grid and infrastructure in a disaster.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Thanks to my physics teacher, I understand the difference between the type of reactor built at Chernobyl and the types of reactors we use now. Nuclear power is dangerous, yes -- but so are coal and natural gas, and we've come a long way in reactor safety since the 1980s. (But to my mind, it's all a very good argument for natural energy sources: solar, wind, geothermal, etc.)

[wldhrsjen3.livejournal.com]

Nuclear power is dangerous, yes -- but so are coal and natural gas, and we've come a long way in reactor safety since the 1980s. (But to my mind, it's all a very good argument for natural energy sources: solar, wind, geothermal, etc.)

Yes! I totally agree. My husband and I are actually looking at taking our farm off the energy grid as far as possible. There are government grants available (or used to be, anyway - we'll see what the latest budget iterations look like) for households wanting to connect to private wind generators here (cute little windmills!) and I am hoping we'll be approved sometime in the not-too-distant future. The initial cost of installation is expensive, but I like the idea of providing as much of our own power as possible, and doing it without hurting the environment. We already have a geothermal heat pump which saves us hundreds of dollars in heating and cooling costs.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I was going to say that we know better than to use Chernobyl-style graphite moderated reactors anymore -- then I decided I should double-check that point, and holy crap, there's still some operating in Russia. With improved safety systems, and I do understand that building new reactors ain't cheap . . . but ye gods. I was happier when I thought they'd all been decommissioned.

[wldhrsjen3.livejournal.com]

*nods*

I may be misremembering, but iirc the last graphite reactors were taken off line, and then due to rising energy consumption and the increased costs of construction they were brought back into production.

I'll check to see if I'm mistaken.

Scary though.