[ RadSafe ] RadSafe Digest, Vol 921, Issue 2

[Perle, Sandy]

Mark,

AMEN!

Best regards,

Sandy

-----------------------------------
Sander C. Perle 
President
Mirion Technologies
Dosimetry Services Division 
2652 McGaw Avenue
Irvine, CA 92614
 
+1 (949) 296-2306 (Office)
+1 (949) 296-1130 (Fax)
 
Mirion Technologies: http://www.mirion.com/
"Protecting people, property and the environment"

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Mark Sonter
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2012 7:58 PM
To: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] RadSafe Digest, Vol 921, Issue 2

I think the more significant story is that around chain of command and
communications:

A colleague visited (some years earlier) a japanese NPP as a member of an IAEA delegation, and asked what the decision-making process would be in case of an emergency; answer was, refer up to head office in Tokyo for direction.  He then asked 'what about if you lose all telecoms in a natural disaster like an earthquake?' And they *did not have a protocol for defaulting back to local decision-making*. He inferred from this a corporate cultural incapacity to devolve responsibility to the local level, something that every emergency response organization has drilled into it as essential...

Hence the extremely damaging delays in the first few days (not to mention of course that logistics was totally stuffed by the earthquake and tsunami anyway)...

When finally the desperate decision was made to inject seawater, it was apparently made by the local manager in defiance of orders from corporate office not to do so..

Repeat: the head office honchos cannot be as aware of all details of the local scene as the local managers, and really must defer to them in emergency situations.


Mark Sonter

Radiation Advice & Solutions Pty Ltd,   abn 31 891 761 435
Asteroid Enterprises Pty Ltd,   abn 53 008 115 302

116 Pennine Drive, South Maclean, Queensland 4280, Australia

Phone / fax  (07) 3297 7653   Mobile 0412 433 286 or 0447 755598

"Keep everything as simple as possible, but no simpler"  - A Einstein

"There are some ideas so wrong that they could only be believed by an intellectual" - G Orwell