Category Archives: Natural Disasters

Not with a Bang…. The Japanese Nuclear Disaster

Too late to run a formal risk assessment on the dismal situation at the Japanese nuclear plants.  Obviously, the switch has been turned to ‘survival mode’.  But risk decisions are still being made, individually and collectively.

The bravery of the nuclear plant workers who stayed to continue at their posts and try to avert a full catastrophe reflects 50 individual risk decisions  by people risking their own lives for the elusive greater good. 

One of the U.S. TV morning shows talked about the risk calculation being made about whether to continue to build nuclear plants when “stuff happens”, as this double play of earthquake-tsunami proves.  

The assets which are generated by nuclear energy are large amounts of relatively ‘clean’ energy.  The risks have been underwritten by governments which support the growth of these plants by sharing the risk with the electric companies to encourage them to build. 

The threats to these plants have been addressed dozens of times and right at the top of the list are both international and domestic terrorists; followed by natural disasters, including earthquakes, tsunamis (we added tsunamis into our threat matrix in 2002),  tornados and hurricanes; followed by sabotage by insiders who work in the plants themselves. 

Personnel working in these plants are heavily investigated and also undergo continuing scrutiny of their lifestyles, checking accounts, etc., because of the sensitivity of the work they do.    US National Public Radio (NPR) reported yesterday that U.S. nuke plants have a failure rate of 40% on security inspections – and that’s when they get TWO WEEKS ADVANCE NOTICE of the inspections.  What if they got no notice?  What kind of results would we see?

One of the major risk correlations in formal risk assessment is the Threat-Asset ratio, which means, for example,  don’t build a nuclear plant on an earthquake fault line.  If the threat is too high, it increases the probability that the asset (the plant) will be compromised and could experience a loss, based on a threat occurring.

The standard list of controls are also analyzed and these can range from specific security controls to having multiple backup power sources (that DO NOT DEPEND on electricity).    Obviously, when this control was no longer viable due to the natural disasters, that’s when things started to go rapidly downhill.

Without electricity to keep the cooling activities running, you have to start to look at the possible losses that could result from the event.   The nuclear power equation is especially worrisome because radioactivity is not only instantly fatal, but it can be blown around, and it is FOREVER.  It doesn’t burn itself out in a few days like a fire, or dry up like a flood when the sun comes out.

The risks/potential losses can include:

Loss of life of plant employees
Loss of life of the surrounding population – to 5 miles, 50 miles, 100 miles, farther?
Loss of the electricity that cannot be generated and what that means to a country.
Loss of the plant itself – as a replacement cost of billions of dollars.

The problem with the nuclear power risk equation is that the biggest potential loss is the contamination of one, two or multiple countries, possible permanent radioactive contamination of the ocean, or, in a very worst case, loss of the planet.

As this latest disaster proves, the potential loss is so high, that even twenty years of extra electricity don’t seem worth the risk, especially if the calculation includes plants built-in areas susceptible to the list of potential threats exactly like earthquakes.

We’re running a set of scenarios that will continue to evolve as the situation stabilizes or possibly gets even worse. It seems that Mother Nature is controlling events now.

Avatar, the Field and the BP Oil Spill

As the old drill-baby-drill cry loses its appeal, the coastal communities in the Gulf of Mexico are beginning to understand that they will feel the devastating consequences of the BP oil spill. 

The U.S. is a bicoastal country – 50% of the entire population of the United States lives within 50 miles of a coast.  And pays extra in housing prices to live there.  Ignore for a moment all the businesses that will be impacted – and think about buying a $4 million dollar house on the water – and have the water turn into an oil slick. 

I watched Avatar last night and noticed how the movie depicted the planet, Pandora, as an interconnection of elements that you could SEE how they supported  and depended on each other. 

That illustrates our relationship with our own Earth and how if one thing changes, it effects everything along the food chain (literally, in this case).  So the oil gets the birds and the blue crab larvae and the shrimp and now they are saying it may wipe out a generation of sea life.

As a species, we generally do not recognize that our connection with the earth is every bit as interconnected and tangible as the network on Pandora.  We need the earth to give us water, provide us with food (whether you are a vegetarian or not), provide water and shelter, medicine – everything – even manufacturing of plastic comes from the earth through our use of petroleum.

 That is also why ideas about animals are often so ‘un-evolved’, meaning they are thought of a things, not spiritual beings.  Time magazine ran an article on animal intelligence several years ago and said, at the conclusion of the article, “if we recognized and were aware of how sensitive and intelligent animals actually were, we would have to change everything we do as humans.”

News flash — we ARE going to have to change everything we do – we have to find our connection to the earth and the animals and plants who share it, or we will continue to have these devastating environmental disasters and wake up one day to a wasteland that can no longer support us. 

If you’ve watched “What The Bleep”, which is a movie that explains new developments in quantum physics – and I highly recommend that you watch it…  you will reach the same conclusion – that the electric Field exists on our planet and connects you and me to every dog, every blue crab, every tree, every blade of grass.  There is no artificial separation.  We are them and they are us and we are the same thing – just a different sector of the same energy field. We are Pandora. 

Oil spills and other disasters make this living network more apparent by watching, hour by hour on CNN, how one event affects everything, first in the Gulf, then in the entire coastal area touching the Gulf, then probably the Caribbean – who knows how wide the damage will be from this one oil platform. 

Do you feel the connection?  A few years ago, I got a great book about ‘curing the incurable’ and it was a collection of Russian folk remedies – from a former doctor to the Russian Olympics.  One of the remedies was how to use trees for healing – complete with details about which trees were most responsive – how to tap into the energy of the trees and use them by standing eighteen inches from the tree and putting your hands on the trunk…

This oil spill may dissolve political differences and even national differences and show us, one more time, how interconnected we are with the earth – and I’m hoping that we will find a positive way to use that information.

Risk Assessment: Too much emphasis on PROCESS hampers rescue efforts in Haiti

From the night that CNN showed Dr. Sanjay Gupta staying up all night to attend to patients in a field hospital, because the UN thought it was unsafe for their doctors and medical staff, you can’t help but feel like the security threat there has been used to avoid taking any chances — while the Haitian people are having to absorb all the risk!

Even Anderson Cooper said, from his position in the ground, that the security fears were overblown and other doctors have corroborated this! So why is the UN using security as a cover….

The UN is an organization that often favors PROCESS over ACTION. I can understand that they are used to having convoys attacked in dangerous areas like Cambodia and Ethiopia — but this is Haiti…. we know Haiti… no rocket launchers in Haiti — no political goals on display in Haiti. Just poor, starving, sick people with no homes, no resources, no medical facilities, no food, and no water.

As a risk person, I just wonder if they actually did a quick 1 hour risk assessment on this disaster which would have pointed out that the risk of slow, un-action is much worse in this case – than the risk of a security incident.

Exploring Ideas to Prevent Disasters like the Haiti Earthquake Disaster

Exploring Ideas to Prevent Disasters like the Haiti Earthquake Disaster

CNN seems like it’s grabbed the lead on Haiti Earthquake coverage. They crossed that line last night when Sanjay Gupta, the CNN doctor, spent all night in a field hospital caring for patients that the UN left alone in a tent.

So there are thousands of images of the aftermath of the earth. Thousands of sad stories of loss and tragedy and all of it magnified by the grinding poverty of the country and it’s lack of government control and working infrastructure (even before the earthquake).

Obviously – it is impossible to prevent an earthquake, so there are three areas that could be explored to make earthquake disasters less horrific.

1. Advance notice of seismic activity in an area. Hurricane can be seen forming and building and can be graded, and prep work can began days before the disaster strikes
(yes – like Katrina). But perhaps it is also possible to have sensors that mark seismic activity. At least enough to get a glimmer of warning. My research says that there has been a project since 2007 to install sensors in the ocean floor to track tremors. After the Indonesian tsunami, the urgency to install these sensors increased dramatically. And because Haiti was on a fault line — I can’t help but wonder if someone somewhere in a research lab, may have noticed a few unusual tremors because this actually occurred.

2. Creating a System of International Building Codes. Obviously the death, injuries and damage occur from falling buildings and building materials (in the Haitian earthquake – cinder blocks). The UN could create standards for buildings with different standards based on the type of earthquake zone. For example, there could be a simple 1-5 scale and places that often have earthquakes (California, Japan, Pakistan) would have stricter standards than a place with almost no earthquakes, i.e. Florida and India.

While every building in a quake-prone country might not comply with the guidelines, the big multi-nationals would – the hotel chains, the government buildings (perhaps), and the better residential areas — and who lives in the better residential areas? The doctors, the medical professionals, the government officers, exactly the group of people you need in an emergency.

3. Creating Standards for Better Emergency Planning and Disaster Recovery.
The big increase in business continuity plans and disaster recovery plans (see
www.recoveryplanner.com) is amazingly limited to INFORMATION recovery and working to limit or prevent interruptions in information systems. The same kind of planning does not exist for disasters in most underdeveloped countries. Again, this is an area where the U.S. agency, FEMA could play a leading role; or the UN should make it a priority to do some kind of minimal planning standards for these devastating emergencies with massive injuries and loss of life.

The National Fire Protection Associations (www.nfpa.org) has published an Emergency Preparedness standard called NFPA 1600 – the Standard on Disaster/Emergency
Management and Business Continuity Programs and it’s a good example of the basics of Emergency Preparedness.

Individual countries would do their citizens a service by acquainting them with how to prepare families to survive in emergencies, whether they are triggered by power outages, severe cold, hurricanes or earthquakes!

Emergency Preparedness’ critical role in emergencies is something you can watch unfolding this week, as the relief efforts get stalled by lack of clear roads, problems at the airports, time involves in sea travel, etc. There has to be a better way – one that can be refined and used in future disasters.

In case you think you will never see an earthquake – here are the statistics on how many earthquakes occur in the world each year. These are averages but you can see that there is, on average, one giant earthquake, and seventeen large earthquakes, 134 strong earthquakes and many more light and moderate earthquakes.

TYPE STRENGTH AVERAGE PER YEAR
Great 8 or higher 11
Major 7–7.9 172
Strong 6–6.9 1342
Moderate 5–5.9 1,3192
Light 4–4.9 c. 13,000

The Boy Scouts were right when they adopted “BE PREPARED” as their motto.

These are three areas:

1. Better Ways to Predict Earthquakes (by even a day),
2. Minimum Building Codes based on local geography, and
3. Uniform Emergency Preparedness standards around the world.

These could be explored to prevent or at least mitigate the devastation we have seen in Haiti this week.