off. because we did not spend time considering if we should send our people to the airport, so we were able to utilize that limited time after the earthquake and before the tsunami. and the second point. another effective point is we were able to share opinions by this video conference, including our minister who was in tokyo at that time.

our first meeting after the earthquake was held about three hours after. and our minister made two points. e he wanted to emphasize that beyond our ministry's framework, we were asked to prioritize saving peoples' lives. and also he delegated the authorities to make important decisions and he said he was responsible for any consequen s consequences. and i would like to also point out that this video conference was shared throughout all the offices of ours throughout

japan. and i'd like to move on to the third point. this is called operation comb. so this pacific side was significantly affected by the tsunami. so this vertical line shows our national highway for this was not affected by the tsunami. as i mentioned earlier, our priority was to send resources to save lives and also supply

necessary goods. so we allocated massive resources to clear and also reopen 16 routes to the affected areas. but as you can see in this picture, it was covered in massive debris and it was going to be a difficult challenge, we thought. and also we wanted to be compassionate about the victims who were caught in this debris. so not only the speedy activity, but also e we wanted to implement some careful activity.

and thanks to the support by the private sector's local construction firms, we were able to reopen 15 routes among 16 routes within four days after the earthquake and tsunami. and i want to say that those private sector workers were very brave to implement these activities. they started their activities on the very day of the earthquake and tsunami, even though the tsunami alert was still in effect. so as this slide shows, we were able to reopen ten ports within

ten days and also after about a month, we were able to reopen the airport. and i'd like to mention some points that were effective for clearing the roads. i'd like to go back to the last earthquake before this earthquake, which was in 1995. so we had some reenforcement activities that had been done prior to this disaster to some structures. and for those bridges that had been done with reenforcement

activities, those survived the tsunami accident. and the second point is that our ministry intensely used our resources to open 16 routes. and i'd like to repeat again that the support that's given from the local construction companies was very significant. and i'd like to move on to our fourth part. since mlit being the national level government, we were able to allocate and collect all the resources to the affected area.

and the devices were very helpful. mlit decided to send persons to the affected areas. so we called these people liaisons and 96 liaisons were sent to 31 localities. so these people are very evidentive to support those localities leadership as professionals. and those needs that were mentioned by the local leadership was very exceeding

our normal work scope. and so beyond our usual work scope, we helped procuring some of the necessary goods that also included coffins. and i'd like to introduce some other activities. and i'd like to extend my appreciation to the support given through this operation from the united states. so thank you very much for your support. and i'd like to move on to

lessons learned. so i'm going to point out some things that were effective that we were able to implement some activities so urgently. so the point one through five, i mentioned these earlier. so i'm going to es peshlgly mention about the second point for disaster management organization to carry out and also to secure the functions of a management organization. we have to have resources that are not affected by a disaster. because many of the localities

those leadership they lost their resources by this disaster. so fortunately, we were able to secure our facility after this disaster. these are some points that were being thanked for by the localities. and the one thing that was more surprised me was the last point which was our professionalism shown to the localities.

so i mentioned about the liaisons that were sent for two weeks after the disaster, we thought it was a critical phase, and so we kent those liaisons staffed in those local areas and they helped making decisions by the localities. and also we are very active in collaboration with our other national level organizations as well. i would like to mention some reasons that were successful for giving some support to the localities.

first, i'd like to mention that our bureau, which is the regional bureau, has 42 field officers in the region. and those 42 field officers, they have their branches, about 100 of them. i think our activities are successful partially to our daily activities and also maintains professional skills by managing the roads, ports, and other infrastructure in the region. and also as i mentioned earlier, the support given by the private sectors construction companies, that kind of support had been arranged prior to the disaster.

because we had such good relationships with the private sector, so i think those companies were successful and very active in implementing activities without waiting for some requests by our government. i'd like to point out some issues and challenges we have to address. this is a map of the tohoku region that was disaster and then this shows some highway constructions. and also development. so, this is construction and the black line shows highways that are completed.

so, in this particular area, you can see some missed, some parts that are not built yet. to reconstruct the normal lives for the people and also revive the industries in this area, we should be able to complete these highway projects and those are very critical to the restoration. for public works in japan, those were strongly monitored by the public. for the last few years.

and due to the disaster and there was a change of discussion because people started recognizing that diverse infrastructure networks are very important for recovering from a disaster. and we have to recognize that we had some difficulties in terms of energy and also communications capacities when this type of large scale disaster occurred to us. back in march, this was wintertime in the area so there

was some snow accumulation as well, so we're lacking some of the gasoline supplies and also, there were some planned blackouts for the region. this doesn't mention, but i would like to point out the bigst challenge. so this scale of the disaster is probably speaking, which is one time in 1,000 years and we were not prepared for this type of large scale disaster. in japan is more exposed to natural disasters such as typhoons and earthquakes.

so however, this type of natural disaster prone country and also, we had some documents from the past such as large scale natural disaster can occur and we lack in preparation to fully prepare for this type of disaster. so the most important lesson that we learned from the disaster is that we should not limit ourselves in terms of making assumptions for our preparation for disasters, so i think that we have to think about various possibilities and also various types and degrees

of damages to our country and be prepared for those. >> thank you very much. zbllt. >> i would ask our other three panelestists to come forward. we've got a very distinguished rest of the panel. you guys get by me okay? we are going to start off with mr. ed davis, a senior nuclear executive and has been for over 38 years. he's done engineering, management, business

development, project finance, marketing and government affairs. he is currently director of the pegasus group and is responsible for providing strategic consulting service to a wide range of clients in the energy and electrical utilities industries and directly to federal agencies. he will be followed by an old friend of mine. dan is the assistant vice president for homeland security and deputy director of the policy institute at george washington university. dan joined in 2008 after spending three years on the white house staff. most recently as special assistant to the president and response policy. he co-authored and edited the white house report on the response to katrina and the

lessons lenned from it and he chaired the domestic readiness group at the white house, something i had a lot to do when i was the deputy assistant director of home land defense. and to wrap up, we'll have the senior visiting fellow for japan in our asian studies here at the heritage foundation and she was a fellow at the matsuhita government and our resident expert in japan. we'll begin with ed and go from there. >> thank you for the introductions. it's a pleasure to be here with you. to share perspectives op the

fukushima nuclear accident that occurred after the earthquake and ensuing tsunami. so much has happened and been reported on. the nuclear accident -- so much has occurred and reported has been helpful to do a lookback. so we can process. first, i'd like to preface my remarks and i'd like to say on behalf of myself and my colleagu colleagues, how deeply saddened we are about the magnitude of the devastation we've seen on the slides and the large loss of life brought about by the earthquake and tsunami and certainly, regret that the fukushima accident that was triggered when the earthquake

and tsunami made things much worse for the japanese people by spreading radioactive contamination and causing the evacuation of large numbers of people from their homes. so on behalf of myself, my friends and colleagues in the nuclear industry, i stand here and would like to express my admiration for the japanese people, their courage, bravery and determination to recover. japanese people, their heroic efforts have been very impressive to all of us. so, with that, i can have my remarks about not so much the technology or regulatory assessment, not here to really give nult nuts and bolts about what happened on the accident kronology, but i want to be able to kind of put the nuclear

accident in perspective, if you will. today, one year after, we still do not have a full distillation in which the matters can be understood, socialized and communicated. we seem too busy with stress tests, lockdowns, near term regulatory actions that the story quote unquote is getting lost between all that. by the story, i mean the essential context and framework that we humans place around an accident so that we can with stand it and share and communicate with others. story telling, even today in the hyper internet media driven and still the most powerful form of communication.

i was struck by today's accounts of the anniversary of the sinking of the titanic. i imagine how the story of the fukushima accident is going to be boiled down over time and passed on to generations to come. so i asked myself a question, i asked those here in the audience and those that might be looking in, does the fukushima accident a black swan event? referring to its length that has an impact and is only predictable in hindsight, you might say. or was it much like the titanic or a combination of engineering and perhaps complacency conspired in a snacenario where you had a speeding passenger ship traveling in the vicentety invested with icebergs, had an

unknown flaw in its hull. our perspective on fukushima -- on behalf of the u.s. client wopted to understand more about the accident. to put in a comparison, if you will. and i undertook that to continue through the fall of september 2011. in the assessment, i reviewed a u.k. chief's reports done by mike waitman. i reviewed the iaea report on its fact finding expert mission. i reviewed the japanese government's report to the iaea and finally, i reviewed our own

u.s. near seas report. my preliminary conclusion, preliminary because not all the information is in. and still today, it's not in. is that there was a great deal of dissimilarities between the sights. here in the u.s. and particularly the one i studied. so i concluded and i sort of sint thized the story of fukushima my own mind, that my story was that fukushima accident was in hindsight foreseeable and hindsight foreseeable. that may sound like a non se-- number one, the plant was located about 110 miles from the intersection of two tech tonic plates, so-called ring of fire. the natural sight elevation

originally a former imperial japanese air force base was actually lowered from its original elevation 35 meter high. it was lowered 25 meters to drop below ten meters, exposing the sight to the impact, increasing the tsunami risk, if you will. for a variety of reasons, the sea wall that was installed in and around fukushima was underdesigned for the tsunami that reached the shore there. the emergency disels that are the back up in case off site ac power is lost were placed in the basement of the turbine buildings facing the pacific ocean. you ask why were they placed in the turbine buildings in the basement? because they wanted to protect them from a seismic event.

then some gaps in regulatory oversight. the sea pumps, in addition to the disel generators were located in a location below the level of a potential tsunami. so, the accident in my view was not the inevitable consequence of a rare act of god. but certainly if in fact through sound practices of engineering, sound regulation, periodic inspections and evaluations, certainly that's something that i think in the future, certainly we can prevent. causes of fukushima obviously as we all know, the earthquake knocked out the six external transmission lines. ensuing tsunami that follows

about 40 minutes later. there was a series of waves, seven all together. knocked out 11 of the 12 diesel generators which were located in a basement of the turbine buildings. again, facing the pacific ocean, totally swamped. the critical this is a point not often mentioned, that the critical sea water pumps, these are the pumps that are required to remove the heat from the plant. they were basically rendered destroyed an the connections between the switch gear, between the, between the emergency power and the pumps was lost. so as a result of this, is called commonly blackout, but