as that wave hits, fukushima loses its primary, secondary, and tertiary power supply for the reactors. and there are six of them at fukushima. four were in operation. it is this series of cascading casualties that now first responders felt behind it is the course of the events with it the aftershock that continue to challenge the engineers who were attempting to restart water circulation systems to keep the power plants under control. by the time the joint support force arrived from honolulu, 90 people from my headquarters, are arriving in support of the

japanese self-defense force, we had explosions because of hydrogen buildup in the individual reactors. we had buildings that had collapsed. we had the fukushima 50. they were dedicated, loyal engineers and workers at the plan -- plant, attempting to keep the temperatures and conditions under control. it was a disaster that all of our national leadership said we would throw everything we have got at it. next slide. it is important to understand of what we did not know. we did not know the full extent of the damage. we did not know the full impact of the tsunami. there were entire population centers affected by this. in many of these prefectures that we went to, one of the

first things we said was that there was a complete loss of the mayor's office. the complete loss of the municipal leadership installations and buildings. people were having to land on their feet, figuring out where they go. in addition to the isolated communities, we needed to assess the infrastructure that we had in place. looming in the background was the nuclear crisis. this is where information became critically important. everyone was aware that their work risks, but they did not know what they were. the important thing was that we were available to help japan in any way that we possibly could. with technical expertise, with equipment. the challenge becomes, where do

you begin? the japanese word for the operation is friend. what you are looking at here is how we presented forces and ourselves as a joint work force. as the governor talked about, it is very important to have someone in charge. i very strongly agree with that. he highlighted the role that the military must play. as a joint force, we worked with ngo's, the government of japan ministries, and our counterparts in the self-defense force. it was unity of effort, not necessarily unity of command. that was the theme for the command and control architecture that resonated so strongly with the people of japan. the military response offers the

rapid capability to fill in the gaps. there are military organizational methods that are very adaptable. what you are looking at here is how we divided up the operation. the mission. the first was a focus on humanitarian assistance. the other was a focus on consequence management. critically important in this discussion was the identification of the lead federal agency for us. it was u.s. aid. what they provided for us was an avenue for funding. for direct contact with the government of japan. direct contact with the u.s. embassy. what that does, it helps to establish policy and guidance. for those who are looking at

ways to now think of these sorts of operations as case studies in which you can test your ideas with the state of california and how you would respond, i would strongly endorsed that you look at policy and guidance. that is something that cannot be assumed away. as you go from the local level to the municipal level, then the state level, and where you plug in with the federal government, this for assumption that we are on the same page and working off the same set of standards is something on which i reach out. to the extent that we were dealing with a contaminated, radiological environment, it was important to have a nuclear regulatory commission. it plugged into the washington, dc environment.

the technical expertise that resided in the department of energy. working closely with the government of japan and the power co. in tokyo. what this brings to us now, with an understanding of the role that we need to play, it is an identification of whether there are gaps in the role that was needed. how to apply the military instrument is important for military leaders. we can help to optimize the approach the two are trying to take. for us, there was this sense that we were behind. i would suggest that, in the case of a crisis that continues and insurers for the length of time that this did, the roles that we were trying to play was

how to anticipate the next problem. feedbac[feedback] the way that this played out, there was contamination in the atmosphere, followed by contamination of the food supply. then there was the water that was running into the ocean. so, our discussions, both with the nrc and the government of japan, how do we understand and characterized assistance to develop a common operating picture for understanding. how do we talk about this? what messages do we give to the population? the challenge was that we had different levels of understanding of these technical issues. that there was disagreement within the technical community in terms of exposure and risk. the reason there were

differences of opinion, there were different standards. the world health organization has a standard. the center for disease control has a standard. again, as you tabletop this, it is important to think through, what will you tell the population? what is the basis for that? an empirical understanding of the issues and being honest about what you know and do not know is critically important. we have identified some of the key questions option that we wanted answered in the course of our mission. these were critical to our ability to make decisions and recommendations for policymakers. so, what you see here, item number one, we needed an understanding of how the engineers on site were dealing with the crisis.

many different strategies and approaches in terms of trying to contain a radiological problem. we have the complexity of the radiological problem while, underneath, we have humanitarian assistance disaster. we had our marines, soldiers, sailors, and airmen, with brooms, cleaning up and keeping track of their individual exposure while at the same time offering humanitarian assistance. we have obligations to our own people, as well as those we are trying to assist. risk-management becomes critically important and cannot be assumed a wave. any changes to the status, it was important for us to be aware of, so that we could evaluate

meteorologist " conditions and the sort of guidance that we give to our own forces, as well as the self-defense forces that we were joined with. any kind of radiation increase, we needed to be aware of it. this is real time information. not something historical that you look back on. so, trying to get to that time- critical sense of urgency about any change to plan status or released in the atmosphere was critically important. any reports of damage or loss to fukushima, in terms of its power supply, became critically important as we went through a series of aftershocks that number hundreds, then thousands. there was this potential interruption of more power loss to fukushima, which meant potentially more release,

critical to our discussions. we absolutely needed to have a good understanding of the needs of the people on the ground. there are about 122,000 homeless that were affected. reports of 25,000 people that lost their lives. as i mentioned before, families displaced. so, let me start with the humanitarian assistance line of operation first and stepped through the steps that we took. first of all, we level be existing infrastructure that we had. this is a bird's-eye view from the passenger terminal. in order to have that up and running, we needed to bring people in. these are airmen.

these are sailors. these are soldiers. these are marines on the peninsula. sorry, on honshu. the joint support force was a unity operation. we found that if we had a liaison capability, they came to every meeting. there was an arrangement between the nato forces in the gulf war and the arab forces that were a part of a coalition. within that organization, which resembled more than each, rather than a vertical line, one of the two star generals responsible for the coalition command and control said -- you go to a meeting, you go get your partner.

you get your coalition partner and do not have a conversation without that person present. so, for all of our discussions, we had our japanese partners present. without them present, what happens is you plant seeds for dissension within the ranks. unity of effort requires a lot of horizontal communication. it requires breaking down barriers by and organizations that are bureaucratic because their own survival relies on their own success. if you could get beyond some of the vertical themes that take place in the course of building up other organizations, you would have the opportunity to realize what is possible when very disparate and talented groups come together. so, what you are looking at here, we mobilized the fleet and

pushed forces to honshu. the uss ronald reagan, the first effort was to save lives. eventually it would come underneath the plume and protect the radiation in the atmosphere. next slide. this eventually became a hubs and spoke approach to providing support in northeast honshu. as we provide that support, what you are looking is our own way of working with u.s. aid. these other rapid response teams, developing a picture of who is in need so that we can have a better understanding of situational awareness on the ground and act on that information. it allowed us to address the

directed needs of the people of japan. what the people wanted was to return to normal as soon as possible. meaning they wanted to clear the schools. they wanted to address the human needs of the population. which meant showers. it also meant providing use it to help to relieve the tension and the pressure that had built up on people. now, to the consequent management. while the humanitarian assistance operation is in place, we need to get through an understanding of what goes on. in other words, we needed to build a reactor. we needed to understand what was going on inside of the reactor to anticipate our next move. i think that the value of this

conversation is to share with you the kinds of questions that come up in the course of a crisis and how we can answer them. for us, this is to get inside of a boiling water reactor and understand where the key levers are in terms of what affects temperature and pressure. there are four reactors present. they performed as designed when the earthquake hit. in other words, they shut down. what you saw released reflect only 7% of the potential energy that could have come from those reactors. still, it was substantial enough to cause measurable contamination in the atmosphere. now, we are trying to understand trends over time. but we realized was that the heat coming from the reactor would dissipate. but we needed to stabilize the

situation on the ground to allow for that key to dissipate over time. the alternative was to flood the reactor. the concern with that strategy is that although it would put the temperature into a controllable situation sooner, it would provide far more contamination into the environment, which was already at an intolerable level. so, we went digging into understanding what radio isotopes were the ones we were trying to deal with and how to react. but i am showing you here is downloaded from the next public web site. you are looking at 80 sensors around tokyo. a report on atmospheric levels of cesium and iodine.

which is critically important during a crisis. what this means is information. the information in a seat -- event like this is critically important. anyone can go to this web site and download the information. anyone can get these actual readings. they will be published after words. of what this does, it addresses will long-term radiation exposure that people were most concerned about. think of this as a timing critical issue. people are going to look to leadership and say -- how can i react to this? it is invisible. all that they know is what to tell them. this website was up and running all the time. i found this incredibly useful. i could see data trends over

time. in terms of long-term exposure, that was one issue we had to be aware of. the other was lethal dosage. we did not have a gamma issue. we had reports from around fukushima to understand what was going on in terms of lethal dosage. populations wanted to know -- do i need to move? do we need to evacuate? so, we had to get everybody on to the same page of understanding the actual data that was reported. " we found within the head of community was that simulation predictions are not equal to share. not everyone has the same view of what will happen in a radiological crisis. being able to develop an operating picture was the goal.

what you are seeing here now is the actual data of an aerial measuring system. these are sensors in an airplane. it think of mowing the grass in the air. they are looking at the reflection in the ground. that helps us to understand how bad of a problem we have and how to communicate to the self- defense force. they are looking at the same information. it helps us to understand what is going on with the water in the reactors. modeling and simulation that we have at sea is based on what happens with oil. what happens with oil and a radio isotope are different properties. we come up short when we look at

what happens when radioisotopes are introduced to overtime. that is a common operating picture. that is what we developed so that, as the next aftershock came in the next power loss incident took place, in the launch floor that we build with the self-defense force, we were able to work side-by-side. we have a hot line to the embassy and ministries in japan as an event takes place, everyone knows. one of the critical questions

that everyone wanted to ask was -- and i at risk? do i need to evacuate? the concern that we had was that the level of radiation in the background, which is to say people, the 90,000 americans that were there, in the event of one of these crises getting worse, they actually tried to get in line and get on a ship. this would put them at more risk. where they needed to release radiation into the atmosphere. we could measure the real impact into the atmosphere, using real

data and numbers. the concern that we had was that without and in the that -- absence of data decisions, they are simply responding to the cry -- crisis atmosphere that was there. putting themselves on the road in the panic that would follow the uss ronald reagan was one of the ships already there. we do not have lingering effects of radiological contamination. we have gone through our own individual monitoring and we are satisfied. next slide.

long-term, what this tends to do is reinforce the procedures we had in place for contamination. it recognizes that for air breathing equipment, small performance parts, when you needed to repair them, they required a special engine. we do not want to mix and match the parts and components that were exposed. we want to keep them isolated until they could be decontaminated. next slide. what you get out of this is the important role that people play in this discussion. this is one of the reasons we send our officers off to be

graduates. when you go to graduate school, you get your degree based on original thinking and primary research. no one puts forward a thesis that says the status quo is ok. we teach people at a graduate level to challenge the existing thinking. when i look at this force, composed of humanities majors and technical majors, we found the right mix. we had to come up with the basic questions that needed to be answered. i think that what you get out of this is a force that is incredibly responsive. the chemical, biological, initial response force is

another example. when the marine corps look at the sarin attack in tokyo and decided they needed a response force available, they came in from the united states. the first time ever we had taken that kind of tears zero national capability and made it available to a partner in need. from the perspective of the people in japan, it demonstrated commitment and, symbolically, indicated that we were fighting back. that we were going to reclaim the atmosphere, the land, the sea. what you are looking at here is how we would present our daily situation reports to describe how they are making progress. next slide another example of

the incredible partnership that we have. we think that joint support forces of the right concept here that brings together the unity of effort. with u.s. aid, it was our clear understanding of how to work closely with the government of japan for the lead federal agency in this case. it was critically important, in this case. they can work the funding issues in ways that the military is not able to. in terms of where we were located, it was not meant to be read, but listed on the right- hand side were all of the ngo's

that participated, attempting to galvanize this. it was the role that u.s. aid and the self-defense force played. an example of how to take command and control on the road is a command-and-control unit. we brought this from honolulu so that it would be available in the event that the crisis continued to provide more challenges for leaders. we will close here with the importance of messaging. another critically important element of this. who has the lead for the message? it should be part of the discussion that takes place at your next table top level exercise. messages can be very confusing and you have many different

groups involved. u.s. embassy had the lead. to be very clear about that point, as you roll this up and look at it in aggregate, those are impressive numbers for the people of japan. these were the foreign deployed forces are in japan. everyone rallied and was under way, everyone was a part of this operation. when self-defense force called out 100,000 people, they had this right behind them. it allowed them to focus on what was critically important to them, finding the remains and lost, allowing us to provide support in the way they needed. someone went to a lot of trouble to put