It was a perfect storm. The plant shut down, as it should have, and the batteries operated properly. However, the tsunami submerged the diesel backups, and th

It was a perfect storm. The plant shut down, as it should have, and the batteries operated properly. However, the tsunami submerged the diesel backups, and the rest of the power grid had been knocked out by the earthquake, so they couldn't use external power. The mobile generators deal was a fuckup, plain and simple. I think, had they known what the price of failure was, they would have found a way to make it work. I think they were overconfident in the safety systems they had in place.