Local man on radiation duty in Japan

Dwayne Strand, a Flathead High School graduate and nuclear engineer for the U.S. Navy, is leading efforts to monitor radiation at the Yokosuka naval base about 40 miles south of Tokyo, Japan.

“The radiation is not a big deal for them right now,” said his father, Mike Strand, the former owner of Strand Aviation.

Strand’s wife and two teenage daughters are expected to travel back to Bremerton, Wash., prompted by a State Department advisory encouraging U.S. personnel to leave Japan because of potential exposure to radiation from the ruptured Fukushima nuclear power plant.

A website for the naval base posted an advisory stating that instrumentation aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington detected low levels of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in the Yokosuka ship yard on March 15.

Mike Strand said his son has been the lead engineer in charge of refueling reactors aboard the USS George Washington and other naval vessels, but he now leads a team monitoring radiation drifting from the power plant on Japan’s northeast coast.

Radiation levels currently aren’t harmful at Yokosuka “but they anticipate that conditions may change and there may be a greater amount of radiation drifting down,” Strand said.

Strand said his son told him Thursday morning about his family returning to the United States, but it was unclear if he and other civilian personnel with the Navy eventually would be leaving, too.

“He’s staying for now,” Strand said.

Nuclear experts have given varying assessments of just how severe the radiation leak at the power plant is, but Strand said his son didn’t offer his take on the matter.

“I did not get specific about that with him,” he said. “I’m not sure how familiar he is with the situation.”

His son has not been anywhere near the coastal areas that were severely impacted by last week’s massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami flooding.

“He’s really too far away ... He’s seeing the same things on TV that we are,” Strand said.

At the time of the earthquake, Dwayne and his co-workers evacuated the third floor of their office building to find safety in a parking lot.

After graduating from Flathead High School, Dwayne Strand went on to get a chemical engineering degree from Montana State University and then to work for the Navy, where he was trained in nuclear engineering.

He has been working in Japan for the last four years and prior to that he worked at the Bremerton Navy Yard in Washington.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.