Citation

Wenger DE. Int. J. Mass Emerg. Disasters 1984; 2(1): 5-9.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1984, International Sociological Association, International Research Committee on Disasters)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The Report of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island was entitled, The Need for Change: The Legacy of TMI. As a staff member of the Emergency Preparedness and Response Task Force of the Commission, I was quite pleased with that title, because it seemed to grasp the essence of the Commission's findings concerning the incident. Deficiencies were found by the Commission in all facets of the problem. Plant operation, operator training, plant design, federal and state regulatory activity, media coverage, and emergency planning and response were all examined carefully and found to be wanting. The incident has become one of the most intensively studied emergency and crisis events in the history of the United States. Illustrative of these efforts, a partially annotated bibliography has been compiled by Terri Pope and myself and is included at the end of this volume. It is primarily focused upon social and behavioral aspects of the accident. Even within this limited scope, it is not all inclusive. It is offered only as a basic bibliography that indicates the types of investigations that have been undertaken. This issue of the journal continues to add to our knowledge of this event. The nine articles discuss topics ranging from evacuation behavior to the rationality of the control room operators. Public policy issues, media coverage, and the social impact of the accident are also addressed. In each case, the authors have considered the legacy of the accident. In effect, they address the implications of their findings and observations for other crisis, disaster, and emergency situations.