to another tragic accident which occurred in the united states in nineteen seventy nine the three mile island power plant which is part of the state of pennsylvania and now i'm joined by take form virk who was the governor of pennsylvania at the time sir thank you so much for joining us thank you guy well first of all what do you think about the comparison well there's an. eerie similarity between what's happening in japan today and what happened in pennsylvania in one nine hundred seventy nine. there are obviously differences because we didn't have to deal with a record earthquake or aftershocks or following tsunami but the technical challenges are pretty much the same so what happened to this three mile island was a partial core of meltdown in one of the reactors how bad were the consequences back then at the time i we had no sense of what it really transpired and it took a long time to complete the cleanup process and determine precisely how much damage had been done but about a third of the radioactive core had melted down prior to the. the reactor being brought under control and that was

in the cover a chair five disaster like referring to of course to the three mile island accident what do you think the purpose of the proportion is going to be hearing if i do go to the head of the class and could really provide japanese friends with some real guidance it's a process that has to be tested every fact has to be. examined in terms of its source and the setting within which it arises it's not an easy thing to do it's the single biggest challenge of our emergency management is getting accurate facts so that you can make the right decisions you can be the best decision maker in the world but if you don't have the right facts you're in trouble thank you so much sir thank you guy. yes my name is daniel schmidt this is julian assange we're here to make a short presentation of all that we can fix project. the first step in the fourth day is to get information out about the real world living through him war on. hearing the secret visit because. it would be a good marker to. put in the sources and danger he would hunt me down and kill. this is exactly one of the reasons why we le

leader it was going to be the solution dollar energy problems that all vanished for three mile island gradually lately there's been a softening of the attitudes toward toward nuclear energy for two reasons one is the rising cost of alternative sources of energy and second is a little more subtle and that's a fact that nuclear power doesn't give off of a kind of carbon emissions that are suspected to cause global warming so that made a favorite in some aspects of the environmental community what do you think the wrapper questions will be on the nuclear policy so that governments have thank you west european union china and india they're all going to stop and take a deep breath and look at the consequences of this when they're fully available. i don't think they're going to abandon their present commitment to nuclear power but i think that it represents a step backward in terms of their desire to build more nuclear plants sir considering how much is at stake was simply a huge industry do you think we're getting the whole truth about what's going on in japan and i'm in no position to mak

. >> three-mile island. gwen: it's hard to imagine that will jump-start that industry in that way. >> in expectation in the past couple years, this idea of the nuclear renaissance but what that was really vigger -- triggered by was there would be a climate change policy, a policy that put a price on carbon emissions and made it more expensive to produce energy with fossil fuels. in that economic reality, nuclear power would become more economically viable. we've seen that fossil fuel -- climate change legislation failed in congress. we're not going to see a climate change law any time in the near future. and within the industry, people were saying that nuclear renaissance already was not going to happen. it was becoming -- nuclear power is so expensive and without that switch in the economics, it was already freezing and slowing down. and this is clearly -- it's also going to just raise the price, the liability, the insurance, the new regulations are all going to send the price even higher and wall street is

in the coverage at five disaster like this before referring of course to the three mile island accident what do you think what the proportion is going to be hearing if i do i go to the head of the class and could really provide japanese friends with some real guidance it's a process that has to be tested every fact has to be examined in terms of its source and the setting within which it arises it's not an easy thing to do with the single biggest challenge of emergency management is getting accurate facts so that you can make the right decisions you can be the best decision maker in the world but if you don't have the right facts you're in trouble thank you so much sir thank you guyon. wealthy british style. is not right with. the market finance scandal. find out what's really happening to the global economy with much stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report on our cheek. download the official and see how to make a shift you'll find phone the i pod touch from the i choose option. lunch on sheesh life on the go. video on demand on t.v

in the coverage at five disaster like this before it was going to close to the three mile island accident what do you think the purpose of the proportion is going to be hearing if i do i'd go to the head of the class and could really provide japanese friends with some real guidance it's a process that has to be tested every fact has to be. examined in terms of source and the setting within which it arises it's not an easy thing to do with the single biggest challenge of emergency management is getting accurate facts so that you can make the right decisions you can be the best decision maker in the world but if you don't have the right facts you're in trouble thank you so much star thank you guys please. please .

correspondence between what's happening in japan and what we had to deal with three mile island in one nine hundred seventy nine technical challenges very cynical we want to bring the reactor to a cold shutdown and we want to prevent the leak of radioactive material and sounds easy but it's tensely difficult as we're seeing in japan now how do you deal with the myriad of information that's coming out in crisis like that i mean you have experts coming out of the woodwork pretending to know x. y. and z. about this you have for media reports how does the government in time the government actually be trusted to know what's really going on with the government and i think any of us who have responsibility in these kinds of areas has to work very hard to retain our credibility because it's important to be able to be an authoritative source for information that people can make their own judgments as to their own well being. very kind of well you're absolutely right there's a welter of information coming at you from every source and in the case of three-mile island we found out we were generall

you're saying it's way past three mile island. >> three mile island was not a major release. here there are significant releases taking place already because the containments are smaller and they're being overpressured and they're releasing. and the radioactive gases. my concern is that the winds stay offshore and that the... i think a large fraction of the radioactivity has been captured in the water in the basement of the building. and so i also... each of the three buildings and so i hope also that radioactivety stays in the water. that the water doesn't evaporate for example. and reaerosolize the radioactivity. >> rose: olli, what would you add to that in terms of concerns at this moment? >> i think this is a pretty good analysis that david and frank did and i have only one concern left personally and this is that we are still feeling some aftershocks after this big earthquake and they may change the situation and we need to still be prepared for the first but hope for the best. >> rose: what is the risk today of a melt down? >> in my view, we've basically already had the

difficulties and the three mile island accident in march of one thousand nine hundred seventy nine obviously three mile island we didn't have to deal with a record earthquake and the aftershocks and a massive tsunami but the problems the technical problems with regard to nuclear power were pretty much the same and the goal was to bring the. damaged nuclear reactor to cold shut down and that involved a great deal of time and effort so i can sympathize it's very directly with those in japan who have that responsibility so what advice would you give the japanese authorities tonight. but i think the key thing is to determine precisely what the facts are we were terribly frustrated in the aftermath of the three mile island accident and not to be able to get a firm grip on the facts we would hear conflicting stories from different sources and some do triangulate those hansard to come up with something that's plausible the last thing we wanted to do was misinformed the public so we very carefully vetted all the facts that we tamed beginning on the first day when we were misinformed ourselves by the

crisis in japan brings back vivid memories for those who lived through the nuclear crisis at three mile island. we talk to people who were there during what became a touchstone moment in u.s. history. >> reporter: the accident at the three mile island nuclear site in 1979 caused great fear across the nation. >> when you got to the scene on that morning, i was simply overall intimidated, totally left with the feeling of being lost because we had never been involved in anything like this before. >> reporter: but the nuclear crisis unfold not guilty japan gives neighbors reasons to reflect. >> you realize back in those days we didn't have cell phones. we didn't have the internet. we debits have video conferencing, all of the things that you would use now in an emergency. we had to rely on landlines and they frequently were jammed and went down. even though hot lines and i had connected myself with president carter, went down a couple of times. so it was a terribly frustrating. >> reporter: historians can't help but compare the two. 32 years ago a relief valve failed to close, spill radioactive co

we hear more and more comparisons of what's going on in japan today to the accident at three mile island right here in the united states. that was back in 1979. and betty nguyen takes us back now to revisit this country's worst nuclear emergency. betty? >> reporter: good morning, rebecca. three mile island was built in the 1960s at the height of the expansion of nuclear power. a predawn accident at that plant in 1979, however, sparked a change in the way the world views nuclear energy. >> and there were radiation releases. >> reporter: at 4:00 a.m. march 28th, 1979, a mechanical failure at three mile island nuclear generating station in dauphin county, pennsylvania, allowed nuclear reactor coolant to escape, causing the core to overheat. the situation nearly ignited a catastrophe. >> the worst nuclear power plant accident of the atomic age. >> reporter: the following day, efforts to stabilize the reactor failed. and by day three, it became clear that radioactive gases had accumulated within the reactor, and leaked into the atmosphere. governor richard thornburgh advised residents to take

fuel rods it sounds bad but i don't really know what that can be there the nuclear fuel rods three mile island were exposed we had a what's called a part. meltdown that did not produce any environmental or health. adverse consequences later study showed but sifting all that out takes a long time in the public gets impatient and they see their gas prices going up and it's it's not. an ideal situation but again as i said the worst thing to do is that push out misinformation and falsely reassure people who are falsely frightened them . all right well that was the extern grover the former governor of pennsylvania now it comes from a leader with the bradley manning case you should probably go back to watching the jersey shore or whatever else you do for fun but to recap the young soldier who's suspected of leaking classified documents to the file sharing website wiki leaks now the twenty three year old has been held in virtual solitary confinement in a marine base in virginia and faces numerous charges including aiding the enemy a capital offense like an earned him the death penalty now the fact th

. >>> and 32 years ago today the united states suffered its worst nuclear accident on three mile island. >> it changed profoundly the future of nuclear energy just as japan's diaster letter likely change it. >> reporter: the partial meltdown at three mile island back in 1979 had a crippling effect on the u.s. nuclear power program. since then not a single new plant has been ordered in the united states. that changed last year. president obama announced that his administration would put more than $8 billion in federal loan guarantees towards america's first nuclear power plant in 30 years. >> to meet our growing energy needs and to prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we'll need to increase supply of nu supply of nuclear power. >> reporter: in the quake of japan, president obama and experts have expressed confidence. they say u.s. power plants are safe. new polling on the sharp decline in the percentage of americans who support building new nuclear plants. so far, that fear has not spread to capitol hill. law makes are certainly waging concerns but nuclear energy still has b

three mile island. it began 32 years ago tomorrow. elaine quijano looks back. >> reporter: at 4 a.m. on a wednesday water pumps for the cooling system inside three mile island's unit two stopped. the nuclear reactor automatically shuts down. >> the station emergency alarm was going on and on. >> reporter: as 27-year-old systems operator tom kaufman arrives for his 6:30 shift, pressure inside the reactor is rising. >> when i went in the control room it was all business. there was no panic. theres was no fear. >> reporter: but because of mechanical and human errors a relief valve is left over forcing out cooling water and causing the reactor core to overheat. >> the temperature kept building up and building up to the point where about half of the fuel in the nuclear reactor got too hot, it melted. >> reporter: by late morning small amounts of radioactive gases are detected off site, at the nuclear regulatory commission in suburban washington, harold denton was monitoring the incident. >> communication was very difficult, it's fair to say

if it continues it will certainly get to five, which is the three mile island category of a serious event. we almost lost three mile island and lot went meltdown. it stopped at the last minute. that is the situation we're fighting to maintain in japan. if there is a meltdown, that puts in a 6 or a 7, that is a chernobyl category, serious nuclear incident with potential for large scale loss of life. >> chris: what are we talking about? 12 hours, this hours, what are the keys if it becomes a serious accident or catastrophe? >> we're in a key period now. the next 12 to 24 hours will tell us if the japanese officials will get control back over the reactors or it's gone, it's lost, the pumping of the sea water into reactor number one is a last ditch effort to try to stop it before it's too late. if they can succeed and hold it for the next 24 hours or, so then the reactor cores will cool down and will be implied path to containing this disaster. >> chris: we're going to have to leave it there. we want to thank you for coming in and helping to shed light, help us understand what is happening in

in 1979 there was a partial meltdown at three mile island in pennsylvania.ome radioactivity was released, but it involved just one reactor, not four as in japan. details are really sketchy, but the range of options for tackling the crisis is shrinking. the key task is pumping in water to cool the reactors including the number three reactor where a cloud emerged this morning. the aim is to keep water flowing through to reduce temperatures but this creates steam and too much of it could now another option is to deploy more workers. that's hazardous. reactor three is giving off so much radiation, people can't get close. reactor four, the tank holding rods is holding -- leaking water and if it runs dry, there would be a leak. one plan is to drop water by helicopter but there is no way of protecting the air crew then. that just leaves fire engines and cannons to pump the water in but again those workers would be supposed -- exposed to radiation. the workers were briefly pulled out last ny but now 180 are back in. the legal limit has been raised for radiation to a

we're clearly closer to a three mile island situation. if the incident was to stop right now, the amount of radioactive release is really very small. and the risk to the general population, just like it was in three mile island, would be very small indeed. of course, we await.... >> ifill: pardon me. understanding that none of us know tonight exactly how much radiation may have been released we have heard some reports and we saw in some of the earlier taped pieces people being wanded and checked for irradiation exposure. do we know, do we have any sense about how serious that might be? >> i think we have a good idea at this point in time that the radiation exposure to the general public and i'm not talking about the nuclear power workers but to the general public at had point is clearly very small. the radiation risks course pondingly are very small. the issue with the nuclear power on the other hand the people inside the plant is very different. i think pretty good evidence that there have been in high- dose exposures to those folks. the

. >>> and inside three mile island. at america's worst nuclear crisis 32 years later. >>> sports sponsored by touch of gray. gets rid of some gray. never all. choose a texas toast half-sandwich, like our classic turkey, piled high and tasty. pair with a delicious soup or house salad. served with seasoned fries, it's big flavor for just 6 bucks -- weekdays at chili's. what the slugger's ex- mistress could reveal.. about his alleged steroids use. and.. a bomb hidden in a newspaper explodes in a man's hands it evacuated a bay area neighborhood. the search for more explosives this morning. a state of emergency in capitola. the financial aid on the way, and why some business owners say they'll never fully recover. and mystery aboard a disney cruise. a crew member's sudden disappearance. join us for cbs 5 ,,,, >>> on the "cbs morning news," here's a look at today's weather. cool, unseasonable air from the northern plains and into the northeast. strong thunderstorms will roll through florida. much of the west coast will see br

we've seen that at three mile island and we've seen it at chernobyl and now we're seeing it again. mind you, each time it's a different cause you know? at three mile island there was a stuck valve. at chernobyl they had a power surge at the wrong moment. now we have an earthquake and a tsunami. and there are also airliners that can crash into these and terrorist attacks and things we can't even imagine right now. so i think the time has to come-to-pull the plug on this. i say that with great regret because the argument on global warming is one that really tells with me. >> rose: right. >> along with the nuclear dangers... >> rose: how many people were killed at three mile island. >> no one. >> so if those are the big three... chernobyl, one of them a series. >> let's first wait to see how this plays out. not just the specific consequences but what we learn about what actually happened. i think it will take a lot of time to learn about that i'm not enthusiastically in favor of nuclear. but i'd be wary of moving too quickly to exclude a zero-carbon source. we don't have all that many

where the problems at three mile island. just compare what happened at chernobyl with what happened at three mile island with what the folks of japan are going through. a simple explanation of that is possible. >> it is a very serious situation in japan and that will continue for some time. i am hesitant to compare them because we do not know yet how this will play out. i can talk about three mile island and chernobyl. there were different events. at three mile island you have because of mechanical problems and human error, you had a reactor core that experienced some melting. the radiation released from that was contained within the containment structure and their work low levels of radiation that were released to the public as a result. chernobyl was a different event. it was a very large release of radioactive material in a short time, coupled with an explosion. without trying to minimize the severity of these things, if i were to compare three mile island and chernobyl, chernobyl is like blowing a balloon and popping it w

there was a degree of that, in my opinion, always speaking in my personal opinion, after three mile island. when i started at the agency at 1983, we were following up the actions of three mile island action plan. anyone who started in the in our say has that number burned into their brain, because we spent an enormous amounts of resources following up on those activities. some of those are absolutely instrumental in improving the safety in this country. somewhere, i believe, actually -- if we had carried them all out, might have been counterproductive. they might have been a good idea in somebody's mind. after you go through the brainstorming and the identification of all possible things to change, i think there needs to be a good evaluation, a thorough evaluation of what is the right thing to do and in what kind of sequence and timing. >> i will make two comments on that. one is for your information and you may be aware of it, but the national academies and it took a significant study for about nine or 10 federal agencies looking at disaster resilience in this country, pacifically from th

of it now with lake barrett, a nuclear engineer and consultant who directed the clean-up of three mile island the nuclear regulatory commission. and norman kleiman, a professor of environmental health sciences at columbia university's mailman school of public health in new york. his work focuses on exposure to radiation. blake, you have been involved in something similar to this for some time ago now. give us a sense of what's happening in that plant right now. >> well, the workers are coping with a very challenging, very difficult situation there at fukushima. they have three reactors cores that have been overheated and rubble and is probably partially melting in the cores. i believe those cores are stable at the moment with fire hoses and fire connections they have for the reactors. the most immediate concern is the two spent fuel pools in unit four and unit three. those apparently have overheated and there's been hydrogen released, explosions, some of the buildings have been damaged severely. and they're working very hard to try to contain that radioactivity as we speak. >> ifill: norman k

to louisiana verse thirty three mile island. absolutely i remember that well . in fact i think jane fonda's movie was out at that time or just a few weeks before the china syndrome and so a lot of us when we saw three mile island with had a pretty good idea of what could go wrong. what from that time there was swats nine hundred seventy nine seventy nine ok from seventy to today what have we failed to learn. well its lessons on learned. what's being demonstrated today i think that what the what we're seeing right now is. a lesson that should have been learned about nuclear power at three mile island was and learned and then really learned that. in one thousand nine hundred six and then and learned again with fukushima and now we're basically waiting for an aging nuclear industry to demonstrate yet another lesson that nuclear power will fail you it will always be more of a liability than an asset in time of national crisis or natural disaster well even even without that i understand is quite clear to everybody that it is the most expensive way to generate electri

and so this is three mile island, for example, had, had core damage, a significant amount of core damage. yet the radiological releases were very limited from three mile island. so there was, you know, negligible health effect from that accident. so the hardened vents will allow the primary containment to stay intact, and that's probably the most, single most important thing. the other thing to maintain the containment is for this particular design of containment we've required, i think since the late '80s again, inerting of the containment. so it's filled with nitrogen. so if you don't have oxygen in the containment, even if you did have hydrogen in there, you're not going to have an explosion or a fire. those are, i think, probably the two biggest ones. i don't know if there's anything you need to add? >> appreciate that. one more question, mr. chairman. just also just to give you a chance to clarify, there's been a lot -- i noticed a lot of chatter in the press over the weekend about the impact of 50 mile evacuation zones around u.s. nuclear plants. could you sort of give the nrc's po

i would say three mile island. first just a few days after the accident but it's am i right it was still pretty much because the arctic scene was this senior surveillance technician at that site was the person in charge of changing the. charcoal filters. gases critical it's from. what the people in japan are going it's kind of hard to tell but there's no one has access to them as far as i. i fear for their safety or for their lives but what about you you were presumably risking your life. well. as a health physics technician i think we are better equipped than most people to deal with radiation exposure we're the ones who you see with the little meters making sure everyone is safe for the people who clean up all the mess with the people to make sure that you stay safe and so in order to do that effectively we of course have to stay safe for three we get burned out radiation exposure in a working environment is very tough in the h.p.'s job the health physics technicians job is to make sure that the workers are not o

congress has been told the crisis is worse than the meltdown of three mile island in 1979. they say the situation is very serious. in bahrain, the crackdown continues. the military used tear gas to clear demonstrators from their camp. at least six people died and hundreds were wounded. our correspondent has this report. >> the assault began shortly after dawn after a state of emergency was declared. the military moved in pushing out protesters today the riot police took control of all roads leading to the roundabout with extensive use of tear gas. authorities say some protestors used petrol bombs and two policemen were killed. but the protesters were no match for the military. state-run television showed these pictures of the protesters being forced to leave. for weeks people have been living here demanding political reforms. but the government was no longer prepared to tolerate its challenge to its ruler. the center of this city has become a ghost town. the authorities for trade their operation as a success. state-run television has thought a roundabout is cleansed. this i

at pennsylvania's three mile island, there was a partial core meltdown but not a significant release of radiation. japan now waits to see if it its fate is the same. anne thompson, nbc news london. >> we appreciate you being with us. the problem as we understand it, this particular reactor is around inability to cool did. they are putting sea water on it to coop the temperature. if they can't bring the temperature down, what is the worst case? >> the worst case is a meltdown which means that the fuel rods in the reactor heat to a high temperature that they actually melt together. you would see the core of the reactor turn to a mass that would burn right through the steel reactor vessel and drop into the concrete containment building surrounding that vessel. the very worst case is that that containment building, the concrete box doesn't hold this radioactive molten mass, and the earn tire core then spews into the environment, putting radio activity into the ground, the air and the water. >> right now they are classifying this as a 4 on a scale of 0 to 7. apparently there is a scale to

we had a three mile island. it was a terrible situation. he core. >> reporter: marvin heads the nuclear energy institute, the industry's lobbying organization. >> the actions taken by the industry since three mile island have prepared us to deal with events just like japan and maybe even worse. >> reporter: three mile island in 1979 was our fukushima. >> as evacuation. please stay indoors with your windows closed. >> reporter: although no one was killed or even injured in the accident at the plant in pennsylvania, with the partial meltdown of the reactor's core came a total meltdown in trust for nuclear power. >> no nux. >> reporter: it took more than 30 years to rebuild. >> no nukes. >> we have short attention spans. as bad memories of three mile island and cost overruns fade in the rear view mirror, we forget about it. >> reporter: tyson slocumb is director of the energy program for the consumer watchdog group public citizen. >> what japan has done is it's very rudely reminded us that nuclear power is not safe. it's not clean. it is not ri

are you aware of that kind of exposure at three mile island. you have any additional information on that? >> my knowledge of three mile island comes from and the nrc report issued after the analysis had been done. what i remember is, within a 20 mile radius, the average exposure of those people closest to three mile island was a small fracture of background radiation. it could have been on a scale of 1%. that is what i recall. >> it is important that we talk about that. safety is an important issue. we do not want the american people to be panicked about any of this. did you have an additional common? >> i do. the events unfolding in japan appear to be more serious than three mile island. to what extent, we do not really know. they are unfolding on a hour by hour basis. we do not know what is happening in detail. this is why the department of nrc is there, not only to help assist the japanese power companies and the japanese government, but for our own sake to know what is happening through our own intelligence. >> the government is offering any

and that's why with the experience of three-mile island and other incidents, nuclear designers have learned, and they have not only by common sense, but also by law, have to implement multiple, multiple redundant safety systems. >> reporter: and in pennsylvania's three mile island, there was a partial core meltdown, but not a significant release of radiation into the environment. tonight japan is waiting to find out if it has the same fate. live in berkeley tonight, elyce kirchner, nbc bay area news. >>> officials here in california are still assessing the damage caused by the tsunami that hit the california coast yesterday morning. in fact, governor jerry brown declared a state of emergency for santa cruz and san mateo counties saying the ocean surge from the tsunami waves put the infrastructure and public safety at extreme peril. kimberly? >> reporter: diane, while it's quiet now, we're hearing that crews made a lot of progress today assessing the damage and working on cleanup. >> we're looking at broken docks, sunken boats, flotation loose around the harbor. >> reporter: it shows the dev

i got every single name of anybody who had ever worked at three mile island. i would call them when i got home and see what they knew. eventually, i worked my way through to some people who told me really what was going on. inside . >> i'm a student at george washington university and a part-time reporter for campus radio. my question about the nixon administration was taken. i'm a member of college republicans. you were involved in republican politics earlier in your year, helping nixon right is memoirs. what role do you have in politics aside from reporting? keith olbermann was recently booted off the air for donating to campaigns. what involvement do you have? >> one of my proudest things is that my husband, and he will tell you if you call him, he does not know my politics. he has no idea. [applause] no one has any idea. i meant what i said earlier -- i did not come as a partisan. i love it, but i love it as someone who loves hearing all sides all the time. >> yes, please? >> i may freshman at gw and i was wondering what advice you have for young people, e

we are live at the sites of three mile island in pennsylvania and chernobyl. eginning with jeff rossen at three mile island. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. the plant is very active. one of the reactors is going this morning with two of the cooling stacks sending steam into the air. we talked to one of the officials here. they supply power at three mile island to 800,000 homes in the northeast, most of them in pennsylvania. back in 1979 when the partial core meltdown happened at three mile island they were ill prepared. they are the first to admit it. no real evacuation plan and a shoddy emergency plan. everything has changed inside while things out here are basically the same. >> we don't know. it was scary. we knew the alarms had gone off. something happened at the nuclear power plant. >> reporter: it was march 1979, a partial core meltdown at three mile island that shut the plant down and sent radioactive gas into the air, all of it a stone's throw from joan and kenneth's house. >> we had a 5-year-old son to worry about. our concern was to get him o

there was a degree of that, in my opinion, always speaking in my personal opinion, after three mile island. when i started at the agency at 1983, we were following up the actions of three mile island action plan. anyone who started in the in our say has that number burned into their brain, because we spent an enormous amounts of resources following up on those activities. some of those are absolutely instrumental in improving the safety in this country. somewhere, i believe, actually -- if we had carried them all out, might have been counterproductive. they might have been a good idea in somebody's mind. after you go through the brainstorming and the identification of all possible things to change, i think there needs to be a good evaluation, a thorough evaluation of what is the right thing to do and in what kind of sequence and timing. >> i will make two comments on that. one is for your information and you may be aware of it, but the national academies and it took a significant study for about nine or 10 federal agencies looking at disaster resilience in this country, pacifically from th