ABSTRACT
The accident at Three Mile Island (TMI) Nuclear Power Plant in 1979 was an emergency management disaster. Chief among the problems was ineffective public warning and communications. The aim of any warning system is to alert as many people as possible to the likelihood and consequences of a potential, impending disaster and to tell them what protective actions to perform. The accident at TMI raised many serious concerns about the safety of nuclear power. The accident at TMI provided a unique opportunity to observe and study public response to an actual emergency. While it is difficult to generalize from one experience such as TMI to nuclear emergencies as a generic topic, some attempt is warranted. Numerous behavioral science studies on the effectiveness of human response to warnings have been conducted by sociologists and geographers. The chapter concludes with some discussion of the lessons learned from the TMI experience as they apply to warning systems for all nuclear generating stations.
