ML20237L592
| ML20237L592 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Shoreham File:Long Island Lighting Company icon.png |
| Issue date: | 04/27/1987 |
| From: | AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED |
| To: | |
| References | |
| OL-5-A-009, OL-5-A-9, NUDOCS 8708280167 | |
| Download: ML20237L592 (65) | |
Text
SG-3 2 2 -- 0& S f() b ' y g$f Wlb ^ 9 2 7/6'y Focus drouc #2 2/7/87 AM 87 E 20 P3 :59 I
You are at home on a weekday morning at aroundA7e a.m. and you wake up, you turn your radio on and you hear these messages.
And then we are going to discuss what you think about them.
What your reaction would be to them and we are going to go through a series of these messages.
Why don't we begin by playing the first message.
This is not a test, assume that it is a real situation and that you hear this message on the radio announcing that something has happened at Shoreham.
EBS #1 is played.
M What did the message say?
S This is an advisement to give you an idea that there was a nuclear problem and the possibility exists of a larger problem.
5 It tended to scare you and it really didn't say anything.
It didn't say that it was imminent and anything was going to happen.
You don't really know what is going on and what is going to happen.
S It told me that the bureaucrats had no way of handling it anyway and that they were putting this on because they had to.
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M How would you feel when you heard this message?
S I would feel damned angry.
I would grab my two kids who had not yet gotten to school, gone to pick up my third child and gotten off the Island as fast as I could.
S Do you feel that this message was clear?
S No, I feel that this message was lousy.
S I feel that it was evasive.
I believe that because they put it on the air that there was definitely something wrong.
We are in imminent danger and it would scare me.
Just because they are saying it is not necessarily a dangccous situation, but one is about to occur.
So they have to take this action.
M How clear would you say that this message was as far as what it told you to do?
S It wouldn't tell me that this was a dangerous situation because it doesn't want to cause a panic with the people.
But it still would panic the people.
S I think the words are vague but also enigmatic.
There seems to be a mystery that they are creating that only leads to more apprehension.
1 -
M So when you heard this, you would feel that it was very mysterious because it's done in such vague terms?
S Yes.
S I got a feeling of a panic that I would have to hurry up and get my phone book and check the maps and make sure I had all the information, like I should have gotten something in my flier when I got my bill that I should post on my refrigerator and keep there, because I never know when something's going to happen.
S I would question what it would mean to me because I don't live in the 10 mile zone.
Does this mean that this thing is about to blow and I better get out of there too or is this just a very localized matter?
M How would you feel after you heard this message?
S I don't think the message rea]ly said anything.
It was kind of redundant in a lot of ways, they kept saying the same thing and the way it was read, I didn't seem to feel any sense of urgency.
It sounded kind of flat. _
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Would you be worried when you heard it?
S I would be annoyed more than anything else.
Like what is going on here and when are we going to find out?
S My reaction would be similar to the other woman who said she would go get her kids and get out because if we were notified later that there was a real mishap that occurred, then it would be too late.
Then the roads would get instantly clogged and I think I would leave at the first warning.
S This is 7 o' clock in the morning, are your children likely to be in school at 7 a.m.
S Yes, mine is.
S Of course, it enters your mind that if something really bad did happen, they wouldn't want to panic the people so right away you think of Chernobyl.
They didn't want to tell anybody what happened there.
They don't tell you right away.
L In reference to that, I think that if there was a definite problem they would have told the people in the 10 mile radius to try and get into some safe area.
Even though there is a rush _-
i hour it would be foolish to jeopardize their !.ntegricy to lie, the lives or well being of the people in that area.
That would be totally out of hand for them to do.
S Just the fact that they put it on the radio means that there is a da.7ger.
Any problem at that point is a danger automatically.
S Was there anything th.at preceded this, like a siren or something like that?
S If someone did not turn their radio on, they would have missed what was going on.
M Sirens went off in the 10 mile zone.
M How many people here live inside the 10 mile zone?
j S
Within a hair's breath.
i M
Practically everybody here lives outside the 10 mile zone, j
but close.
S On one side, I don't think there is any such thing as an orderly panic.
They try and avoid.
Also I don't care what is i
transmitted on the airwaves there is always a soubt of trust. - _________- ____-____________ -
Can we really oelieve what they are saying.)
I would seriously 1
question that if I lived one block away from Main Street in Port Jefferson that I wouldn't be affected by radiation.
S You were asking, I believe, what our reaction was to the message and it seems to me we have all grown quite immune, calloused to the warnings, the civil service warnings, this is just a test.
When it comes onto the radio or TV most of us turn it off.
We just don't hear it anymore.
This did not stir anybody to move or take action.
This message was a sleeping pill.
l S
I live outside the limits, I think there is only one of us who lives within 10, but I felt that the message was pretty vague and it wouldn't really make you want to do anything.
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1 think the news media all over the country would be on this like a shot.
So I would leave the cable channel on and look around.
1 M
How much would you trust LILCO to tell you the truth about l
l what was happening at Shoreham?
S Not at all.
S Yeah.
I trust a fellow worker.
I just do, I have faith in the fellow worker in America.
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I trust them, they live here too.
How are they going to get 1
out, how are their kids going to get out.
Even if they are not j
l within the 10 mile zone, it is not a game, they are not walking i
around in a bubble either.
S I may not trust them but I would trust the message conveyed over the radio because I do not believe it totally comes from just them.
The regulatory commission would have a strong hand to play in anything that was related to the public.
l S
I tend to distrust the management more than I do the wurkers.
There are certain pressures put on the management by the Nuclear Jmmissions and I think they are reluctant to cause a panic so I would tend to mistrust them.
S I would tend to mistrust, not everybody connected with LILCO but I wouldn't just give a blanket trust to the workers because there has been too much shoddy workmanship there'.
I think on too many occasions regarding shoddy workmanship, the management has been less than upright with us so I think there is enough of a doubt in their credibility.
Perhaps under my own personal panic, radioactivity is going to start ccming out of the plant if it hasn't already.
If I thought Hauppauge was safe, I personally would probably stop by the County Executive's Office and trash the place on my way out.
You and the other people let this.
______.______.m_
happen.
If one of my kios dies because of this, I am going to find you and I am going to nail you to 'he wall of the reactor.
t And I don't think I'd be alone.
S I wonder how far along the emergency situation would be before they finally would get around to issuing a message.
Because I don't think they'd want to instill any early panic if they were certain they could get the situation under control.
So I would tend to doubt the announcement because maybe things are more serious than they would want you to believe.
I think they would take their time in issuing any kind of announcement as far as who knows what kind of situation may have developed in the interim.
I think they would not want to issue a statement too quickly.
S I am involved with writing for a publishing house that is involved with a number of newspapers and the first reaction, whether it's to a disease or whatever it may be, when they're not certain of what's going on, is always to downplay everything.
And then as the story progresses, you can put in an update on what is occurring.
So myself if I heard this, my first reaction would be that it is a lot worse than what it is.
M I would like to go around the table now and ask each one of you individually what you would do if you heard this message around 7 a.m.
What would you do? '
S I would try to get my children away and I wouldn't come back for at least a year.
I would' leave.
But the thing is how do you get off the Island?
S I am a lifelong resident of the area.
I wouldn't do anything.
I would sit and have my ear glued.
I just want to make a couple of comments.
I am a lifelong resident of the area, and I've lived a long, long time near the Brookhaven National Laboratcry and right now LILCO's the one that's on the, you know, but that it weren't LILCO, supposing it were Brookhaven National Laboratory that had the problem, supposing it were a nuclear plant on the coast of Connecticut.
Then what.
Nuclear power is a thing that is going to be around for a long time.
I think that our local government is remiss in not having anything to do with it.
It doesn't have to be LILCO.
It can be someone else.
S I would get my family and children around me and put on every news media that I could because the messages better begin to get very specific after the first nessage.
Unfortunately, there are a number of people on Long Island who cannot go anywhere so there's nothing for you to learn.
Await a next message, right?
l i i
S I would try to make some phone calls to try to find out exactly what was happening.
Then call up other people to see what their reaction was and try to get advice from them because I feel I would be confused to know exactly where I could go, whether there were any shelters around that I could go to.
S I would leave.
Absolutely.
S I would take my children and leave.
I S
I would stay but prepare an emergency pack for each of the members of the family if we had to evacuate.
S I would be afraid to leave because of all the panic.
I would be afraid that people would be getting killed on the way out.
Traffic jams, car accidents, all kind of crazy things.
I would hope that somebody would direct me in the proper way to handle this.
Go into the basement.
Maybe we should start building those radiation things we had back in the 50s.
Shelters.
Stacking up dry beans and things like that.
S Just until the hubbub of people were out of the way and then you could evacuate.
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S I don't live in the 10 mile zone and from what the I
announcement was, I would sit tight and I wouldn't want to add to the panic.
I don't think it is the hypothetical question of what LILCO would do or if we would be getting the information, nuclear power is working already.
You have Indian Point if that thing blows and you have westerly winds, then everybody is going to go east to go swimming.
Hcw is anybody going to get off of Long Island?
You cannot get into New York City in the rush hour.
I mean 7 a.m.
in the morning, that's ridiculous.
If everybody starts getting out into their cars, you are going to have traffic jams on side streets.
You will never get out.
I think instead of tugging back and forth on whether LILCO should run a nuclear power plant, I think you should tell them you have some hardware there, turn it into a coal fired facility, charge it off to your shareholders, they made a lousy investment.
And end it already.
M But if the plant were turned on and you heard this announcement, would you just sit?
S Yes.
S If I heard the message I would stay and try to get more information on different channels, cable channels, or Connecticut stations, because everybody is going to be covering any nuclear accident..
A
S My inclination would be to leave but the point is, you can't re' ally leave Long Island, and if you leave Long Island, where would you go?
Radiation goes everywhere.
You have to look at the weather reports, and go in the direction the winds are not going.
Obviously, one cannot go because there is no place to go.
From Long Island especially.
S I would stay, gather my children together, prepare what I would consider a survival pack and keep my radio tuned and be l
ready to evacuate and I do not live within the 10 miles.
I live very close to the bay.
I would perhaps steal someone's boat, being that I don't own one, right at the end of my block, which is not very far from the bay.
I would leave on someone else's boat with my family.
S Now that I hear that some people are staying, I would definitely leave.
One of the vehicles that I have is a motorcycle and I would use that, just maybe foolishly thinking that would be more able to be manipulated through the roads, but I would definitely head west.
S Are you alone?.
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S No, I have a wife.
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S Being outside the 10 mile zone, I would stay.
S I would want to leave but I think I would fear the panic of 4
everyone leaving so I would probably stay.
S I would probably go to the drugstore and get some batteries of things, fill my gas tank, get in my car, go back home and watch TV, listen to the radio and make sure everything was going to be all right.
Just keep an eye on things, trying to be i
realistic about it.
S I think my overwhelming feeling is if something serious does happen, then it would be impossible given the road situations and traffic jams it would impossible to get out because then everybody would be leaving.
You would be stuck in traffic with clouds of radioactive steam or whatever and I would go into the 10 mile zone to get my son from school.
I don't know how long that would take.
Go by and strike some fear into the hearts of the County Executive's people.
If something happened, I would hope that my children could come back someday, a generation or two from now, when the place cools down..
S I accepted that message purely as an alert.
I didn't read it that there was anything imminent in it.
If it were imminent, my initial reaction is to leave.
Because I don't know where to go.
In U.S.
News and World Reoort, I saw a map of about 172 nuclear reactor installations; they are all over and our country is by no means the leader in that field.
So I wouldn't know where to go.
I think they're all around us, herein.
I do think we need for future generations, here on Long Island, an abundance of the lowest possible cost energy that there is.
I think I would have the faith that there would be safeguards sufficient and a unified plan of alerts worldwide so you know what it meant.
Everybody in the world would know what #1 alert, #2, #3 meant and governmentally administrated plan of survival.
That is where I stand.
When the lady called on the phone, I gave her a soft yes.
I haven't been to a nuclear meeting in 10 years, so this is more of an information session for me than anything else.
S I think I would gather my loved ones and try and last it out in the basement.
I wouldn't try going to the stores for
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batteries, candles or food because you are going to get stuck out there.
You better have it in the house already and just be ready.
I.
S As I already stated, I would definitely go for my child who attends an early session.
I would get her and still try with all the panic that would be occurring, to get the hell off of the Island.
S You are not going to make it.
S You are not going to make it staying there and having God kaows what happen to you from radiation either.
S I believe that nuclear power is the thing of the future and I believe it will improve in time.
But right now, we are scared.
I don't believe I would leave the house because everybody is leaving and nobody knows where to go.
Just wait and see what.
happens.
S I would stay, I wouldn't panic at all about it.
S I would have some misgivings, but I would try to give LILCO the benefit of the doubt.
Try to believe their message.
And I would stay and try to be cool and make some preparations, but I don't know where I'd go.
There is no way you can plan for a situation like this -- there are just too many variables, so you would have to improvise.
Every move you make once the announcement occurs..
M So you would leave?
S I don't know.
I would have to see how things were happening at the time.
How can you plan for that?
The government can't do it.
They know it's impossible.
You cannot evacuate without mass panic.
It's just an improvisional situation.
Let's assume you are still at home and a short while later, M
you hear the next message come over the radio.
Play EBS #2 M
What did this message say about the safety system at the nuclear power plant?
l S
In danger of failing.
1 S
It is failing.
M Failing?
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S It has failed.
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S There is a small leak at the moment which in time will create a larger leak or something else will create a larger leak and it is going to get worse.
M What else did the. message say?
1 S
It is sort of confusing; at one point, he said that there was a minor leak and then a couple of moments later, he said that there was no leak.
And then he said that there was a leak.
That was a bit of a confusing message.
M Did it say anything else?
S Milk-producing animals have to be put away and store their feed inside the barn.
M What did that mean to you?
S That means that everything is going to be contaminated.
S I think it also says that we all have to sit on the edge of our seats waiting for this to happen at all times.
With our little shelter in our basement, and our feed protected from the radioactive debris.
That's what they're asking us to do isn't it?
More or less.
Be prepared.
Not only do you have to worry about the Russians or anything else, now you have to worry about the power company 20 miles down the road.
You have to sit on the edge of your seat and be prepared for that.,
i M
How mu'ch danger would you feel that you were in at this point when you heard this message?
S I would feel in great danger.
5 I feel that if I didn't die in the next six months, I would definitely die of it in the next five years.
M When you heard this message you would really feel that you were in a very unsafe situation?
S Oh yes, and sooner or later, it's just going to kill everyone.
S A point was brought out about a plant being run in Westchester County..
Fine, who is to say which way the wind is blowing and where to go.
But the fact of the matter is it is out here on the Island.
We're talking Shoreham; there is no way to go.
No practical way to go.
Except if you're one of the lucky few who happens to get out before the major risk of the panic.
S I would still say sit tight, monitor what is going on, there is a possibility from the statement that the controls could fail and I think that I would trust their information as being extra -
cautious at this point.
They are warning you, everybody would have a little bit of fear, and possibly that they are not as far out of control as people would sensationalize.
S This is, in my opinion, a lot stronger message than the first one that came out.
This is definitely an event; I would be more moved to try and get out for fear of what is going to happen next when they say that other system failures could go.
The thing that I wonder about is even if you are able to get out, you have lost everything.
You cannot go back to a radioactive house.
They just ruined your life.
S You have yourself and your family.
S True, bat on a larger scale, even if you can physically get off of Long Island where are you going to go after that.
They c
have cut your legs out from under you.
Even if you are still living and breathing.
And that is not to say that the wind is going to blow that radioactivity following you, either.
S One of my worries would be that perhaps I had already lost my life and just didn't know it.
There is a certain time delay t
between this release of radiation, whatever degree we don't know, by the time all consultations were made and the word got out to the radio stations, I may have already been exposed to l 1
radioactivity.
For sure, the land has.
We may in fact be walking dead already.
I just don't know.
You can't smell it, you can't see it.
It's in you forever.
S Is our need for electricity so great, that we actually have to live in fear of our lives?
That we have to have a shelter in the basement to worry about getting off the Island?
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S Yes.
Unless you want to go back to candles.
S It's your option.
S This country is spoiled.
S If you have faith in America and faith in technology that there has to be a better way of producing electricity than nuclear fission.
I think that is unplanned and if you look at all the things involved in it, that getting rid of the waste alone is impossible.
There are no containment systems that will hold it for more than 50-60 years with a half life of how many thousands of years in radioactivity?
It's a poor way of producing energy.
S 4.5 million.
That's how many long radioactivity has half life. _ _ _ _ - _. _ - _ _ _ - _ _ _ _
A
S I think we can do better in developing power.
S We have in hydroelectric power.
S There's many other ways.
They don't want to put money into it.
M It is a very important and interesting question as to how we should produce electricity, but what I want to focus on particularly this morning is if they turn that plant on, we uant to kr.ow if there is some type of incident at that plant such as these messages, made up by LILCO as part of the test, we want to know how you as Long Island residents would feel then?
I mean, we know that many people now don't want them to turn the plant on, are against it, but if they should go ahead and turn the plant on, we want to know how you would feel at that time.
What would happen, what you would do.
S I really am not sure of how many places there are nuclear power plants in the U.S.
I wculd really try to get out of here Sell my house and get out of here soon before there's any soon.
big problem and try to go to some type of an area where there isn't going to be this problem that I'm not so close to it.
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S I came to this forum today to understand and clarify my own ideas.
I will be graduating from Stony Brook in a few months and I have the opportunity of moving if I choose.
Listening to the fear that this is building inside myself, I may tay? tha*.
opportunity.
And I feel that if I should delay it and listen to I
a radio program like that I would be so angry at mydelf that I didn't take the opportunity to leave ' hen I had the opportunity w
to get out.
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S I think today that we don't live in any area that is isolated from others, and'we don't have buffer zones.
We may be injured by a nuclear power plant in Wisconsin or Ohio, or someplace like that, and to just base a decision on whether we live near LILCO or not may not be the wisest thing to do.
I have to agree with this gentlemen that when I heard the second report, I would honestly believe that I was already effected.hy it and I am never going to outrun the winds that will take this radiation wherever it goes.
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What did the message tell people who live outside of the1 10 mile zone to do?
S Nothing.
M Would you believe LILCO that if you were outside that zone that you weren't in any danger?
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S No.
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S Absolutely not.
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S They have no way of predicting when and hcw the wind is t
going to move.
You cannot co7 trol mother nature.
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,f radioactivity will effect us.
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astute they are, they have no way of knowing how thing arg going to blow.
S I agree.
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1 M
Do the rest of you feel similqr?
S I think that the 10 mile zone was more or less an arbitrary decision on the part of the planners.
There is no wall that is going to stop radioactivity at 10 iles, 3 miles, or 100 miles, r
depending on the accident.
J f j HowwouldyoufeelifyouturnedontheTV4;ndyouheard M
some engineers f rom LILCC being interviewed and t' hey said the,re j
was no danger to you from what was happening at Shoreham?
Would I
l you believe them?
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If they were standing at Shoreham saying that?
S If they didn't get out very fast, then they would not be personally worried.
As soon as some incident happens at that l
i plant, somebody knows, somewhere, exac.ly what is going on.
And they know exactly at that time what's going wrong.
The workers at the plant kncu exactly what's going on.
Somebody has a phone line right outside the nearby monitoring.
So it's just a lag between who knows it and who's going to release the specific message telling you what's happening.
S I would expect at that point that there would be an Atomic Energy Commission spokesperson on site probably at all times.
Isn't that the way they work?
That they don't leave it la the hands of management.
M What if you heard the media interviewing all different kinds of scientists and engineers, some of them from LILCO, and these LILCO people said don't worry, and _ hey interviewed some other i
nuclear scientists and they said you have a very serious condition here that's very volatile and we don't know what's going to happen here.
Se don't quite know yet what's going on here.
How would you feel?
1 1
I S
I would feel that I better find out some official information on the subject because interviews on TV or the media I don't take much stock in them.
Like people don't take much stock in management, who's trying to make a dollar.
I'd rather listen to somebody who has nothing to gain or lose personally.
S I am not for this power plant, but the management if they worked in the higher echelons would understand more about nuclear power than I de and if they were in that type of a field, they must enjoy that type of a field, and they probably believe to a l
certain degree in what they are doing and they would be more 1
optimistic than I would be about this.
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M So would you believe them if they said don't worry?
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S I wouldn't necessarily believe them but that is their opinion.
l S
Even if I saw an engineer, I think there is something like company mentality and if they were being interviewed right on the i
l site, these people would have been selected for this interview.
I am sure they even have this already pla'ined.
Regardless things 1
could be blowing up all around them and they could be convinced that it isn't a dangerous situation.
These are just company mentality people, so I wouldn't hold any stock in what they say.
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S I myself might take that point to gather things and get in a
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prepared stage for the possibility of evacuation.
But I still would tend to think of little incidents that you had before Three Mile Island, a little burst of radioactive steam went off, which seems to scund like what their message ic conveying, and trust that the government control would not permit management to be the controlling factor.
M What government?
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l S
Well, the NRC.
The plant isn't run totally by LILCO.
That i
would be like having the company owners running the unions.
It's just not, you know, it'a a contrast of ideals.
S I thina what you are asking here is what people would do after they heard these messages.
The problem is that that is locking the barn door after the horse is already out, or the cow.
1 I don't know which animal it is.
Some of you may recall in your early elementary school years hiding under the desks in shelter drills.
That was given up because it became a moot situation
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that is no longer useful for our children because the situation has changed now because of nuclear bombing instead of planes coming over with boom bombs.
What we should be considering now is prevention of having to hear that message.
This whole thing is locking the barn door, too late.
1 _ - - _ _ - _ _ - _ -
1 S
I don't have much faith in experts.
To me, there is no such animal.
But because th(se engineers have a lou more training than I have, I would tend to put some credence in what they have to say.
It would be about a 60-40 mix for me.
I'd have a lot of doubts.
M Especially if you heard engineers, both qualified, some saying one thing and some saying the other thing.
You know, I mean you might have LILCO engineers saying one thing, but then you might have other scientists or physicists or engineers saying something else.
S If they were on site I would have faith in whatever they are saying.
S What is to stop LILCO from interviewing an engineer long before an accident ever occurs, and playing it videotaped for people later on.
S Ah, ha.
S It's very simple.
5 One thing that has come to my mind is that I think the fact that so much publicity has talked about evacuation, my concern is that if any serious accident happens at that plant I might just j
i __ -_______ - ___-_____-__ -
have to jump in the car and leave and never come back.
And this university, all these businesses and homes is just going to sit l
here for who knows how long and none of us is going to be able to come back.
I don't imagine anyone's going to compensate for us.
I personally don't want to have to be run out of this place forever.
I would like to continue coming to work, living in my house.
As long as they focus simply on evacuation; they are not focussing on what would happen after that.
I think there are a lot of levels of nuclear accident that mean you might never be able to come back.
I just don't want to say goodbye to this l
l l
place.
i l
l M
Was this last message a clear one or unclear?
S Les$ clear.
S I think it sounded more like a worry message because they were stating to watch the absorption of radiation in the cows and the grain
. beware of that.
Each time I hear a message coming in, I always think it really is true.
The earth is an insane asylum for the other planets.
And we did nothing about it.
We let this happen.
l l
M So, when you heard this message you wouldn't feel or know exactly what you were supposed to do? 1
i t
S I would get more frightened about the next message and I would keep thinking, oh, there's one more message coming and then they're going to say, well, that's it.
Nothing can be done.
It can't be controlled.
We. don't know how much is leaking out.
It might eventually get to that point.
You mentioned that you get two messages from qualified people.
One predicting that everything's possible all right.
Then, there is the other one I
saying there is a danger.
If they can't even agree, and, they're all experts
. because in the beginning when I heard about nuclear power, I said well, they know what they're doing, I don't understand.
And I felt at that point maybe in the 1960's I should have done more.
And in the back of my mind, to think of hearing that on the radio, and then it's finally coming true, I would really feel it was terrible to let it happen.
If they cannot even agree and they are all experts, what am I to think?
S This would be after we have some fal, lout then I would gather my children and leave.
I would just take a boat and get away, I
would look to the scientific community to tell the truth because hopefully that is what they believe in helping mankind.
29 -
i S
There may be a nasty fight for those boats.
S The message is clearly downplaying the threat of radiation fallout when they say to take care of the farmer, if I were a farmer I wouldn't care about my animals, I am more worried about the people and myself.
l S
If you had stcrage feed, how long is it going to last and l
1 ultimately those animals are going to have to go out there, it is already too late.
S I don't agree with that at all.
If you have the animals you have to put them away because they are milk producing animals and there is the possibility that this thing isn't going to go any further.
You have to look at both sides of the point.
That is your income and that is what feeds the population.
Down South, during the drought, and they shipped all that hay for months down there to feed those animals.
Thousands of animals.
And we could do the same thing here.
Ycu don't know how bad it is.
S We get most of our uilk from upstate.
S There was a recent thing about West Germans not allowing the importation of feeds from the area around Chernobyl.
l l
1 l
l l
l i l
f S
Chernobyl is a whole different kind of thing.
People don't realize the difference between one reactor and another.
Whereas the reactors that are designed with lots of safeguards here are not in the league of Chernobyl.
The breeder reacters have more chance of breakdown.
I think that people's education in this area is lacking considerably.
If the government should concentrate a little more on what the statistics and what kind of reality there is and what kind of safeguards that they have, maybe the public's ability to comprehend it would be more so than people give them credit for.
M You are at home, or in your car, and you hear the next message.
I Play EBS 43 M
What did this message tell people to do?
S This message essentially to me said the same thing that the second message said, however, the second message contradicted itself in the middle there like this man brought up when it said that there hadn't been a release.
This one was just more explicit that there had been a minor release, that something else could fail and it was much more direct. - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
S The same thing.
This one was directed, it didn't keep wavering back and forth, maybe there was, maybe there wasn't.
M Did it say anything else?
S It didn't say anything else but it was reassuring.
It was status quo from the last time.
l M
So, you would feel better?
S Well, I would feel that there is no more time left.
l S
Now there is a chance of a major one going out now.
M Why do you feel that way?
l S
Because that is what he said.
M What did he say?
l l
S If there is any change we will inform you or we will change the information. or the message, i
I I
l i ;
a
S He said that on the first one, too.
S Well you can look at it one or two ways:
you can say that things are getting any worse, that they are not deteriorating.
j And on the other side, you could say well they are unable to stop or control what is happening.
So that message wouldn't have any impact on me at all.
The way I reacted to the second message I would feel that nothing has changed.
S There was one phrase that sounded particularly ominous in which he said it is not necessary that the public take any action at this time.
That implies they are about tu tell us to do something.
M What else did they tell you to do?
Did they tell you to look for anything?
S You have to hold onto your telephone book, if you threw it away, you are in trouble, S
They keep referring back to this brochure which by this time if I was giving this message, I wouldn't go locking for a paper or look in my phone book.
I don't care if I live ten miles or less, I just wouldn't go looking for a brochure.
It is
\\
downplaying it by trying to make you feel better. _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ - _ _ _
A
S I think that is what is wrong with it is that there is really no conclusive statement being said, they say go to your brochures, go to your phone book.
I don't think most people are going to do that and that in itself is going to create problems.
Again, I dc., t even know if people within a ten mile zone are supposed to leave, or are supposed to stay there.
M What did they say about that?
Did they tell anybody to l
leave?
S They just said refer to your brochure and I don't know if the brochure tells you to leave.
If you're living around the corner from Shoreham you could have a problem.
S Does the lady over there who lives within a ten mile radius, do you have a brochure?
S No.
S Did you ever get a brochure?
S No.
S I would be curious about the brochure even though I live beyond the ten mile zone.
l _ _ _ - _ - - _ - - _ _ - - _ - _ _ _ - _.
S Wasn't this meeting essentially for people outside the ten mile radius?
M Primarily.
S I have a couple of concerns about the message itself.
One is that they don't give you specific instructions, they just refer you to other places to find out what to do and figure out what applies to you.
They talk about this local response organization and I would have serious doubts whether all these people are out there, doing what they are supposed to be do'.ng, or are they finding their own families and leaving.
It wouldn't take a lot of bus drivers to leave a lot of stranded kids.
And also my thought is that this is a message you said was prepared by LILCO, this message and broadcast during the practice emergency, is more concerned with a very bureaucratic, soothing way for good PR to allow them to open the plant now and may not I
bear any relation to reality later.
The emergency messages they broadcast now, I think are just on for their own PR.
They say everything is going to be just fine, and you don't have anything to worry about.
That is not a real message. _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _
M But if they did play that message, would you believe them?
S I just overheard someone say I couldn't afford to leave, but how could you afford to stay?
You would stay for material possessions but if you are dead, they are no good anyway.
S If you are going to leave, you have to leave right from square one.
S I am surprised that I am not hearing a lot of the people comment on is that they're sending field reps out to take local testing and that I would think would instill the next step more frantieness, if you will, in people in the area.
I am surprised no one has mentioned that.
To me I would think that if I was that guy taking that test, I wouldn't even go in and do it if I thought there was any damage.
But other people maybe wouldn't have that optimistic viewpoint to think God this is it, now it really has to be bad because they are going to see how much has leaked out.
I was just surprised that nobody made any comment on that.
S I am sure the NRC would be on top of that.
I have a lot of 1
faith in that.
I am sure they would monitor outside the ten mile limit, check areas to see if there was nuclear fallout outside the area.
l l
l 1
36 -
l l
l
~
l S
You are assuming that they notified them as soon as anything
)
occurred.
S Every nuclear plant has NRC representatives there.
S But as soon as the slightest thing happens to that plant, there is a danger to start with.
Three Mile Island has the same kind of notices on the radio.
S But you could be driving your car and something could happen a l s o.'
More people get killed driving their cars than anything else in this country.
S You take these factories that are filled with propane.
S If a lot of the people who were getting panicky and let's flee attitude, if there are a lot of fanatical people around you are going to get into a traffic situation and guns are going to come out.
If you have a four wheel drive and you can get over the hill, and they cannot in their Volkswagen, that is another whole set of problems.
The messages are designed to get the public to slowly start bleeding out of the area but the few fanatics are going to go first and as the messages get a little more savere, the wave will follow and the traffic situation will not take it.
There is a lot mcre to it than the radiation, the traffic will be a problem too.
S We are not talking'about a 10 megaton nuclear explosion.
S We are talking about a low level leak.
S Do you have a copy of the brochure?
I am interested in knowing because in that brochure, they say if you live in this area within 10 miles you should leave.
They are not going to say that over that radio, because then everybody will leave.
M They have zones, they have a map which shows which zone you are in.
M Let's hear the next message.
Play EBS #5 M
They are now saying virtually everybody in the zone should evacuate.
So what would this mean to you?
S Now they are expanding the area.
Now they are really telling us what to take along.
We are in trouble.
S I would feel that the situation is probably going to get worse and worse but I still would not leave.
I would think about that woman in a boat.
She's really leaving herself wide open.
1 38 -
I 1
1
S How much gas is in the gas tank and how far is she going to go?
S I would probably have left.
Everybody is going to be going west.
Nobody's going to come east.
And if I live within 10 miles I was one of the ones who would leave anyway.
So now, if I live outside of that 10 mile zone 1 hear people say these people l
have to start leaving.
Then I'm really going to get worried anc I'm going to start leaving, no matter where I go.
M You wouldn't believe the message when they said you were I
safe outside the zone?
i S
No.
j S
First they said there was a leak at a certain time, and then l
they are saying there is a leak at such and such a time.
I would think there war another leak and I would get out because they say.
only within a ten mile radius.
But who knows, how far it would I
go.
There is as much danger of me getting it outside of the ten mile zone and I would try to get out as soon as possible.
I wouldn't believe them.
First they said a minor leak and now it i
is a general leak.
4 l
I l l l
S I would have left at the first announcement.
I have done research on Three Mile Island and exactly the same thing happened.
Each step that they tell you, they are already on the next one.
M As soon as you heard the first, you would be suspicious?
S Absolutely, because it is already more of an emergency than they have told you.
M If LILCO people said don't worry would you believe them?
S Worry.
Not in the least.
S I wouldn't be around to listen.
By this time, I would have already gone.
In a real situation, people are going to come around and knock on your door and say come on now.
S All these drivers for these buses.
Come on.
Are they going to be walking around with all sorts of gear on?
It is like some science-fiction film.
S The police department would be quite involved.
S I am sure they would be.
My mind would progress beyond that point.
S There is no such thing as they have to.
Since they rinally did say evacuate, I would have to leave.
I am almost 30 miles away, it is 9:39 in the morning and rush hour traffic is over.
S You have all the people panicking.
Where are you going to Northern State Parkway or the Expressway?
S I would try to eave in any event.
I am in much more danger than I was before, And it is a better time of day, i
S You will never make it.
1 S
I would hope that if this thing ever does go on line, they j
should prepare better messages than the ones we have heard today.
That is jibberish.
Zone A to Zone P and Q and M.
Why don't they
)
just say if you live in Shoreham, Wading River, Cutchogue, whatever it is, get out.
Referring people back to manuals in the middle of a nuclear event, is stupid.
And if there are public authorities that are supposed to oversee this, they don't deserve the jobs, if this is what we are going to be hearing.
i i -
I J
M Do you think these messages have been very confusing?
5 It is nothing.
Broadcast stations have a bigger responsibility than that to put the information on the air.
Just because they have an emergency broadcast system, they cannot start giving you coded messages like this.
That is ridiculous.
It doesn't.mean anything.
l M
You don't think these messages would reassure anybody?
S Reassure. I would feel so powerless, I would feel like I was in an airplane at 50,000 feet with two engines out and 212 million fellow passengers.
We are going to crash.
That doesn't i
say anything.
l l
S I am a pilot and I have a plane at MacArthur Airport.
By this time, I would be on the motorcycle heading toward the airport.
i S
It is definitely much more alarming.
As to believability, I l
l think that someone living outside that immediate zone would I
certainly know that it is time to pack up and go if you haven't f
already gone.
S I would think that people living within that radius would not.hink of their fellowman but of their own.
l l
l l l
i l
S I would leave at that first announcement but more and more I think that are just so many uncontrollable variables for me as an individual--whether they are underplaying the situation initially or exagger, ing it--or whether I am getting accurate information, I would not take any kind of chance and just leave at the first announcement.
S I would not ;
.s t the announcements of what they say.
I would want to leave, however, the practicality of getting out may prevent me from doing that.
S I think the announcements were handled properly as far as they cannot come eut on the first announcement and say to evacuate everyone within ten miles of the plant.
What they try and do is they try ar.d relieve the situation so certain people A through D can get out I really don't think they could just announce get out.
I also believe that at this point, if you are still there you are going to have to remain where you are.
If you are on Southern State Parkway, you will have to remain there.
You don't have an option to the fourth announcement at all.
How you reacted to the first, is how you will react to two, three or four.
Also, a little bit of anger came in because I didn't know what was going on and what the people within those ten miles were being told.
Because I am 14 miles away, I am kept in the dark of 43 -
this whole thing.
The fact that I know I don't have a brochure, I
I was never mailed a brochure, what are they going to tell us now?
l M
So you would feel that they weren't giving you the proper information?
S I think that the 10 miles were selected simply because it is not the most densely populated area and I don't think you have to be a genius to say radiation only goes 10 miles and you are safe j
beyond 10 miles.
If they were forced to give an evacuation plan to some governmental agency, they could more or less get the 10 miles because it is a sparsely populated area.
j S
I would be ready to go for sure.
S The timing on the message indicates that now it has been about 312 hours0.00361 days <br />0.0867 hours <br />5.15873e-4 weeks <br />1.18716e-4 months <br /> since this has started and they still haven't been able to control it which I think is incredibly ominous.
I think in the real world something like this unfolding, you could just open yotar windows and hear the panic going on.
I think all of Suffolk and Nassau Counties would turn into an incredibly violent disaster, If we the voters and our elected officials let Shoreham go on line we are going to have to live everyday knowing that this could happen.
And every time you hear a siren, you are going to have to turn on your radio and find out if that siren means that this horror is happening, or is it just a local fire.
S I was the guy who wasn't going to run.
I am getting worried now.
I still don't think evacuation is a viable alternative, I don't think there is anywhere to go.
Are you going to just keep on running.
But I would be worries which way the sind was blowing.
I don't know what the damage control procedures are but I do want to know just what type of warning information I am going to get and survival information should be at my disposal before.
You take Sweden, Denmark and Norway they have hydropower why did they build more kilowatts per person than we did?
What are they doing to protect their people?
They do it the hard way, they don't have the GNP we have to be able to afford these plants but they have gone ahead and done more than we have.
Why?
I would like to find out.
S Like I said, I would like to have a shelter built in the basement and just stay there.
I have personally spoken with a bus driver hired by LILCO that presently drives a school bus within the 10 mile area and she is being paid a certain sum every so many months for agreeing to be on duty and drive that bus.
To me she said all I am taking care of is my family.
So I wouldn't look for those bus drivers.
And as far as hopping in a boat, i
am a boating person and a boat owner.
The battery is out of that boat in the winter, and the gas tank is drained, so you better have a second plan in mind depending on the season.
S The sad situation is that they are telling us too late.
If nuclear power is going to in fact be a fact on Long Island which l
it will be within the next year or so whether we like it or not, better precautions have to be taken or we can just sit around and forget about it or follow our gut instinct _ at the time and get out if that is what we are going to do.
l l
S I think Long Island is going to be chaos.
I think they should educate the people about the nuclear plant safety.
So the people could be aware.
At 7 a.m.
in the morning everybody will 1
l run.
1 S
I will still hang in right until the end.
S I think I would be on my way, I found this message a little j
more reassuring than the others in that it was more informative.
Is this project being funded by LI1CO or the NRC?
What are we striving for.
M No.
k S
I think obviously the situation has been escalating.
I think still it is pretty much an improvisational situation because it is really hard to say what you would do in this situation.
You have to watch what other people are doing, how the traffic is building up and you cannot really determine those things until they happen.
It is going to be a very chaotic situation.
M What would you do if you looked out the window and you saw that most of your neighbors were getting into their cars and leaving?
S I would have to see how the traffic flowed.
It wouldn't make sense to get into a car and be stuck on the road in traffic.
M You would rather risk any possible exposure to radiation than the traffic?
i S
The point is I have children.
They would be in school.
Your first concern will be with getting your children out.
Where's your wife?
Where's your son?
Where's your daughter?
All these things are time consuming.
And by that time it is 47 -
going to be such a chaotic situation.
You are talking about everybody piling into the streets at once.
It is ridiculous, everyone is going to be killing each other.
S Two inches of snow and the traffic drops down to 10 miles an hour on the parkways.
All the entrances are jammed and you will never get through.
S The first traffic accident will block things.
One i
breakdown, forget it.
S Just look at the panic level that exists if they announced that there is a chance of an inch of snow.
People go to the supermarkets, they clean out the milk, bread, the butter.
They don't even have children.
They say they might not get out for a few days. So this is a panic level with an inch of snow.
Just based on the geographic area hare, I cannot possibly see on LILCO's side how they would ever have an evacuation plan that would be functional.
There isn't any way of getting out.
S But we need cheap electric power here because the electric bills are getting astronomical.
S I am saying as far as the plant goes, I don't see how they could devise a plan to curtail panic and where people could expect to go when you have a 10 mile Island.
You just cannot get out.
S I was attending a college in central Pennsylvania at the time TMI malfunctioned.
And I was about 80 miles west of Harrisburg which is where TMI is located.
Some of the stories I heard were of total chaos, contradictions by the news media.
Total disorganization on that part and that was a very lightly populated area in the middle of the boondocks and they were freaking out there.
People were panicking where I was.
People were coming from Harrisburg, Hershey, anywhere in that area, just to leave.
It was madness.
And as far as cheap electric power, I know right now that LILCO is going to be boosting up our bills i
even more because of Shoreham and because of the mistakes they have made there.
S Just on the issue of the electric power, you know they started building this plant around 1971, 1972.
They have been playing this game for a long time and they have been jacking up the rates along the way and we haven't gotten one spark of i
electricity out of it.
What we have to do it seems to me is that before this thing gets on line, find a way of telling these people you have got to turn this into something more environmentally safe.
Even if it is burning coal.
And we know _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
that coal pollutes.
But coal is not going to pollute thejway s.
nuclear is going to pollute.
And it if it is going to cost the y
shareholders money, let thempahfor it.
Why do we have to pay for it?
'd t
S Talk to someone with blacklung, a coal' miner.
M Let's hear the next message.
1 i,
Play EBS #6 i
l 1
,,1 M
So, what's t e difference between this message and the 'last
'f-one?
l
- (i S
It said a significant amount of radiation was released, the
'l last time it was a small amount of radiation.
It was a lot clearer.
1 S
It is really cooking now.
\\,
l q'
D M
I am going to play the first part of the last message.
i i
i L
\\
)
iI
J u,
e t
?
1 l
Play EBS #7 f:
M How would you feel about this situation?
i S
Now I think it is pathetic.
Now you know there is going to be thyroid absorption from the radiation and you are going to worry about your children getting iodine.
I would have tried to get out in the beginning with my family.
S I am not sure about the significance of the thyroid thing.
I think they should give it in plainer language.
M Yeu didn't think the message was clear?
S No.
If what they were saying about the thyroid was horrendous, it seems to me that they would have issued some warning to pecple beyond the 10 miles.
I don't think that is a real problem to the average person.
I still wealdn't get on that highway to get shot or trampled to death.
I would close the flue in the chimney and stay in the house.
I wouldn't rush out into all that bedlam.
S I don't know what I'd be doing for the last 3 or 4 messages.
You would take your life in your hand if you are anywhere near a road.
Forget about traffic guides.
I would go where I want to go.
l I
i 1,,
1 S
I would be very frightened at this point.
I would hvie been gone slready.
They are telling the people to call this number.
Now if you are on this list fine, are you going to wait until your number comes up.
Where are you supposed to go?
1 M
What would you do if you called up a number and you had a question as to what you should do and then they said, we will call you back?
i
)
S I would say goodbye, I am leaving, j
S of course not, I would say don't call me, I will call you.
If they put me on hold, I am going to stand there and wait!
And these people who are telling me to leave, they don't tall me where to go or how to go and there you are.
I am very fr.ghtened at this point.
S First of all, they are assuming that everyone can read this brochure.
Then th..y are also assumirg everyone can hear and can see.
By this time there is no one in that reactor, they don't know what is going on in there, it is unpredictable.
I would have left the first time.
First of all, it shouldn't be opened.
S If I was still around at that point, I would be gone.
And I wasn't if I was on the road, I think it would be more merciful to die, having somebody shoot me because I would be dying a slow death anyway.
S I would still stay home.
I have a nuclear chemical gasmask and I would probably don that.
S It would be nice to just close the windows and the fi. replace damper and just stay there for awhile and hope that some strong wind comes along and blows it over.
Look at Chernobyl.
If you walked outside for 1 minute would it be as bad as staying outside for 2 hrs. in the car.
M What do you think?
S No, I don't think it would be as bad as 2 or 3 hours3.472222e-5 days <br />8.333333e-4 hours <br />4.960317e-6 weeks <br />1.1415e-6 months <br /> in a car.
I think at this point, I hink I would just rather close the windown and stay put.
Close up that house and stay there.
S I think if I heard this announcement and I was still home, I would probably stay where I am but having heard the progression of the way that these things go, I am more apt now to say that on the first one I would do my best to clear out of my house and get to some kind of public sheltering arrangement that is set up because at the very least more likely when you are with a mass of 4
other people to have medical care, food, and everything else.
Hearing tnat and if I was still at home, I would stay there.
But after hearing this package of announcements, I think at the first one I would clear out to where other people were going to be.
There is goino to be strength being with more people than sitting in your own house.
S This country is not making any preparations for anything like that, You cannot go a fallout shelter like we did in the early 60s and the late 50s and expect to have water and food.
S You might be right.
But I thought I heard in ore of the earlier ones that there are designated places to go to, M
If LILCO made an announcement on the radio that said that everybody who had been within the 10 mile zone should go to some place within Nassau County and they named the place, to be checked for radioactive contamination what would you do then?
S I would sit home and die like the rest of us.
S What about the man who had a house in Pennsylvania who had something under his house, rayon, and he worked in the power plant and they found all this radiation on him entering the power
)
plant, rather than leaving the power plant and he has been living with quite a bit of radiation for a number of years.
What I am saying is that there is a certain amount that you can accept.
S People don't understand.
I don't know how many people have been in the military; I spenc five years in the Marine Corps and they teach you nuclear biological warfare.
You can survive with nuclear dropout; you need a gas mask and a suit to cover you up and after you get fallout on you, you wash yourself off and you have to eat non-contaminated foods, which mea'ns in containers, non-contaminated water, which means sealed.
You have to take certain precautions but you can survive.
S Providing you have that.
S Anybody with eny kind of sense, you should be prepared.
I think most of us who have homes have a certain amount of excess food in the house that they can eat canned food.
Extra rice, whatever.
You make the best of it.
S If I heard this last message, hopefully my family and I would be 5,000 feet over Connecticut If not, we would stay where we were.
S I would wish I was long gone at this point.
It would be i.,,ssible to get away now, and it might be better to stay tight.
l You certainly cannot drive anywhere.
That was clear with the second announcement.
i i
S I would be glad to be on my boat.
S If at this point I was home, the only semi-rational response is to be fatalistic.
There is nothing you can actually do.
1 S
Again, I find the message is bad.
I don't like the thing about the thyroid; I don't know what they are talking about.
If I could get out, I would go.
S I would probably remain where I am.
S If I were still huae at that point, I would definitely be in the basement.
I would stay indoors until the cloud passed.
S The winds kind of shift around.
I wouldn't want to just bunker down in my house.
You - uld have to hold your breath for the next five months.
I guess I would want to reiterate what a lot of other people have said, it just seems to me that if Shoreham does go on line everybody is being put at tremendous risk.
The plant has had problems of shoddy workmanship and mismanagement.
We are all being put at terrible risk and if we ___________
have to evacuate, we will probably never be able tc come back safely.
All this and everything we have to live with for the sake of the profits for a relatively small handful of shareholders.
To me it is not right.
S He is absolutely right.
What about solar energy?
S We need Shoreham, Shoreham is going to open and nothing is going to stop it from opening.
S I haven't heard anyone question the authenticity of these tapes.
This mass communication skills, we are much more advanced tnan that now than a long time ago.
One from column A, one from column B, you can't communicate with a mass audience in that way so I question the origin of the tapes.
M You think these tapes are not very clear?
S Are they official tapes?
M The messages were written by LILCO about a year ago.
S They can de a better job than that.
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M You think these messages didn't do an adequate job of telling the people what was going on? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - - _ _ _
S Precisely.
S Well, if you hadn't left and you still hear on this last message, you are home and you are staying home because that is the only logical thing to do, how many here have airtight homes?
S Nobody.
S Exactly.
And your water and i:Sur land is already contaminated.
S I don't think you can go anywhere.
Even on a normal day you cannot travel so if I didn't leave at the first message, I will have to stay home.
S I would still be there and I feel that Shoreham will open.
People who are unhappy about this should move off Long Island.
M You win some, you lose some is your attitude?
5 Right.
To those of us who are suicidal most of the time, these messages pose little threat.
S I think I would go with what this man said about living here on Long Island, you put up with the risk.
But I do think that the messages are very poorly planned.
The last message there was i
no mention of the wind velocity and so far as the brochure is concerned, there should be some reference to a TV set that has all sinds of maps and diagrams about exit routes, etc.
S The fumes from the cars that you breathe everyday are causing you problems.
I think it is interesting that they still haven't told anyone beyond the 10 mile limit to leave.
There is risk in any technology.
There is a risk breathing carbon monoxide.
That is progress.
Why add one unnecessary risk like an atomic plant when there are other ways to make electricity.
That is tne point.
I am not against technology, or advancement but we don't need this.
S So you pay a little more for electricity.
You don't need it.
M LILCO feels that if there really was an accident like this that happened that the people would listen to instructions from them and they would do what LILCO would tell them to do.
Do you think that LILCO is right about this?
S No.
No way.
People will go for themselves and their own and most people will not listen to authorities..
_ ________________-_________i
S I think LILCO is crazy to believe that because nobody believed them when we had the hurricane aftermath and we didn't get our electricity back.
That was a natural disaster and this is an unnatural disaster.
S I agree with what these people are saying.
Anybody would realize that you cannot accomplish anything without a form of order.
I S
What LILCO says is that if you look at what happens in hurricanes and floods and tornadoes when people are asked to leave, a lot of them don't leave a'd they say that is the same thing that would happen if there were a nuclear accident in Shoreham.
S We live in a complex on a peninsula and there is only one way in or out of our road.
At 2:30 in the morning a fire truck came through telling everyone to leave.
There was no place to go.
They were expecting an eight foot tidal wave.
They tell you leave your pets, leave this, leave that.
Go where?
The people who went to the schools, there was no room.
Within a half an hour to an hour a lot of people came back.
And that was just a hurricane.
M But LILCO says that the same thing will happen if there is a
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nuclear emergency, that people won't leave.
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S I didn't leave.
S They won't leave.
S People are afraid of things that they cannot see, they cannot see radiation.
A lot of people will panic and leave.
S I think when they tell as that all these people who will control an evacuation, will in effect commit suicide by standing there directing traffic, let's not pay attention to them anyway.
It is simply lies.
Tapes like this is propaganda.
S The fact that human error allowed this incident to happen, how can you trust them after this incident happened.
They allowed it to happen in the first place.
S What caused Three Mile Island, a lousy water valve.
M So you think that they are wrong, and that people will leave.
S If they can.
S I think the element of time and how you view e situation based solely on time.
A hurricane ve have been exposed to so it is not tha unkncwn.
We all knou that it will pass within a j 1
matter of hours.
But we see radiation over a period of many, many years.
So I don't think they are correct; they cannot assume that you won't leave.
S I did not leave for the hurricane and I live down at the bay.
But I would leave for something like radioactivity; I would leave with my children.
S I have no expertise on the subject, but I feel that nuclear power is here.
We are going to have to live with it.
On Long Island, we have to learn to live with it if we are going to invite high tech industry, to keep our young people working, especially on a global basis we have to keep ourselves in a competitive position.
And to maintain our lifestyles.
Na have to compete in energy on a global basis ord we have to learn how
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to control nuclear energy.
S Yes but that plant is already obsolete.
Once you start a plant, they don't know what to do with it and how to shut [t down.
Before it ever opened, it was obsolete.
S Why couldn't they have done something with another power source.
Why did they have to spend millions of dollars on this.
I u
S Because they don't want to admit they are wrong.
S What is this the government.
This is not supposed to be the government, that people are supposed to be involved.
Big business is ruling all of the population of Long Island.
S The American way.
M Does anybody else have any last thoughts about this whole evacuation scenario?
S You are not going to evacuate ?,ong Island, so forget it.
S I think that if there are announcements, it has to be in clearer language that everybody down to children can understand, No Code A, look in your book.
Clear, simple language.
It has to be clarified so people won't panic.
People will panic more when they hear these coded messages.
S People are going to panic as soon as they hear radioactive release.
You can get a feel of this right in here.
Probably 60%
of the people will panic, then it will turn to fury.
They will be in a frenzy.
There will be more trouble f;37 that than of the actual accident.
S This whole thing is totally exasperating.
Do you realize what is happening here.
All this money that these people in big business decided that they were going to spend on this plunt, for what?
For money?
S Cheaper electricity.
l S
I think the rates will go up.
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1 S
They are not going to lose no matter which way it goes.
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M I would like to thank you all for taking the time and coming I
here to help in this research.
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