Applied Geography (1984). 4, 235-245

Emergency preparedness and planuing for nuclear power plant accidents

Susan L. Cutter

Department of Geography, School of Urban and Regional PoEicy, Lucy Stone Hall, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08903, USA

Abstract The current level of emergency preparedness and planning for off-site releases of radioactivity from nuclear power plants in the United States and public reactions to it are reviewed. The major assumptions in these plans involving the responses of the public are highIighted and provide the context for a critique of such plans. Five major deficiencies in the planning efforts are discussed in detail. As currently developed, emergency response plans are far short of insuring maximum protection of the public health and safety of residents living around these facilities. More importantly, the plans simply may not work if im- plemented.

Introduction

The threat of closure of nuclear power plants in the USA due to inadequate emergency response plans still exists despite the recent Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) decision concerning the Indian Point, New York power plant located just outside New York City. In April 1983, the NRC challenged state, local and utility planning efforts and gave them until June 1983 to provide for substantial improvements; otherwise the NRC would close the reactor. Althou~ the NRC did not close Indian Point for inadequate plans, it certainly scared licensees and state and local governments. This issue also highlighted the need for and problems inherent in planning for nuclear power plant accidents in the USA.

At the time of the March 1979 accident at Three Mile Island (TMI), Pennsylvania, only 11 out of 31 states with operating reactors had NRC concurred plans (USFEMA 1980). Submission of plans by the licensee was voluntary and implied that they had met the NRC regulations. There was no evaluation of the quality of the plans. Pennsylvania was not among this group of 11 and the level of preparedness for the subsequent Three Mile Island accident was less than adequate. If there had been a major offsite release of radioactivity from the plant endangering the public, most people, including the Presidential Commission investigating the accident, felt that the state and local emergency response plans would not have been sufficient to insure the protection of the health and safety of local residents.

As the events at the plant unfolded, emergency response planning was reactive in nature and done very much on an ‘ad hoc’ basis. For example, the NRC ordered risk counties and the state to prepare evacuation plans for a 20-mile radius while the accidetzt was ir2 progress. Initially, local officials were assuming a IO-mile evacuation zone involving 27000 people. Within minutes this escalated to a 20-mile zone involving 700000 people (Cutter and Barnes 1982). Fortunately, these hastily derived plans never had to be implemented.

0143-6228/84/030235-11 $03.00 0 1984 Butterworth & Co (Publishers) Ltd

236 Emergency preparedness and planning for nucleur power plant accidents

Since Three Mile Island, emergency response planning has been slowly evolving yet there are still sites where there is no formally approved plan. There are constant challenges to evacuation plans, in particular, during licensing hearings such as those underway for Indian Point. Citizens, scientists, and public advocates question the reliability of such plans. This reliability question is crucial as all emergency response planning depends, first and foremost, on the unknown human factor, yet the potential range of responses by the public are not incorporated into the plans. What will the residents in the vicinity of a nuclear power plant do when the sirens go off or when they are told of an accident at the facility? Will they follow the dictates of the emergency management officials or make their own plans? No one really knows for sure.

This paper focuses on the unknown human factor and examines emergency response planning for nuclear power plant accidents, particularly those assump- tions about the responses of the local residents. The purpose is to demonstrate the inherent weaknesses of the plans due to the exclusion of this behavioural information.

The planning process

There are currently 73 licensed reactors in 31 states in the USA which require some form of emergency response planning, and formal approval of these plans is now a condition for granting and maintaining operating licences of nuclear facilities. The planning effort includes onsite preparations by the licensee (the utility company operating the reactor) as well as offsite plans developed by state and local governments. The local government planning effort is usually done at the county level with the assistance of consultants and state personnel.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the lead federal agency for the coordination of all offsite radiological emergency preparedness efforts and, in conjunction with the NRC, evaluates state and local plans, Interim planning guidelines developed jointly by these two agencies provide a checklist for state and local officials and the licensee as to what should be included in their plans (USNRC 1980). These guidelines are divided into 16 topical headings and within each there are a number of evaluative criteria which must be present (Table 1). In the case of the state plans, 9X evaluative criteria must be present, while 81 are needed for the local plans.

Table 1. Planning elements

ADMINISTRATIVE Support and resources Organization and responsibilities Planning effort responsibilities Onsite emergency organization

TECHNICAL Emergency classification Communications Equipment Accident assessment Exposure control Emergency response training

PUBLIC SAFETY Notification method and procedures Public information Protective response options Medical and public health support Recovery and re-entry

EVALUATION Exercises and drills

Source: Adapted from USNRC, 1980.

Susan L. Cutter 237

Planning area

The area1 extent of planning is designated as the emergency planning zone (EPZ). These zones are based on short- and long-term radiation exposures including airborne (plume) pathways and environmental (ingestion) pathways. The actual area of these zones is determined by the need to assure adequate response measures in order to protect human health and safety in the event of an accident at the site. A lO-mile primary zone and a 50-mile secondary zone were established as baseline distances for planning by the NRC and FEMA (USNRC 1978). This was done to ensure that all plans encompass all accident sequences and incorporate consequences of all types of accidents, including core-melt and containment failure, regardless of their probability of occurrence. The lo- and 50-mile zones were based on standardized meteorological conditions, time-dependent characteristics of potential releases and exposures including the duration of each, and the types of radioactive materials released including their persistence in the environment (half-lives). States were to adjust the size and shape (not necessarily circular) of these zones to account for local variations in topography, meteorology, population density and distribution, land use, transportation access routes and jurisdictional boundaries.

Public safety

The three protective measures which are recognized as vital elements in any radiological emergency planning are sheltering, medical prophylactics (thyroid blocking agents) and evacuation. There is very little research on the effectiveness of each of these options in protecting public health and safety and even less on the acceptance of each by the public. Both the NRC and FEMA assume they will work.

Currently, there is no federal guideline on sheltering as a protective action that is of practical use by state and local officials although there are a number of research reports on the subject (Anno and Dore 1979; USNRC 1979). Yet, many states are adopting sheltering as an appropriate response. The wooden walls of a house or basement afford some protection against the short-term immediately released radionuclides.

The use of potassium iodide (a thyroid blocking drug) is a second protective option. During the accident at Three Mile Island, neither the federal government, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, nor the utility operating the plant had any potassium iodide on hand nor did they have a policy for its use (USFEMA 198O:III-30). A St Louis, Missouri firm produced 237000 l-ounce vials of liquid potassium iodide but the shipment did not arrive in Harrisburg until 4 April, six days after the first sign of trouble at the plant. There are still no federal guidelines on the use of medical prophylactics, although there are numerous recommenda- tions for and against the use of potassium iodide as a protective response for the general public (Aldrich and Blond 1980; USNRC 1982). Undaunted, the state of Tennessee selected to use potassium iodide as a protective measure. It has been distributed to 7000 residents within five miles of the Sequoyah nuclear power plant near Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee as part of the state’s radiological emergency response plan.

The third and most widely recommended protective action is evacuation. Here there is considerable federal guidance. For example, all state and local plans are required to have evacuation elements including total amount of time required to implement and confirm an evacuation. In addition, there are regulations requiring

238 Emergency preparedness and planning for nuclear power plant accidents

prompt notification of the public in the event of any unusual activity at the plant. Utilities, as a condition for licensing, must be able to notify ail (100 per cent) of the affected population in the lo-mile EPZ 15 minutes after they notify state and local officials.

Rapid public alert in the event of an accident is a key element in prompting the public to respond to warning measures. Given the cost of some of these warning systems ($1 million per site), their usefulness has been and is being challenged by state and local governments as well as the utilities operating the plants. As a consequence, one recommendation from FEMA after a review of state response plans in 1980 was to

engage behavioural scientists in an immediate effort to resolve issues related to the time, nature and testing of public response to emergency alerting and notification around fixed nuclear facilities. (USFEMA 198O:VI-14)

To date, only one such study has been completed (Sorenson 1982).

Drills and exercises

If implemented, how well will the plans work? As part of the NRC/FEMA approval process, drills and exercises must be conducted on an annual basis to test the equipment and other elements of the plans. This testing involves simulated scenarios and includes onsite and offsite personnel. Unfortunately, all the drills are announced beforehand and local and state agencies are in a ‘ready to respond’ posture rather than in situations of normal operations. In many instances, state and local officials have cleared their desks and await notification of the ‘accident’. While public officials acknowledge that these drills are held under somewhat ideal conditions they are quick to point out that they are better than no drill at all.

These drills rarely involve field activity or active public participation, although the public is notified of a drill in progress. During a 1979 drill at the Salem nuclear power plant in southern New Jersey, officials termed their responses to the drill a success. At a debriefing session, however, they were immediately confronted by local residents who queried how the drill could be considered successful when few members of the public knew what to do when the sirens went off. In a March 1982 drill at the Indian Point 3 reactor outside New York City, most of the 88 newly installed warning sirens failed to operate (New York Times 1982a). This drill, like most, is primarily an exercise in command functions with limited field experience. This lack of field activity poses a number of potential problems. In reference to the Indian Point drill,

A single mock evacuation involving tens of thousands was ordered, but because of a typographical error, county information officers contradicted each other on’ which numbered zones were to be evacuated. (IVew York Times 1982b:Bl)

Underlying assumptions of radiological emergency plans

There are two major assumptions inherent in the development of radiological emergency response plans which should be questioned. as they point to potential deficiencies in the planning process and may ultimately prove the plans unworkable in the event of an accident. First, it is assumed that states will adjust their planning unit (EPZ) according to local variations in population. topography, land use. transportation access and so on, rather than using the generic lo- and SO-mile zones

Susan L. Cutter 239

suggested by the NRC and FEMA. This is not the case. In a preliminary examination of four completed state plans (California, New Jersey, Virginia, and Arkansas), only one had modified the generic EPZ to conform to topographic variations.

There may be good reasons for not modifying these zones. State and local governments, in particular, are in an unfortunate position of having limited financial and technical resources upon which to draw for plan development. This not only accounts for the minimum planning effort, but also accounts for the lack of adherence to deadlines for completed plans. For example, Westchester County, New York, one of eight counties in the state within a IO-mile radius of an operating reactor, estimates that their radiological emergency response plan alone will cost $1.5$2 million (New York Times 1982b). Under these circumstances state and local officials simply assume a compliance posture and only incorporate those elements that will ensure NRC approval of their plans without any site-specific corrections or any evaluation of their effectiveness. The financial constraint, however, may not be solely due to federal regulations. Both NRC and FEMA thought that the radiological plans would simply be additions or appendices to the states’ general emergency response plans (US Congress 1981). For some states, this is not the case and the new regulations are providing the stimulus for the development of general emergency response plans as well as those for radiological emergencies.

The second underlying assumption in these planning efforts provides the focus for the rest of this paper: namely, all of the plans are based on a ‘military model of authority’ (Dynes et al 1979:26). They assume the public will do as it is told, will respond in a rational manner, will follow directions or orders, and will comply with the protective actions officials have planned. Research in the social and behavioural sciences suggests that this may not be the case (Perry 1981; Perry et al. 1981).

Major deficiencies

There are five major criticisms of these plans which should be stressed, for they illustrate major deficiencies in the emergency response plans as currently developed. These include evacuation behaviour, evacuation in high-density areas, evacuation as the sole protective response, evacuation timing, and interstate coordination.

Evacuation behaviour

Most plans assume the public will respond to orders and evacuation routes suggested by the planning document, including the time frame specified and the specific routes. Criticism of this assumption was also made by the Three Mile Island task force in a review of Pennsylvania’s plans (Dynes et al. 1979:26). Planners assume the public possesses the necessary information to respond to authoritative cues in a logical and orderly fashion. While panic may not be the issue, residents not following orders might be. Residents may choose alternative routes and destinations or simply not evacuate. Contingency plans for coping with these potential behaviours are necessary and are not found in most state plans.

Approximately 196000 people evacuated in response to the accident at Three Mile Island although no formal evacuation order was given (Cutter and Barnes 1982; Flynn 1982). Those factors which influenced the evacuation decision were

240 Emergency preparedness and planning for nuclear power plant accidents

proximity to the plant, inability to confirm the risk information, age of household head, and actions of friends and neighbours (Cutter and Barnes 1982). There is no provision in any state plan for this spontaneous type of evacuation which occurred at Three Mile Island. While the message from the Governor was quite specific - ‘pregnant women and pre-school-aged children residing within 5 miles of the plant are advised to evacuate, and those within 10 miles from the plant are advised to remain indoors’ - reactions to the message were quite varied. Most of the targeted individuals (pregnant women and pre-school-aged children) complied with the advice but so did many other individuals, many of whom lived farther than five miles from the plant. This advice, as well as confusion and uncertainty at the plant, were viewed as cues to evacuate by some, and cues to remain in place by others.

It should be noted there is no such thing as forced compliance by members of the general public. Residents have the freedom of choice to select the most appropriate protective measure based on their own decision making. There is no legal basis for the federal government, state, or local authorities to forcibly remove people from their own homes. Every effort must be made, therefore. to increase voluntary compliance to recommended actions suggested by emergency management officials. This requires extensive pre-planning information dissemination and public awareness campaigns.

There is no mention in radiological emergency plans of the level of risk and threat that would prompt individuals to comply with the actions being recom- mended by emergency management personnel. Social science research found individuals have a heightened awareness and fear of radiation and have many misconceptions about reactors themselves, equating radiological releases with mushroom-type clouds (Slavic et al. 1979, 1980). If individuals perceive the personal risk as high then this is likely to induce evacuation behaviour. If, however, individuals are unable to confirm the risk information (as was the case with Three Mile Island) then there is less likelihood of evacuation. If the warning messages are given by credible sources (there were some doubts during Three Mile Island), then this will also increase an individual’s likelihood of evacuation (Perry 1981; Perry et ul. 1981; Sorenson 1982). Content and credibility of warning messages were recognized as factors determining evacuation after Three Mile Island and resulted in new regulations specifying communication centres (Emergency Office Centers) where accurate information could be quickly disseminated to state and local officials and then transmitted to the general public. There was also one individual who was designated as the spokesperson to the public.

Most theoretical and pragmatic research on evacuation found that families evacuate as units (Drabek 1969; Dynes et al. 1979; Perry et al. 1981). State plans do not include provisions for individuals moving into the hazard zone in an attempt to reunite their family, nor do they incorporate mechanisms for information acquisition about where family members might be, such as a family message centre. The assumption is that schoolchildren will be taken care of while at school, parents will make no attempt to locate them, and employees coming back from the workplace will not attempt to find spouses and children. This may be a faulty assumption, particularly if the individuals perceive loved ones to be exposed to high risks.

State and county plans are much better in describing special evacuation problem populations such as patients in hospitals, inmates in federal or state confinement and so on. Very few plans mention ‘reluctant’ populations that may pose particular problems in evacuation such as mobility-poor subgroups, including inner city poor and the elderly, and farmers with livestock. Virginia’s plan mentions protective

Susan L. Cutter 241

actions for livestock, while California’s plan mentions specific reluctant subgroups. There is also no provision in any of the plans examined for the evacuation of family pets.

There is a substantial body of literature which concludes that the public will not use planned shelters and will find accommodation with friends, neighbours or in motels (Dynes et al. 1979). This was true with the majority of evacuees from Three Mile Island (Ziegler et al. 1981; Cutter and Barnes 1982). There are also a variety of problems encountered in evacuation such as gasoline allocation, and a run on local banks for withdrawal of money. None of these situations is mentioned in the plans. Secondly, in the case of Three Mile Island, some evacuees did not move far enough away from the zone of danger and would have had to evacuate a second or perhaps a third time, which could result in cascading relocations.

As a final comment about evacuation behaviour, there is no provision for population convergence on the area. The influx of media personnel, emergency officials from all levels of government, and curiosity seekers was one of the main problems that caught emergency officials offguard at Three Mile Island. As the Presidential Task Force stated:

The convergence of individuals and information is a common problem in many emergencies; this incident was no exception. Telephone exchanges may become overloaded and the distribution of critical emergency information hindered or blocked. Those who arrive on the scene require a number of services. These needs range from such basic elements as food and shelter to the provision of work space and communication facilities to access to decision-makers and emergency personnel. None of the plans references these problems or includes any provisions for ameliorating them. (Dynes et al. 1979:25)

Evacuation and high-density areas

Evacuation is an unlikely protective response in high-density population areas due to limitations on the emergency management system, including timing and notification of all affected residents. There are over 100000 people living within 10 miles of each of the highest-density reactor sites with current operating licences (Indian Point, NY; Zion, IL; Beaver Valley, PA; Three Mile Island, PA; Millstone, CN). There are 289000 people living within 10 miles of the Indian Point reactors (35 miles north of midtown Manhattan) alone. The total number of people living within 10 miles of reactors with operating licences nationwide is 3.3 million (USFEMA 1980:EX-2).

There is no way that all of these individuals can be safely evacuated. Urbanik (1981) conducted an analysis of evacuation time estimates. Data were based on utility responses to an NRC inquiry asking the utility to estimate how long it would take to evacuate residents within 10 miles of their sites. The median evacuation time given for all sites (52) was 5.3 hours under good weather conditions, and 6.4 hours under adverse weather conditions. For reactors with more than 100000 people within the lo-mile radius, the median evacuation time was 5.8 hours for good weather and 7.3 hours for adverse weather. The report stated that the median was a much better indicator of the true nature of evacuation times as many utilities projected lengthy evacuations (a range of 4.8 to 21 hours for good weather, and 5.3 to 27 hours for adverse weather). Unfortunately, these higher estimates may reflect a truer estimate of the time. The utilities were also asked to provide a confidence rating for these: 33 per cent responded that they had little or no confidence in their estimates.

242 Emergency prepnredness und plunning for nuclear power plant uccidents

Evacuation as sole protective response

A third criticism involves the recommendation of evacuation as the only protective response rather than as part of a combination of methods such as sheltering, evacuation and medical prophylactics. One of the assumptions of voluntary evacuation is the detection of the hazard in sufficient time to warn and evacuate the affected population prior to the release of the radiation. The NRC provides guidance on initiation and duration of radioactive releases (Table 2) but, in some situations, officials may have one hour from the time of an initiating event to the time at which a major portion of the release occurs. With these types of rapid releases, evacuation is completely out of the question. Sheltering and air filtering devices may be the only realistic protective actions available. Large-scale evacuations under the most ideal conditions normally take from 12 to 24 hours, depending on the number of potential evacuees, although utility estimates are considerably lower. Evacuation, if used as the only protective action, may increase rather than decrease exposure levels by forcing residents into their cars, which afford less protection against airborne radiation than do concrete basements and wooden walls of houses.

Table 2. Guidance on initiation and duration of release

Time from the initiating event to start of atmospheric release

0.5 hours-l day

Time period over which radioactive material may be continuously released

Time at which major portion of release may occur

0.5 hours-several days

0.5 hours-l day after start of release

Travel time for release to exposure point (time after release)

5 miles - 0.5-2 hours 10 miles - l-4 hours

Source: USNRC 1980:14

Evacuation timing

Similarly, the timing of the evacuation order is important and could be delayed to allow passage of the plume through the affected area. There are longer-term impacts which can occur as a result of releases of radioactivity such as Cesium-137 which have longer half-lives (750 days) than do some of the radioactive iodines (8 days or less). Few of the plans include this concept. While it is important to protect for short-term exposures, the longer-term impacts may in fact be the most damaging. A hastily called evacuation may expose the public to more radiation than if they were to shelter in-place.

The California Office of Emergency Services has examined the effectiveness of protective actions in direct-exposure EPZs. They modelled the effects of evacuation, sheltering and relocation on acute fatalities and delayed cancers. As expected, they found the highest numbers of hypothesized early fatalities occurred when no protective action was taken and when the plume travelled over major population centres such as Sacramento, the state capital. Evacuation reduced the number of fatalities. but required 23 hours for the most densely populated zone. Evacuation reduced, but did not eliminate, the impact of delayed cancers. Because the evacuation over the ?&mile zone took nearly a day, people would be caught in their cars as the plume passed overhead. The principal effect, then, would have

Susan L. Cutter 243

resulted in exposure to larger doses than if the people stayed put (State of California 1980).

A selective evacuation, usually done in sectors according to the plume direction, may also not work. First, it assumes that residents know which sector they reside or work in. Second, and more importantly, it assumes people will remain in place until they are told to leave. Again, common sense and research on evacuation behaviour suggests that this may also not be true.

Interstate coordination

The accident at Three Mile Island pointed to the need for interstate cooperation in emergency response planning. Currently, there are no regional response plans although states do have memoranda which define their roles and coordinate responses of all levels of government in the affected area. There are a number of instances where integrated interstate plans are necessary given the size of the state and the site and situation of the reactor itself. For example the EPZs for Three Mile Island and Peach Bottom not only include Pennsylvania, but New Jersey and Maryland. An accident at Beaver Valley, in western Pennsylvania would also involve personnel from Ohio and West Virginia, while an accident at the Salem, New Jersey plant would involve New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland.

Cooperative agreements are not integrated into overall response plans at either the state or regional level. This could pose potential problems. During the accident at Three Mile Island, for example, New Jersey officials notified Pennsylvania authorities that cars would be turned back at the border unless Pennsylvania set up decontamination centres at all border crossings into New Jersey. This call was ignored and could have resulted in disastrous effects (Fischer 1981).

There is also no federal master plan on responses to radiological emergencies at fixed locations which defines and delineates the federal role and what states might expect from the federal government. FEMA is currently working on such a master plan called the National Radiological Emergency Preparedness Plan. The plan is supposed to cover all the procedures for federal assistance and response at an accident at a nuclear power plant. The plan is not yet completed, nearly four years after the accident at Three Mile Island.

Where do we go from here?

While emergency response planning has come a long way in just four years it is still far short of ensuring maximum protection of the public around these fixed nuclear power plant sites. State and local authorities must go beyond the simple compliance mentality and incorporate knowledge from research in the social and behavioural sciences in order to upgrade and improve planning efforts. This includes information on geographical variation in order to determine the true nature of the emergency planning zone as well as the range of behavioural responses by the public that might be expected in response to recommended protective actions. The development of regional response plans by federal authorities may help alleviate interstate disputes during times of crisis.

One obvious solution to the planning problem is to educate the public and instill confidence in the planning efforts. Brochures to local residents and publication of evacuation plans in local telephone books is one such method.

To date, the financial burden of planning has rested with local municipalities and states. This accounts for many of the shortcomings in the plans. The plans need to

244 Emergency preparedness and plnnning for nuclear power plunt accidents

anticipate the extraordinary and be flexible enough to handle unexpected problems. This cannot be accomplished when the pians are hastily drawn and incorporate only the nlinimal amount of information necessary to gain NRC approval. If the federal government wishes to have radiological emergency response plans which may work, then they should allocate money to the states to undertake such planning.

The reliability of emergency response plans depends on the unknown human factor. What will residents do when the sirens blow? Social scientists have much to offer to these planning efforts yet their research is underutilized. More effort on the part of the academic community should be made to apply its training and skills to help local and state governments ensure the safety and welfare of the residents in the event of an accident at a nuclear power plant in their community. If we become complacent, our applied research will have been done in vain.

Acknowledgement

This work was supported in part by the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. Publication Number D-26410-3-82, supported by State funds and by a FASP grant from The Research Council, Rutgers University.

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(Revised manuscript received 4 August 1983)