Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The Ventana Nuclear Power Plant, located in the San Gabriel Mountains just east of Los Angeles, experienced a tremor in the late 1970s. The control room crew opened relief valves to get rid of the excess water, but in reality, the water level wasn’t high at all. #2 The Three Mile Island meltdown began as a simple plumbing problem. A work crew was performing routine maintenance on the nonnuclear part of the plant, and the set of pumps that normally sent water to the steam generator shut down. Without water flowing to the steam generator, it couldn’t remove heat from the reactor core. #3 The author Charles Perrow, a sociology professor, studied the organization of textile mills in nineteenth-century New England. He became interested in meltdowns when the presidential commission on the Three Mile Island accident asked him to study the event. #4 Perrow’s group reflected his personality. He was a demanding teacher, but his students loved his classes because they learned so much. He had a reputation for giving unusually intense but constructive criticism.