My Aunt just got back from a trip to Paris and England and she said that the main source of electricity in France is nuclear power. I was thinking about sending her the link to this site....but then I remembered that her and my mom and 99% of the rest of my family live within 25 miles of 2 nuclear plants.

We never thought anything of it as we were growing up, they were just there, with big fences around and they had educational, interpretive stuff that was pretty cool (we'd go on field trips for school). Then the next thing you know they're putting up huge sirens on a pole in the middle of corn fields. Supposedly to warn us about impending tornadoes and such, but we also knew they were there in the event of an accident at the nuclear plants. Again, we just didn't think anything of it, it was just another part of our lives.

Scarey.

Oh, and I also read a book about dropping the bomb on Nagasaki when I was in high school. Somehow I didn't connect that with the nuclear plants though, I think because it was a bomb and it did what it was meant to do whereas the nuclear plant had all sorts of safety plans and apparatus that was supposed to keep us safe - supposedly so we never had to worry about it. The amazing part is it worked - we never did worry about it.