WATCHING the coverage of the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station unfold on TV, I was reminded of my own close call with a nuclear emergency.

In 1988 I was a newly minted shift technical adviser at the South Texas Project, a power plant near the Gulf Coast. Hurricane Gilbert, at the time a Category 5 storm, was bearing down on us. I received word from plant management that all workers should leave except for critical plant personnel like myself. I called my wife and told her to go inland with our 4-month-old daughter. Eventually the storm weakened and turned south. But there was never a question: my team and I would stay, regardless of what happened...