DaveInNM comments

I can't speak to specifics on how the government is handling things in different areas because the news we're getting here in the States is all over the map. From what we're hearing here in the US, the biggest problem seems to be getting the power company to give accurate information to the government and people so they can make the best decisions possible in a timely manner. They seem to want to save face by downplaying the severity of the problems, and in the process are making things worse by delaying necessary response measures to the damage in the reactors. Meanwhile, while the Japanese people are dealing with this triple disaster in such an orderly manner, we've got idiots on the West Coast of the US freaking out about possible nuclear plumes getting to our shores, and buying up all the Iodide they can, which reduces the supply available to the folks in Japan who will need it far more than we. Any radioactivity that does reach the US after traveling all the way across the ocean will be so dispersed and weakened due to the half-life of the various radioactive components in it, there'll be less of a dose to people than you get in a PET scan. (At the VA hospitals, after injecting you with the radioactive dye, they lock you in a room for an hour so you don't irradiate others around you.) My prayers are with Japan and the Japanese people.