Those operating reactors with lower risks of flooding or earthquake, better emergency cooling systems and more robust power supplies might see themselves as having little to learn from it.

ECONOMIST: Safety

On site, the workers in its number one reactor appear not to have been familiar with an emergency-cooling system called an isolation condenser, which they wrongly thought was still working after the tsunami.

ECONOMIST: Banyan

Cities across the Northeast designated cooling centers and have issued advisories in an effort to help keep residents safe, according to emergency management officials in several cities.

CNN: Heat wave sweeps across U.S. Northeast

In New York, there will be 450 designated cooling centers open across the five boroughs for residents looking to cool off, said Office of Emergency Management spokeswoman Judith Kane.

CNN: Heat expected to fry mid-Atlantic states