WASH-1400, 'The Reactor Safety Study', was a report produced in 1975 for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by a committee of specialists under Professor Norman Rasmussen. It "generated a storm of criticism in the years following its release". In the years immediately after its release, WASH-1400 was followed by a number of reports that either peer reviewed its methodology or offered their own judgments about probabilities and consequences of various events at commercial reactors. In at least a few instances, some offered critiques of the study's assumptions, methodology, calculations, peer review procedures, and objectivity. A succession of reports, including NUREG-1150, the State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses and others, have carried-on the tradition of PRA and its application to commercial power plants.

The report correctly foresaw the impact a tsunami could have on a nuclear power station. It concluded that "Some plants are located on the sea shore where the possibility of tsunami, and waves and high water levels due to hurricanes exist. The plant design in these cases must accommodate the largest waves and water levels that can be expected. Such events were assessed to represent negligible risks." (Section 5.4.6 "Other external causes")