EQF They did have backup generators for the plants. The problem is that some of them failed after a relatively short while. According the CNN or wherever I was getting my news, one ran out of gas and that allowed the fuel rods of one of the reactors to become exposed.

I post because the only part of your post where I agree is a lack of redundancy on the power. I was just discussing this with HW last night. The plants are designed to shut down in an earthquake. I suppose you are correct that the first backup would be power from other plants (I don't know this; I am just assuming this). But, did they actually sit down and calculate whether there would be adequate power from a quake this size or nearly this size? Did they look into their transmission lines vs. tsunami runup? See my post far below about the 9th century quake and tsunami in same area.

So, the backup was the generators. I don't know what else they should have had, but they should have had something.

Will be interesting to find out what the backups are for San Onofre and Diablo Canyon.
Chris