heydaily

by Joe Feese

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. 

As kids, we were always impressed when our parents drove us by Three Mile Island. The “island” was really a sandbar in the middle of the Susquehanna River, 10 miles downstream from Pennsylvania’s capital, Harrisburg. But with its four giant cooling towers billowing white clouds of steam, it was a spectacular monstrosity to us kids, far surpassing any of the modest clapboard houses in our hometown of Mechanicsburg, just 15 miles northwest of the plant.

Mom first heard of the “accident” at Three Mile Island on Wednesday morning, March 28, 1979. A local radio traffic reporter had noticed that morning that police and firefighters were mobilizing in nearby Middletown—and there was no steam coming from the plant’s cooling towers. By mid-morning, the story filled the local TV news. Lt. Gov. William Scranton III held a press conference to tell everyone that, yes, there had been an accident, but everything was under control. Scranton said there had been a small release of radiation into the environment but there was no danger to anyone’s health or safety. The general consensus seemed to be that it was no big deal.

Meanwhile, Dad, who at the time worked for power-plant design firm Gilbert Associates, was sitting in the offices of the president of Delmarva Power & Light (the utility company for Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia) discussing the budget for a new fossil-fueled power plant in Delaware when the president’s assistant interrupted the meeting with news that there had been a meltdown at Three Mile Island. Dad was stunned. Not only were his kids and ex-wife just miles from the plant, but also his company had designed one of the nuclear power units at the site. Dad called to see if we were okay.

By early afternoon, at the request of the Bureau of Radiation Protection, the Pennsylvania State Police had closed the road with the view of the magnificent concrete towers of Three Mile Island.

The rest of the country got its first big announcement of the accident later that day on the CBS Evening News, when Walter Cronkite opened the broadcast with this statement:

“It was the first step in a nuclear nightmare; as far as we know at this hour, no worse than that. But a government official said that a breakdown in an atomic power plant in Pennsylvania today is probably the worst nuclear reactor accident to date. There was no apparent serious contamination of workers. But, a nuclear safety group said that radiation inside the plant is at eight times the deadly level, so strong that after passing through a three-foot thick concrete wall, it can be measured a mile away.”

It didn’t help that “China Syndrome,” a film about a nuclear meltdown, had been released in theaters just 12 days earlier.

By Thursday morning, March 29, spokespersons for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were on TV telling us that the danger was over. But as the day progressed, conflicting reports from various sources—the utility, its regulators, government officials—were making it increasingly difficult for journalists, and the rest of us, to figure out just what the hell was going on.

Then came word of the hydrogen gas bubble. The news was now reporting that plant experts had come to the conclusion that a hydrogen gas bubble had formed above the reactor core. Word of a possible meltdown began to ripple throughout the press. If it blew, we were warned, no one would be safe within a 500-mile range.

Walter Cronkite’s report that night was grim: “The world has never known a day quite like today. It faced the considerable uncertainties and dangers of the worst nuclear power plant accident of the atomic age. And the horror tonight is that it could get much worse. The potential is there for the ultimate risk of meltdown at Three Mile Island…”

That same evening, Dad, who had been divorced from Mom for several years and was living in Delaware, called her. For Mom, Dad’s call verified the danger. The two weren’t on friendly terms and rarely spoke. “This is real,” Dad told her. “It’s worse than they’re saying. It could blow.” He strongly suggested that we pack some clothes and get out of town. The wind had been blowing south, so he suggested we head north.

Mom didn’t know quite what to do. She still had her part-time job, and we still had school the next day. On top of that, her husband was reluctant to leave town, and his family was adamantly against evacuating. But Dad had scared the hell out of her. His call to her was the closest thing she had to inside information about what was really happening at Three Mile Island.

On Friday, March 30, the mixed messages from the media continued. At 10:00 a.m., Governor Dick Thornburgh, who was just two months into his term as governor, issued an advisory that all people within 10 miles of the plant stay inside. Shortly after 12:30, he advised pregnant women and preschool children to leave the area within five miles of Three Mile Island. At that point, the Mechanicsburg School District shut down and sent my little sister and me home for the day.

When we arrived home, Mom ushered us in the door quickly and closed all the windows in the house. My sister and I begged to go outside and play, but Mom was having none of it. It was the middle of the day, but the sky outside was light pink. Although it was cool and overcast outside, the air was very still, and thick, like a humid summer day. There were no birds.

Mom had wanted to evacuate on Thursday, and she felt she could wait no longer.  Today was her 30th birthday.

When Mom’s husband arrived home from work that afternoon, he still wasn’t convinced that an evacuation was absolutely necessary and insisted on taking the family out for dinner for Mom’s birthday. Reluctantly, she agreed to go to an early dinner, on the condition that they would all leave town immediately afterward. When we arrived at Oriental Gardens—Mom, step-dad, Angie (6), Autumn (8 months), and me (9)—the restaurant was empty, save for the staff members dining together around a large round table in the corner. Many businesses in the area did not close despite the government warnings, and the owners seemed pleased to see us. We had a wonderful, albeit quick, meal, after which we returned home, threw some clothes in suitcases and hightailed it out of town in our mint-green, stick-shift Chevy station wagon.

We headed northeast and arrived a couple of hours later at Grandpa’s house in Reading.  The plan was to get a good night’s sleep before turning north and heading to the Pocono Mountains. Mom didn’t sleep a wink. She stayed up all night watching the news reports so we could be ready to hop into the car at a moment’s notice and continue our flight.

Throughout the day on Saturday, March 31, we watched and waited. We filled up the gas tank. We stocked up on food. We tried to convince Grandpa to head north with us, but he refused.

The authorities continued to scrutinize the hydrogen bubble at the plant, operators continued to cool the tower, and we continued to worry. Later that day, Governor Thornburgh lifted his advisory that people living within 10 miles of Three Mile Island stay indoors, but continued his recommendation that pregnant women and preschool children remain more than five miles from the plant. It was also announced that President Jimmy Carter would be visiting the plant the following day.

On Sunday, April 1, President Carter and Governor Thornburgh toured the plant’s control room, with a television crew in tow. As a trained nuclear engineer, Carter was well aware of the danger that going to Three Mile Island posed.

For Mom, this was reassurance enough that it was probably okay to return home. But just to be sure, we stayed in Reading an extra day before heading home, arriving back in Mechanicsburg on the evening of Monday, April 2. Within a week, kids at school were wearing the now infamous tee shirts: I Survived Three Mile Island.

All told, more than 100,000 people evacuated the area following the accident in the Unit Two reactor, which remains permanently shut down. The Unit One reactor, designed by Dad’s former company, resumed operating in 1985.

To this day, plant officials insist that the average radiation dose to people living within 10 miles of the plant was equal to a chest X-ray. 

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