Author: Meta Bowman (Page 8 of 31)

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: Confused? The Crisis Explained…
Author: Dennis O’Brien

Here is what happened, and what’s now happening, at the Three Mile Island nuclear generating station:

Last Wednesday, at 4 a.m., a leak sprung in the cooling system of the nuclear reactor.

The cooling system, a series of pipes that circulate water near the reactor, is necessary to keep the reactor from getting too hot during the process of nuclear fission. (Nuclear fission is simply the splitting of uranium atoms in the reactor, which produces heat.)

Under normal conditions, a small amount of water is continually broken down into hydrogen and oxygen. The gases rise to the top of the steel reactor capsule and are pumped out, ignited and combined back into water in a device known as a “hydrogen recombiner.”

WHEN THE LEAK sprung, however, the temperature inside the reactor grew hotter than its normal 240 degrees and an emergency cooling system automatically began to circulate water near the reactor, which is a tubular structure 15 feet wide and 40 feet high.

The reactor, encased in a steel and concrete vessel that’s 138 feet wide and 202 feet high, is currently at 280 degrees, according to officials of Metropolitan Edison, which owns a major share of the plant.

For a reason that’s still unknown-either through human error or mechanical failure-this secondary cooling system apparently shut down.

This lead to an explosion from hydrogen gas collecting inside the nuclear reactor.

THE EXPLOSION, which meant that an undetermined amount of radioactive gases escaped into the air, occurred at 2 p.m. Thursday, 34 hours after the initial leak was discovered.

Harold Denton, a top ranking official with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said that it was not until 9 a.m. Friday that the NRC was informed of the hydrogen blast, which is what led to last week’s order to prepare for an evacuation.

So for those two days hydrogen gas was forming at dangerously high levels inside the reactor.

The hydrogen explosion led to the formation Saturday of a potentially lethal bubble of hydrogen gas-which is now the major cause for concern among NRC and Met Ed officials.

What has the NRC and utility officials worried is how to get rid of the hydrogen bubble and keep the temperature in the reactor down at the same time.

To get rid of it they have to reduce pressure inside the reactor, but they are not sure of the safest way to do that.

If the temperature inside the reactor is not kept down, the uranium could get so hot that it would melt through the floor of the reactor and containment level.

Scientists differ on what a meltdown at Three Mile Island would mean.

Some say the molten mass would disperse through the ground just below the reactor with the radioactive gases floating right back up into the reactor, where it would be safely shielded.

But another possibility is that the mass would hold together and melt down through the earth below the reactor creating a “China syndrome” effect (this catchphrase was coined in the belief such a molten core would, hypothetically, continue melting through the earth eventually reaching the other side of the world, or China). Radioactive gases would be sent through the earth’s surface at various, unpredictable points and would be disseminated through underground water supplies.

BUT RIGHT NOW NRC and utility officials agree that a meltdown is not the immediate danger. For a meltdown the temperature of the uranium inside the reactor must reach 5,000 degrees, according to MetEd officials.

THE BUBBLE is trapped near the top of the reactor. To reduce its size some of the hydrogen, which is in solution in the water around the uranium, is being pumped through a one-inch line into a nearby pressurizer.

The pressurizer is normally used to check levels of water and gaseous materials in the reactor.
As the hydrogen in solution and other materials are removed from the reactor, pressure is being reduced, shrinking the size of the bubble, officials say.

From the pressurizer, the hydrogen in solution is being vented into a pipe to another storage tank in the containment vessel.

The hydrogen in solution in that storage tank, which is highly radioactive, will be transported off-site in the near future, according to Thomas Elasser, a nuclear physicist for the NRC.

Officials are currently optimistic, claiming a reduction in the risk of danger from the bubble.
Uranium is currently 500 degrees.

The main concern is still the bubble, which officials say is slowly diminishing in size.

If the bubble, which is now estimated at roughly 50 cubic feet, were pure hydrogen it would be harmless. But there are also minimal amounts of oxygen present.

If the mixture of gases reaches the right combination-five percent oxygen and four to six percent hydrogen, the hydrogen will burn.

If the hydrogen reaches seven percent, it may explode.

Scientists are not sure how much hydrogen is inside the bubble, but one NRC official estimated it could be as high as six percent.

Denton said Sunday that if the bubble were left untouched, the oxygen and hydrogen levels will reach the explosive stage in five or six days.

After that the bubble may explode at any time.

NRC and Met Ed officials agree, therefore, that it’s vital that the bubble be dissipated.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: 3 Mile Island Optimism Grows
Author: United Press International

HARRISBURG (UPI)-Federal officials today cautiously expressed hope that the worst is over in the Three Mile Island nuclear crisis but said the reactor’s fuel core appeared so badly damaged it may have to be scrapped.

Evacuation plans remained ready if necessary.

Civil defense officials said there were indications that some of the 200,000 people who left the four county area around the plant are beginning to return home. Area schools remained closed but many planned to open Wednesday.

Pregnant women and young children were still advised to stay out of an area within five miles of the reactor.

“I FEEL PRETTY good right now,” said Robert Reid, the mayor of Middletown, three miles from the Susquehanna River power plant. “I feel confident things are shaping up but I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet.

“The people in town are still a little jumpy. They feel as though they’re almost over the hump going down the other side but they know there’s still a problem.”

The town’s entire 18-man police force, which had been on double shifts of 16-hour days, went back to normal eight-hour shifts today and police chief George Miller said the town was “a lot calmer now than it was.”

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission official said preliminary indications suggest most-and probably all-of the 3,600 metal-covered uranium fuel rods that make up the core were irreparably damaged in the accident that launched the nation’s worst nuclear power emergency last week.

NORMALLY, ONE official said, only one-third of a reactor’s core would have to be replaced each year to add new fuel. But he said at Three Mile Island, the intense heat from the accident appears to have knocked out the entire core.

“The core appears to be damaged to the point it would not be re-useable,” the official said.

Still ahead were efforts to bring the crippled reactor to a safe, cold shutdown condition. Because risks remained, state civil defense officials said evacuation plans were ready if necessary.

“We’re still in a holding position ready to implement evacuation plans if necessary,” a spokesman said.

Les Jackson, of the York County civil defense office, said about 35 percent of 38,000 people within 10 miles of the plant in his county had left.

“From some of the calls we are getting, it seems some of the people are coming back. We have advised those in a five mile area to stay away.”

Officials in Lancaster and Dauphin counties also reported inquiries about returning home. About 150 people remained in the only official evacuation center still open, Hershey Park.

NRC teams have gradually raised their estimate of core damage as the full dimensions of the Three Mile Island incident unfolded.

The first estimates said only 1 percent of the core was badly damaged, while estimates Friday said 25 to 50 percent of the core had been knocked out.

AT first officials said some of the fuel rods might have melted. But new analysis led officials to believe the rods might only have split and twisted.

After more than five days on the defensive, engineers said they finally have taken the offensive in subduing the reactor.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: If Nuclear Power is Here to Stay, It Must be Made Safer
Author: Max Lerner

NEW YORK CITY-We fear the dangers we must face. But we must also face the dangers we fear. In a world of growing dangers and fears that is the ultimate maturity.

Within this frame I can give only a mixed review of the drama of the leaking nuclear reactor at Harrisburg, Pa. It has been a double testing, not only of the operations of a nuclear power plant in a crisis but also of the public perception of that crisis.

FIRST, ABOUT the actual experience with nuclear power systems. The Union of Concerned Scientists says there have been more than a hundred instances of safety failures and violations in nuclear plants across the nation. To which a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission responds with a question: “Did anyone die?”

The fact is that no one did, but their response is not an answer. Not only may someone die, but many may die before the safety problems get ironed out. We know there is no fail-safe, error-proof mechanism in the operation of nuclear plants. We also know that thus far there have been no deaths either of plant workers or of the public anywhere. But the question is only in part about what did happen. It is also about what might happen.

Here the problem is one of prudence and responsibility. At Harrisburg the Metropolitan Edison managers of the plant seem to have fallen short on both counts. There was no adequate back-up system to take account of human error as well as mechanical malfunction. And there was a failure to notify the public immediately.

THESE ARE PROBLEMS of operation and control that can be solved. That is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s job. Earlier this year the commission shut down five East coast nuclear plants because of faulty design which exposed their cooling system to the hazard of earthquakes. The nuclear industry protested but the shutdown was clearly prudent. The commission will have to be no less rigorous in cracking down on the design and operation of power plants in the light of the Harrisburg mess.

What can be done beyond that? No knowledgeable critics call for a total ban on nuclear power. If they did they would have to provide an alternative, especially since solar energy is too far off on any effective scale. The alternative would be for the West to throw itself on the mercy of the OPEC nations, including Iraq, Libya, Algeria and Iran, whose potential oil boycott presents far greater hazards than the Harrisburg leaks.

The Michael Douglas film, “The China Syndrome,” played a role in polarizing the wave of Harrisburg fear, even while it stands to reap windfall profits as a result. It is an instance of media luck and power in the workings of American capitalist democracy. Along with the more reasoned TV coverage of Harrisburg such a film can have a healthy effect in prodding the regulatory agencies and scaring the nuclear power industry into more stringent safety measures.

THAT IS BASICALLY what needs doing. Those who want all nuclear plants shut down until an error-proof way of running them is discovered fly in the face of reality. The best to hope for is to narrow the chances of accident to near zero, but that can be done by a tight regulation of the plants in action.

We live and have our being in a hazardous world. The dangers to health of chemical dumps, toxic sprays and polluted foods are probably greater than the chances of nuclear plant failure. We are doomed to live with extreme vigilance in a universe of danger and chance. An emotionally mature people will demand tighter safety standards but will react to the dangers without panic.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: Nuclear Crisis at a Glance
Author: United Press International

Harrisburg, Pa.: The crisis at the crippled Three Mile Island nuclear power plant appears to be ceasing, giving state officials added time before a decision is necessary on a precautionary evacuation prior to final reactor closedown attempts.

Harrisburg, Pa.: Civil defense officials say one-third-200,000-of the people living within 20 miles of the crippled Three Mile Island nuclear plant had left the area by Monday.

Washington: The Teamsters union says it will exempt communities near the crippled Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania from its nationwide walkout against the trucking industry.

Moscow: The Soviet Union, in a regularly scheduled television feature, blames the U.S. “energy monopoly” for the accident at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station.

PARIS: French ecological groups demand an immediate halt to nuclear plant construction, saying the country’s reactors are as unsafe as the Harrisburg plant. But French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing scheduled a special cabinet meeting today to approve construction of several new nuclear plants.

Harrisburg, Pa.: Teams from France, West Germany and Belgium, all countries with strong commitments to nuclear power, are flown to the crisis area for on-the-spot investigations of the Three Mile Island accident. Japan soon will follow suit.

Seoul, South Korea: Inspections of South Korea’s nuclear facilities, begun as a direct result of the Harrisburg incident, already led to the suspension of operations at South Korea’s first nuclear power plant where some radioactivity was leaking into the cooling water.

HARRISBURG: The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia ships millions of dollars in cash by armored truck to Harrisburg area banks to enable them to meet withdrawal demands of voluntary evacuees.

Washington: Rep. Bob Carr, D-Mich., demands that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission tell all it knows about the Three Mile Island power plant malfunction and charges that Pennsylvania Gov. Richard Thornburg “had to be dragged kicking and screaming” toward last Friday’s partial evacuation.

New York: Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., says the Pennsylvania nuclear crisis “will inevitably slow the momentum of nuclear power development.” In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, he urges all nations to reconsider the risks of nuclear energy.

Farmington, Conn.: American Nuclear Insurers, the firm that insures the Three Mile Island plant says it already has paid $57,000 in liability claims for last week’s accident and predicts property damage claims will be “sizeable.”

WASHINGTON: Presidential press secretary Jody Powell says he has directed federal agencies working at Three Mile Island to clear their public statements through the White House because there have been conflicting reports that could cause undue public alarm.

New York: General Public Utilities, owner of the Three Mile Island nuclear station, asks the New York Stock Exchange to continue a halt in trading of its stock that began on Friday.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: Higher Met-Ed Bills to be the End Result
Author: Deb Cline, Associate Editor

Metropolitan Edison customers will probably begin to feel the financial effects of the Three Mile Island plant accident in six months.

John Clugston, Met-Ed western division manager, said today the cost of the utility’s having to purchase more expensive fuel as a result of the shutdown of the plant will be reflected in customers’ energy adjustment clause on their utility bills in six months.

He could not say how much of an increase in the adjustment clause customers would experience.

He also could not say how much the plant repair and clean up would cost the company.

Officials have said the unit is insured for damages to the plant and for the replacement of the fuel core up to $300 million. Most costs associated with clean up and repair, other than design modification, would be covered by this insurance, officials said.

However, U.S. Sen. Gary Hart, chairman of the Senate public works subcommittee, said he has learned Three Mile Island may be so badly contaminated, it may never be used again. “It may be more expensive to clean it up than it was to build it,” Hart said.

CLUGSTON SAID the utility is purchasing fuel reserves from a Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland power pool with the energy being purchased costing 15 times more than the energy produced by the nuclear plant.

He said the cost of the reserve energy being purchased would approximate $1 million a day until the plant is back in operation.

Asked why customers should absorb some costs of the accident, Clugston said, “You take the bad with the good, I guess…The public would have to absorb the costs because they also absorbed lower energy costs when the plant went on.”

“It if wasn’t here, they’d be paying higher costs anyway.”

A spokesman at the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission said today the PUC is investigating the effect of the nuclear plant accident on Met-Ed customers, adding there may be some development as early as this week.

The PUC’s next meeting is Thursday.

HE SAID it “sounds remote” that customers would not be affected by the accident in some way.

“Obviously the money has to come from some place,” he said. “The question is how much the customers can be assessed and how much the stockholders assessed.”

It is not known at this point whether it is permissible for the utility to seek a rate increase from the PUC to recover costs of plant repair.

One thing that may figure into the situation is that Met-Ed was recently granted a rate increase based on costs associated with the number two generator, the one now damaged at the plant.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: Truckers Exempt Danger Area
Author: Kathy Liebler, The Evening Sentinel

MECHANICSBURG-Striking teamsters say they won’t interfere with trucking to and from Three Mile Island.

Paul Fritz, vice president of Teamsters Local 776, said today “anything that has to be shipped with regard to the Three Mile Island emergency will be shipped.”

“There will be no interference of materials trucked to and from the crippled Three Mile Island nuclear reactor site.”

In a related incident, Fritz said about 75 trucks were being moved from the Arkansas Best Freight Truck Terminal, Derry Street, Harrisburg.

He said Teamsters International has permitted the trucks to be moved to the Letterkenney Army Depot in Chambersburg since the Harrisburg terminal falls within a 10-mile radius of Three Mile Island.

“WE DIDN’T want to take any chances of contamination to the miscellaneous freight stored in the trucks, so striking drivers have been allowed to move the vehicles,” said Fritz.

However, he said, the strike is still in effect nationwide and for about 1,300 area drivers, packers, delivery men and yard switchmen.

About 900 employees are not working because of a lockout called by trucking firms that were not included on the Teamsters’ selective strike list.

Hall’s Motor Co., located on Route 11, Mechanicsburg, is one local firm that is locking out union employees.

Company officials refused to comment but Fritz said more than 500 Hall’s employees were out of work because of the company’s action.

He said the Mechanicsburg terminal is Hall’s main shop and is a transfer point for about 800 trailers and 350 tractors.

FRITZ CRITICIZED the lockout, saying, “the teamsters worked for a year to plan the selective strike so the economy would not suffer.”

“The lockout shows complete disregard for the United States,” he said. “The strike was planned in such a way that every point in the country would still have service.”

“Now because of the lockout, no one has common carriers.”

Fritz said orderly picketing continues at 12 striking sites in the area and he said no incidents have been reported by companies engaged in the lockout.

Teamsters are protesting an industry contract that reportedly calls for a 30-percent wage benefit increase over three years.

Effects on local deliveries still are unknown, but Wayne Powell, Editor-Publisher of The Evening Sentinel, said today the newspaper has less than a 30-day supply of newsprint. Since the newsprint is delivered by truck, Powell said he was concerned over the longrange impact of the shutdown. He said The Sentinel would seek other methods of delivery to insure its newsprint supply.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: Radiation Release Harmless- Officials
Author: United Press International

HARRISBURG (UPI)-Radiation seeping from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident site has been in relatively small and harmless amounts so far, federal and state authorities agree.

But Harold Denton, chief Nuclear Regulatory Commission official at the scene, said no plans have been made to get rid of extremely large amounts of radiation still sealed up inside the reactor containment room. At a press briefing Monday, he called it a “long-term problem.”

Thomas Gerusky, director of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Radiological Health, said at least some of the built-up radiation probably will get out into the atmosphere when engineers attempt to get things back to normal at the plant.

“SOME OF THIS will be released to the atmosphere-no doubt about it-when they’re trying to can it up,” said Gerusky, who is Gov. Dick Thornburgh’s top health expert on the scene and the man who advises the governor about precautionary evacuation concerns.

Denton said radiation levels of 30,000 rems have been measured at the containment building dome. That is equal to about 1 million chest x-rays.

Concrete walls 3 feet thick now protect the public from that radiation.

The massive radiation clean up task has been pushed to one side by the need to halt radiation leaks that have seeped from Three Mile Island since the accident occurred there six days ago.
The latest off-site radiation readings taken by the Energy Department showed a total exposure of 1,000-2,000 man-rems to a 10-mile radius of the plant site, and 10,000 man-rems to a 50-mile radius.

The “man-rem” calculation multiples the number of people exposed by the exposure each received. NRC and state officials believe the most any individual received was 100 millirems, equal to about three chest x-rays.

Gerusky said the 1972 National Science Foundation report, entitled “Biological Effects of Ironizing Radiation,” estimated one or two extra cancers could be expected with a 10,000 man-rem dose.

“IF IT continues at this pace, you’ll never be able to tell that this plant was there except for all the hysteria, from the heart attacks, and “hypertension,” Gerusky said. “Your chances of getting killed in an auto accident are much greater.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 4, 1979
Title: What are Effects? Living under Nuclear Fear
Author: Deb Cline, Associate Editor

If, lately, you’ve been depressed, haven’t been eating or sleeping normally and have been preoccupied with nuclear disaster, you’re not alone.

“Quite a variety of people all experienced the same amount of anxiety,” says John Calhoun, coordinator of Holy Spirit Hospital’s crisis intervention center. “It has been shared by almost all.”

Other reactions may have been attempts to keep busy, extreme denial-illustrated to some degree by people who said they would refuse to leave during any evacuation-and anger of the possible future consequences of the accident at Three Mile Island nuclear power generating plant.

Other mental health officials in the area agree such anxiety reactions are appropriate for people experiencing traumatic events-if those reactions are temporary.

Dr. John Mira, associate medical director of Carlisle Counseling Center, says such symptoms, if they occur, should disappear within a few weeks of the event.

More longterm reactions, according to Mira, may be manifestations of latent emotional problems or may become part of the reactions of already severely neurotic or psychotic individuals.”

Normally adjusted individuals shouldn’t have longterm effects,” Mira said.

If there had been a nuclear catastrophe, loss of life and widespread displacement of people from their homes, the reaction would likely have been more serious.

But Stephen Coslett, a Dickinson College psychology professor and clinical psychologist, said unless the situation worsens, peoples’ psychological reactions shouldn’t be too severe.

“There wasn’t really any catastrophe. No one was killed. The ones who were really anxious left,” Coslett said.

“We haven’t had destruction. We haven’t had trauma.”

Some experts are comparing the current reaction to that felt during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

WHILE MIRA doesn’t think the longterm effects of the accident will be too severe, he thinks the shortterm reaction may be more serious than in the middle crisis.

“I remember that as a distant kind of thing,” he said. “Three Mile Island is in the backyard, I feel like there was a sense of more imminent danger with this.”

A more deep-seated and longterm reaction was felt by Americans following the assassination of President John Kennedy.

Mira calls it a national mourning reaction, similar to the mourning people would feel on a personal level if they lost a friend or relative.

“Kennedy was a personal friend on a public level,” Mira said. He said the depression, sadness, sleeplessness and crying lasted months for some people.

Comparing that reaction to Three Mile Island, Mira said: “This is a different situation in that we never really concretely lost anything. This is fear reaction caused by symptoms of anxiety.”

Both Calhoun and David McLane, Carlisle counseling Center director, said the number of calls coming into their crisis intervention centers has not increased since the initial plant accident last Wednesday.

But Calhoun said if the situation during past floods is any indication, calls reduce during the crisis and increase after it is over.

“We’re especially concerned about kids,” Calhoun said. “Because they are less able to understand, yet they are just as effected.”

“They see the anxiety in their families, they hear things they don’t understand, they hear talk of potential radiation damage, of cancer in 20 years. They don’t understand it at all.”

YET COSLETT believes the fact that people could leave the area if they wanted to during the Three Mile Island crisis was healthy, possibly cutting down on crisis intervention calls or visits to mental health centers.

“They could treat their own anxiety by getting out,” Coslett said.

During the past week, people have feared a number of things, exposure to dangerous radiation levels, evacuation from the homes and, perhaps most of all, the uncertainty of the entire situation.

“Uncertainty about it is one of the big things I see,” Calhoun said. “Any time people talk about nuclear power, a lot of things come to mind-nuclear weapons, nuclear destruction, nuclear explosion that might make a wasteland of a place.”

According to Coslett, the numerous conflicting reports about the status of the situation didn’t help.

“What people don’t tolerate is the ambiguity,” Coslett said. “They want an answer, and there isn’t an answer.”

COSLETT SAID people often cope better with negative news than with uncertainty.

“What we lack in fact, we usually make up in fiction,” he said, “and we usually make it up worse than it is.”

Mira agrees the uncertainties-about the effect of radiation, where people would go if evacuated, when they would return and whether officials were telling the truth-increase fear.

He believes some uncertainty, perhaps fear, will continue until the Three Mile Island is a year old. “If they start the plant up again, people will be uncomfortable until one years goes by. If nothing happens then, they will probably begin to accept it.”

“There will be some who won’t ever feel as comfortable with it, but people tend to forget, especially after an anniversary date goes by.”

Coslett likes to think people can get something positive out of Three Mile Island.

“You can make it into anything you want to make it into,” he said. “You can make it a growth experience…if you want to read dread and gloom into it, you can do that too. But we grow through stress.”

“There is a growth that can come out of human trauma in thinking that we coped with the greatest nuclear disaster in the world and we came out of it okay.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 4, 1979
Title: No Boom at Bars
Author: Lisa Lilienthal

Some people turned to alcohol to relieve their anxieties about Three Mile Island, but some bars closed during the crisis.

“Things have picked up today,” said an employee of a suburban Harrisburg bar. “But we’re the only ones around who are still open.”

The employee, who declined to be identified, said all the bars in Lower Allen Township were closed Monday.

“I know with one of them, the employees refused to come in,” she said. “But here we’re very loyal.”

The Gingerbread Man bars in Mechanicsburg, Carlisle and Harrisburg were closed Sunday and Monday, according to district manager Barry Cassell, who himself had left the area.

On Friday night, he said, business was as normal, but by Saturday it had decreased.

“Most people were either leaving or scared,” he said. “They weren’t worrying about going to a bar, anyhow.”

The Carlisle bar reopened Tuesday and the Mechanicsburg and two Harrisburg bars will open today.

“In our Chambersburg bar,” Cassell said, “we didn’t shut down and business increased because of people who relocated there.”

Things have been quiet at Wonderful Wanda’s Warehouse, Carlisle Pike, which has no television in the bar area.

Located in the Crossgates Inn, the bar-restaurant is losing business because local residents have left and out-of-town visitors aren’t coming, according to manager Richard Cable.

“It’s like the effect of Legionnaire’s Disease had in Philadelphia,” Cable said. “People will be afraid to come in unless someone stands up and says it’s safe or unsafe.”

And among the small, subdued crowds that do come in, Cable said, Three Mile Island is the main topic of conversation.

IN CARLISLE, the Walnut Bottom Tavern was doing a brisk business Sunday, despite fears at the time that the nuclear accident might worsen.

“I don’t know if it’s because of Three Mile Island or not,” said owner Connie Ruby, “But we are busy whenever there’s a crisis or when there’s bad weather…”

“You would think people would save their money and wait to leave if they had to, but instead they’re at my place, drinking, talking about it, eating.”

Although Walnut Bottom Tavern patrons discussed the situation, Ruby said the atmosphere was convivial.

“The people that came in here were really brave,” she said. “If they have to evacuate, they will-but not until the experts tell them to.”

At Alfie McDuffs, business has been about the same, according to manager Keith Miller.

“People talk about Three Mile Island,” he said, “but they don’t make an issue of it.”

MEANWHILE, the situation had no significant effect on Cumberland County liquor stores, according to B. Earl C. Betts, acting director of state stores.

According to an employee in the MJ Carlisle Mall store, there has been a moderate increase in sales, mostly in those to local bars.

“We do a heavy business with the bars,” he said. “And I think their business has picked up.”

The employee, who wanted to remain anonymous, attributes the increase to visitors from the Harrisburg area.

“But you name a reason,” he said, “and people will drink.”

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 4, 1979
Title: In County, a Sigh of Relief
Author: Deb Cline, Associate Editor

Disaster-worn Cumberland county officials are beginning to take a breather from the intense emergency preparations of recent days.

Now that the threat of precautionary evacuation around the plant appears remote, workers in the county Office of Emergency Preparedness are beginning to catch up on news in other parts of the world.

“Things are really kind of slow here, thank goodness,” Tom Blosser, county emergency preparedness director, said today.

EVERYBODY’S sitting around drinking coffee, talking about different things, reading the paper to find out what’s going on in the rest of the world, getting their heads straight after a good night’s sleep,” Blosser said.

But Blosser says Cumberland is still on alert to possible evacuation and fine tuning of a county evacuation plan continues.

“We have three quarters of everything done that has to be addressed. The other quarter would be new thinking, new ideas, modification of things to knock time off,” Blosser said. “That’s the objective, to knock time off.”

Although the county is much better prepared now to handle a Three Mile Island-type crisis, “we’re not going to let this drop,” Blosser said.

“There will be a separate plan for Three Mile Island. We are going to come up with a total plan for Three Mile Island, then we’ll have it.”

A MEETING scheduled with agricultural people to discuss the status of livestock during an evacuation is still on for tonight at 7:30.

People responsible for bus transportation during an evacuation met last night to work out details.

Blosser said the attitude of emergency personnel at the county is “absolute confidence. Everybody is in a good frame of mind that everything will work out real well. The cooperation has been fantastic,” Blosser said. “Everybody’s pulled together as a team.”

Alma Hand, executive director of the county Red Cross chapter, agrees.

Hand, who with other Red Cross people has worked to set up 32 shelters in the western end of the county, said, “the cooperation we received from schools districts and Shippensburg State College and the emergency preparedness people was unbelievable.”

Hand has been spending the past few days traveling to county school districts making sure the facilities are ready and teams are set up to handle first aid, supplies, food and other aspects of the shelters.

“IF WE DON’T use the plan this time, it was certainly a good learning experience,” Hand said. “The next time if there’s not as much time to prepare, if we had to do it in half an hour, we’d be much better prepared.”

She added, “Right now we’re in excellent shape. We could just handle this beautifully.”

While the emergency situation and the nuclear plant reactor are cooling down, official reactions to the situation are heating up.

County Commissioner Jacob Myers Tuesday sent a strong letter to Met-Ed President Walter Creitz criticizing the company’s behavior and statements during the recent crisis.

The only two Cumberland County commissioners have declined comment on the letter, saying they will react to the situation at a later date.

The letter, prompted by a strong editorial in the Harrisburg Patriot News Tuesday, also said the company’s presence in the area is no longer welcome.

“As the commissioner who has had the awesome and painful responsibility of trying to insure the health and welfare of the citizens of Cumberland County, the most agonizing aspect of this entire affair has been dealing with the distraught emotions of citizens,” Myers said in the letter.

“Consistently throughout the entire affair, Metropolitan Edison’s position has been nothing more than to try and preserve their own position, insuring, wrongly and inaccurately, that there was indeed nothing to be fearful of’ and in a general a very blatant posture putting your corporate benefits and concern for your company far above your concern for the public welfare.

“Simply said, your company’s actions make me feel, as a public official, that your presence in this area is no longer desired and you should think about evacuating.”

Life in the county is beginning to return to normal, with most of the schools closed Monday and Tuesday reopening today.

However, pregnant women and small children are still requested to stay out of the five-mile radius around the nuclear plant.

SIDE ARTICLE:

Hotline Set Up for Questions

Pennsylvania residents can now call a toll-free hotline if they have questions relating to the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant.

Gov. Dick Thornburgh, who ordered the hot line installed, said persons can telephone 1-800-932-0784 at anytime and speak to one of 25 staff members who will provide the latest information on the plant’s condition as issued by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

He said the line was established “so that the people of Pennsylvania can get the facts they need when they need them, and so frankly we in government can be better informed about the questions that are of the greatest concern to the people we serve.”