Author: Meta Bowman (Page 9 of 31)

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 4, 1979
Title: Thousands Returning as Crisis Winds Down
Author: Dennis O’Brien and Jim Kershner, The Evening Sentinel with Wire Reports

MIDDLETOWN-Tens of thousands of central Pennsylvanians returned today to their homes near Three Mile Island.

Civil defense authorities said at least 68,000 persons poured back into the area following Tuesday’s news that the crisis had diminished.

Plans were underway to bring the unstable nuclear reactor to a safe, cold shutdown. Radiation continues to leak from the plant in small amounts.

“People are coming back in droves. People who went to Maryland and other places called us and said they’re comin’ on back,” said Joseph Rulh, spokesman for Office of Emergency Management of York County, where an estimated 80,000 people evacuated.

About 200,000 people in a four-corner vicinity within a 20-mile radius of Three Mile Island left beginning last Wednesday when the accident occurred.

The Pennsylvania Education Department said 34,000 students in six school districts and part of a seventh returned to classes today outside a five mile radius of the plant. About 26,000 students remain home.

At the plant site engineers prepared cautiously to shut down the crippled nuclear furnace.
“We have to heave a collective sigh of relief,” said Gov. Dick Thornburgh.

Civil defense authorities kept precautionary evacuation plans on a standby status, but Thornburgh indicated he thought such a mass exodus would no longer be necessary.

“I’m glad we didn’t have to test it out,” the governor said in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show.

MEANWHILE, attention has shifted from the crippled Three Mile Island reactor to the seven similar nuclear power plants constructed by the same firm.

NRC staff members were to meet early this afternoon with the NRC’s commissioners in Washington to discuss the possibility of shutting down the other plants.

NRC officials Tuesday circulated a bulletin to the seven plants giving them 10 days to show why a similar accident couldn’t occur at their facilities.

As the situation at Three Mile Island continues to improve, nuclear plant workers are considering speeding up the cooling process.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials were expected to decide soon whether to enter “phase two” of the reactor cool down.

Phase one, which is currently in effect, cools the reactor by circulating high pressure steam through the reactor into the steam generator.

Phase two involves circulating low pressure water through the reactor to coolers in the auxiliary building.

THE TRANSITION in cooling processes must be made after workers install shields in the auxiliary building and must be conducted “as gently as possible” according to one NRC official.
The primary danger to shifting to phase two is further damage to the crippled reactor.

The core is basically cooled down as much as it can possibly be under phase one, the official said, and the temperature of the reactor core has remained steady.

Gov. Thornburgh Friday ordered that all pregnant women and preschool children living within five miles of the plant leave the area after NRC officials learned of a hydrogen explosion that formed a hazardous radioactive bubble inside the reactor.

But the mood in Middletown was calmer Wednesday following the announcement that the bubble-considered to be a potentially lethal block to cooling the reactor-had been eliminated “for all practical purposes.”

According to Harold Denton, who is heading the NRC’s task force on the Three Mile Island situation, the bubble, which at one time could have caused an explosion inside the reactor, is no longer being considered a significant problem in getting reacing a shut down stage.

“THERES PROBABLY still some small bubbles in the containment, but they’re not like the type (that was) up at the top of the dome,” Denton said at a Tuesday afternoon press conference.

According to Denton, small amounts of radioactive iodine have been found in milk samples by U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspectors. But the amounts are too small at this point to be considered significant, he said.

Denton called the iodine levels “very low” and said they within limits the federal government believes are safe.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 4, 1979
Title: Local Planners Deserve Praise
Author: Unknown

As the “good news” coming from Three Mile Island allays our worst fears, Cumberland County’s unsung heroes continue their work for what could be the ultimate test: evacuation.

Cumberland’s problem remains twofold-evacuate part of the county (mostly the West Shore area) while the eastern area serves as a host for those who would be fleeing from the immediate danger zone. Ever since the official warning was given, this planning has continued virtually nonstop in the basement of the courthouse.

Civil defense, county, and local officials have stood by their stations, continuing to fine tune these plans, even though they had to have great concern for their own families and themselves. It is unselfish dedication of the highest order, something that should not go unnoticed when Pennsylvania is clear of the crisis.

If there is a paradox of Three Mile Island-providing we do indeed escape a more serious development-it must be in the value of this emergency planning. Although the warning area was delayed by Metropolitan Edison’s stupendous disregard for public safety, the situation put county officials under extreme pressure to complete a plan that would work without creating panic or confusion.

No test, no number of “paper plans” can simulate what the planners have had to go through since last Tuesday. It shows that Cumberland County can react to an emergency and it will provide invaluable lessons and training for those who would have to implement such a plan.
In short, we will come out of this horrifying incident with a better sense of what to do, and how to do it, should we be faced with another possible-or real-catastrophy.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 4, 1979
Title: Thornburgh Pessimistic about 3-mile Impact
Author: William C. Hoop, United Press International

HARRISBURG (UPI)-Gov. Dick Thornburgh was pleased with the news. He had been told the prospects of a catastrophe at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant-and the prospects of a mass evacuation-were lessened considerably.

But Thornburgh also was worried about the long-range impact of the worst nuclear power accident in U.S. history and about the role rumor and speculation had played during a week of tension.

“When you folks are all gone, we’ll be here in Pennsylvania struggling to deal with residual public health problems, environmental integrity (and) the effect that this may have had on the economy of Pennsylvania, including our agricultural economy,” Thornburgh told more than 100 reporters at a news briefing Tuesday night.

“Right now I can’t tell you what the effects are. This is an unprecedented event with respect to the impact in all three of those areas. It means we have a substantial job to do after we assess what damage may have occurred.”

“In my opinion, we stand at the point where the chances of any catastrophic event are greatly reduced. Maybe the worst is over. But I’m not so sure it doesn’t mean that we’re approaching a much more crucial interval for the future of Pennsylvania from the view of public health, environmental integrity and economic development.”

THORNBURGH, who stated during his campaign for governor last year he was in favor of developing nuclear sources of energy, said in the wake of the Three Mile Island emergency he now has reservations about both new nuclear construction and the resumption of operation at existing plants.

“I think we’ll have to await an assessment of precisely what happened, whether it can be rectified with appropriate safety measures (and) what the recommendations are from the investigation that President Carter has promised to undertake,” Thornburgh said.

“I will certainly say this-that the burden of proof on those who would press for the early resumption of operation of Three Mile Island is extremely heavy.”

“I think those who would press for any expansion of the present nuclear facilities in this state have a very heavy burden of proof.”

Thornburgh said he felt one of the most serious problems during the nuclear emergency was “the unending flow of rumors hurled at us from a variety of sources.”

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 4, 1979
Title: Evacuation in ‘Holding Pattern’; Estimated 200,000 Return to Homes
Author: George Lobsenz, United Press International

HARRISBURG-Although six counties within 20 miles of the stricken Three Mile Island nuclear plant remain on advance evacuation alert, Civil Defense officials say some of the 200,000 residents who left the area have been returning to their homes.

John Comey, spokesman for the state Office of Emergency Management, said Gov. Dick Thornburgh has issued no evacuation orders. Thornburgh said Tuesday night the situation appeared to be safer, although he kept in effect his recommendation that pregnant women and children stay away from within five miles of the plant.

CIVIL DEFENSE authorities were poised to evacuate 636,000 persons on short notice if such action was necessary. Authorities were refining the evacuation plans.

“We’re still in a holding pattern,” said Comey.

Those who did evacuate at the suggestion of Thornburgh-155 pregnant women and small children and their families who live within five miles of the plant-still were being cared for at the sole government evacuation center at the Hersheypark Arena.

AT LEAST ONE person who fled the area was killed and another seriously injured during the past four days.

Authorities in Essex, Md., said Kristoff Lo Piccolo, 6, of York, drowned Sunday evening in Hopkins Creek when he apparently attempted to jump from a pier onto a houseboat. He was staying with his parents, Phillip and Judith Lo Piccolo, after they fled the area of Three Mile Island.

And officials in Baltimore said Paula Matincheck, 21, of Middletown, was in critical condition in City Hospital with head injuries suffered in a two-car collision Saturday evening. Miss Matincheck, daughter of a Middletown funeral director, was staying with relatives in Baltimore after evacuating the area voluntarily.

BRUCE BEATON, director of the Hersheypark shelter, said they were making sure to provide entertainment for fidgety tots who have been cooped up in the cavernous arena by consistently rainy weather.

“We’ve had movies, magicians, a puppet show and we’re going to have some clowns coming in,” he said. “We had a coloring contest but of course the judges ruled all the pictures winners and everybody got a prize.

“Overall, the kids are getting a little rambunctious but the general mood is very good.”
Officials at the Greyhound Bus depot in Harrisburg confirmed that outbound traffic had fallen off dramatically from the weekend.

“WEEKEND TRAFFIC was up about 40 percent over the usual but it’s pretty much normal today (Tuesday). It looks like the exodus is over,” said Greyhound spokesman W.V. Dailey.
Meanwhile, Comey said the National Weather Service was providing updates on wind direction so that in the event of a radiation leak officials would know which area within a five-mile radius of the plant would receive top priority.

Civil defense directors in York, Lancaster, Dauphin and Cumberland counties-those immediately adjacent to the plant-said local officials had told them some of the estimated 200,000 residents who earlier left were returning.

“We’ve heard a few people are trickling back in,” said Tom Blosser, Cumberland County director. “But overall, the situation is stable and we are just taking care of minor details and refining our plans.”

Dauphin County Director Kevin Malloy-who also heard people were coming back-said he was on the lookout for complacency. “We don’t want to be lulled into a do-nothing attitude.”
PICTURE DESCRIPTION:

Chemist Dave Styers checks milk samples collected Tuesday in Harrisburg at the Bureau of Radiological Health. Air, water and milk samples are being monitored daily since the Three Mile Island accident.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 5, 1979
Title: Life Will Never Be the Same
Author: Scott MacLeod, United Press International

HARRISBURG, Pa.-Central Pennsylvanians are returning home after a week-long nuclear crisis that scared tens of thousands away to safer territory. But some say life will never be the same near Three Mile Island.

“People are still afraid, as far as the nuclear power plant is concerned,” said John Brabits, assistant director of the civil defense in Dauphin County, the center of the endangered area.
“I won’t feel safe until the people at three Mile Island say the reactor is in a cold shutdown state. I’m still concerned about the health and safety of the people in my county.”

ABOUT 78,900 of the estimated 200,000 residents who fled Dauphin and nearby counties after the nuclear accident eight days ago apparently felt the area was safe enough and have returned to their homes, civil defense authorities said.

People fled to Appalachian Mountain towns in north and western Pennsylvania, some as far west as Pittsburgh and as far east as Connecticut.

The optimistic return was coupled Tuesday night by Gov. Dick Thornburgh’s announcement that the chances of a catastrophe have greatly diminished because a potentially explosive hydrogen bubble in the nuclear reactor was eliminated.

Thornburgh has not ordered a mandatory evacuation, but six counties have kept their evacuation plans on alert status.

AN EERIE air raid siren blared through downtown Harrisburg at 9:50 a.m. Wednesday just as thousands poured back in, and callers jammed the lines at Dauphin County civil defense headquarters.

“Don’t worry, nobody hit the panic button,” Brabits reassured them. He said the siren was tripped by mistakes.

Meanwhile, residents resumed their daily lives. Women went grocery shopping and children attended re-opened schools.

Robert Reid, mayor of Middletown, where the tall white cooling towers of the Three Mile Island have become an uneasy reminder of the near-disaster, was asked about life in Middletown getting back to normal.

“I don’t think it’ll ever be the same,” he said.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 5, 1979
Title: Students Ask: What About Future?
Author: United Press International

HARRISBURG, Pa. (UPI)-Julius Martinz is a happy 16-year-old who lives an active life and figures, why worry about radiation?

“It affects you, it affects you in 30 years,” the Harrisburg High School junior said, “and the way I’m going I’ll be dead in 30 years.”

Last Friday, when the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant threatened catastrophe, schools in six districts and part of a seventh closed.

Wednesday, when the situation at the plant appeared stabilized and fear about a nuclear disaster eased, classes resumed for the 34,000 public and private school students affected who lived outside a five-mile radius of the plant. Schools remained closed within five miles of the facility.

JODY GARLINGTON returned to classes at Harrisburg High, but she was still scared.
“My whole family went to Germantown, near Philadelphia,” the 15-year-old sophomore said. “The bubble (a hydrogen bubble in the crippled reactor that stymied engineers trying to shut down the unit) can start getting big all over again.”

She also worried about the long-term effects of radiation emitted from the crippled Three Mile Island power plant 10 miles away.

“Yeah, I’m scared,” she said. “You can get sterile, maybe not have any kids.”

Alan Rammaker, 23, a science teacher at the school, saw significance in the way the students had received the news last Friday that the school was closing early and for an indefinite period.
“WHEN THE PRINCIPAL came over the loudspeaker system, everybody just stopped dead in their tracks and didn’t move until he was through. It was the most attentive I’ve ever seen them.”

He said one girl “really lost it” after the announcement. “She just looked out the window. She wouldn’t say anything.”

A mathematics teacher, Janice Sims, 34, said that while she thought most teachers had left town over the scare, she didn’t think students recognized the dangers involved.

“I really don’t think they are aware of the dangers. I asked my second period class how many had left-or wanted to leave-and not one raised their hand.”

But that was not the case at nearby Bishop McDevitt, a coed Catholic high school nearby. Virtually every student interviewed expressed concern.

ONE STUDENT said his family had left the area and slept in sleeping bags on the floor of a Penn State University dorm room normally occupied by “a friend’s sister”.

And on the first day back after the closing, twice as many students were absent as on a regular day.

“Everybody’s pretty concerned about it,” said Chris Natale, 18. “People were joking about it last week when it first started and nobody really realized how dangerous it was. Now they understand more.”

Thirty-four thousand students in six districts and part of a seventh were affected by Friday’s school closing.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 5, 1979
Title: Nuclear crisis-Carter Fails Again
Author: Nicholas Von Hoffman

Apparently there has been a brain meltdown at the White House or perhaps a hydrogen bubble in the gut.

However it came about, Dr. Atomic, the man who ran for the presidency as, among other things, an accomplished nuclear engineer, has never looked worse than in his handling of the accident, or as the techno-bureaucrats like to call it “the event” or “the continuous incident” at Three Mile Island.

Here is the Environmental Protection Agency, supposedly an organ of government directly responsible to Mr. Carter, conceding it had let days go by without measuring the radiation falling on the citizens of Pennsylvania because, Lord save us, the matter would not fall in its jurisdiction until a radioactive cloud was obliging enough to cross a state line.

Beyond that, we have the Nuclear Regulatory Commission kept in the dark by Metropolitan Edison, the utility company that owns this plant, while it executes procedures of highly debatable safety to shut the plant down and which result in the emission of an apparently unknown quantity of radiation into the air and the flow of the Susquehanna River.

Moreover, it turns out that there may even have been an explosion in the plant which the commission was only belatedly informed of.

IN THE FACE of all this and much more, we find Dr. Atomic toddling off for a political fund raiser in Wisconsin where, you may presume, he indulged himself in his routine prattle about leadership.

If Mr. Carter would talk about leadership less and exercise it more, we might all be able to sleep without the fear that, as we snooze, a deadly radioactive iodine cloud will steal over us.
A president like Theodore Roosevelt, who never had to yak-yak about leadership, would have seized the plant and then said, as he did about the Panama Canal, that Congress could argue about the legalities later.

The Governor of Pennsylvania, on the other hand, has acquitted himself with distinction.
Richard Thornburgh’s problem has been to find out which of the technicians in this disgraceful babble of contradiction, omission and artful distortion he should listen to.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania doesn’t have legions of high energy physicists, engineers, and atomic scientists; it doesn’t have the labs, the equipment or the high-tech backup to deal with a problem like this.

Only the federal government does, but instead of moving in to take charge so that we can be assured the matter is being handled by rational, competent and reasonably disinterested public servants, Dr. Atomic spent the first days of what millions of us consider a major crisis indicating it really isn’t his responsibility.

THE NET RESULT was to give the impression that the future of the nuclear generating industry, whose stocks on Wall Street have already undergone a China Syndrome of their own, is of greater concern than the public health and safety.

Industry spokesmen have done all in their power to reinforce the idea they put bucks before people with a public relations patter that sounded like they were telling us:

“So what’s a little radiation? You get more radiation sunbathing in your backyard than on Three Mile Island.”

“And talk about danger, look at what happened to Lee Trevino the golf pro. Remember how he got hit by lightning out on the golf course? Now, there’s a guy in danger. In Harrisburg, they’ll all live to be 100.

“CANCER, WHAT’S cancer? Look at how many die of it anyway. You’re more likely to die from eating the lousy bacon with the additives in it.”

“Don’t talk to me about cancer. If you get it how do they cure you? With radiation, dummy, which you can’t have without electricity. The atom gives cancer and takes it away, so turn on the air conditioner, and use up a few kilowatts.”

The upshot is there is no reason to be upset. Older people will die of diabetes or a stroke before the radiation introduced ca [illegible] gets them and it’s the older folks who [illegible] the majority of the voting.

There are other blessings to be counted. We’re fortunate it happened in Pennsylvania. In case Three Mile Island goes up in the big mushroom, people can climb down into the abandoned coal mines to begin building a new mole society.

And what a boon to the Keystone State’s highway safety program-night time drivers will soon be able to see pedestrians better because they’ll glow in the dark.

The rest of us can read the part in Jimmy Carter’s autobiography where Dr. Atomic went down into the guts of a reactor and got himself a big overdose while fixing it and then we can reflect that the difference between that act of bravery and Jimmy Carter’s current waffle is the difference between physical courage and civic cowardice.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 5, 1979
Title: Message in the Crisis
Author: Letter to Editor

To the Editor,

Our Three Mile Island incident the past week may have derived from the beginning; little sins, so called, are the beginning of great ones. The explosion is in the spark, the upas in its seed, the fiery serpent in its smooth egg, the fierce tiger in the playful cub. By a little wound death may be caused as surely as by a great one.

Through one small vein in the heart’s blood may flow not less fatally than through the main artery. A few drops oozing through an embankment may make a passage for the whole lake of waters. A green log is safe in the company of a candle; but if a few shavings are just lighted, and then some dry sticks, the green log will not long resist the flames.

How often has a character which seemed steadfast been destroyed by little sins. Satan seldom assails in the first instance with great temptations. Skillful general, he makes his approach gradually, and by zigzag trenches creeps toward the fortress he intends to storm. Therefore it is essential that we watch against the little sins.

The million little things that are daily dropped into our hands, the small opportunities each day brings. He leaves us free to use or abuse just as we please and goes unchanging along His silent way. We may outrun by a violent swiftness that which we run out, but we are swiftly losing by overrunning.

C. W. Dick
Carlisle

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 5, 1979
Title: Focus on Crisis, but Life Went On.
Author: Unknown

The big game for Cumberland County this week was the nuclear engineers vs. the Three Mile Island reactor.

And it hardly seemed like spring with the weather getting cold and rainy.

But, almost unnoticed here, major league baseball opened Wednesday for its 1979 season.

Baseball isn’t nearly as significant as the fate of the power plant or of the thousands of area residents who may be affected by it. But through the worry and fear and the relief, it is comforting to know that other things are still happening in the world.

Elsewhere, people may have paused to look at us as we dealt with the problems of radiation and threats of catastrophe, but they didn’t entirely stop what they were doing.

The Teamsters’ union went on strike, Three Mile Island or not. So did the United Air Lines mechanics.

Chicago had an election and picked its first woman mayor.

Patty Hearst got married to her former body guard.

Conductor Eugene Ormandy announced that he was retiring from the Philadelphia Orchestra.
“Aunt Jemima” and Emmett Kelley died.

Former U.S. Rep. Otto Passman was acquitted in Monroe, La., of tax evasion charges. Former U.S. Rep. Joshua Eilberg was disbarred in Philadelphia after pleading guilty to federal conflict of interest charges.

Hustler owner Larry Flynt, convicted in Georgia on obscenity charges, said he would continue to distribute his magazine there.

The Pentagon announced plans for sharp cutbacks at the New Cumberland Army Depot and at Fort Indiantown Gap.

And, Wednesday afternoon, the San Francisco Giants whipped the Cincinnati Reds, 11 to 5, in the National League opener. Later in the day, the Seattle Mariners beat the California Angels, 5 to 4, to get the American League started.

Once again grown men will act like boys, indulging in the most American of pastimes.
And once again two teams will act out on the baseball field tragedy and crisis that, with time, may replace for many the tension endured by all of us in the shadow of Three Mile Island.

Baseball is a fantasy of the powerful and the underdogs, a game played as much in the mud as on the field. It is fraught with its own emergencies and disasters, always resolved in the end, a substitute for the tidy endings that don’t always occur in real life.

The danger at Three Mile Island seems to be passing now: we gradually can turn our attention to those things we may have recently missed.

Like baseball, which began on the day the nuclear crisis appeared to be over.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 5, 1979
Title: County Work on Evacuation is Continuing
Author: Deb Cline, Associate Editor

If a precautionary evacuation were called, farmers might be able to return to their farms for short periods of time to take care of livestock.

But county officials meeting with farmers Wednesday night said any provision for them to return to the evacuated area would depend on the level of radiation.

“Our primary concern is your safety,” a state official said.

Evacuation of the area around the Three Mile Island nuclear power generating plant is only a remote possibility now as thousands of families who had left the area on their own began returning home Wednesday.

The meeting Wednesday was one of the last of a series of evacuation contingency plan briefings various groups in the county have received since the nuclear accident more than a week ago.

Don Overdorff, county extension agent, said the plan now is that in case of an evacuation farmers from the evacuated areas would assemble at the county extension office on Claremont Road.

“ONCE THE area is cleared, the situation would be assessed by the county as to whether it’s safe to re-enter,” Overdorff said.

Farmers would be given identification, possibly even before evacuation were called, enabling them to get back into the evacuation area for short periods of time.

Officials did not rule out the possibility of removing some livestock, particularly prize animals from the area once all the people are out.

Officials urged farmers to consider problems they might face in a possible evacuation and relay them to county agents or other officials.

Also Wednesday, county commissioners and emergency personnel met with representatives of the business community Wednesday to discuss problems they might have during a possible evacuation and how the county can help offset long-term negative effects of the plant accident.
A major concern now is preventing tourists and businesses from shunning the central Pennsylvania area.

County Commissioner Chairman Nelson Punt said the decision by five convention groups not to come to the area this spring will have a bad economic impact.

A BUSINESSMAN also told commissioners some western meat packers and other food transporters are reluctant to ship their commodities through the area.

In addition to fear of contamination, these people are concerned about food being left in the area should an evacuation occur.

County solicitor John Broujos, who has been working on the emergency plans, said Wednesday, “We will press for solving that production of what to tell out-of-state businesses. That will be a long-range impact of Three Mile Island.”

One way to help avert some possible long-term negative effects of the nuclear accident is to return to an attitude of normality, said Oran Henderson, state civil defense director.

During a visit to Cumberland County Wednesday, Henderson said, “All of us in working together can set this kind of tone, in trying to get things back to normal. Rumors should be squelched at every opportunity.”

Henderson said the counties surrounding Three Mile Island now have excellent contingency plans.

After reviewing Cumberland’s plan Tuesday, he said, “I know specifically it will work. Although we’re not anticipating any kind of evacuation, if something unforeseen happens, Cumberland could manage an evacuation or any other mission it’s called on to do.”

Henderson said before the Three Mile Island accident, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission required contingency evacuation plans in areas within a five-mile radius of the facility.

He believes the NRC may expand that requirement to 10 miles around the plant.

But he said the chance of ever having to evacuate beyond 20 miles is remote.