Category: Content Type (Page 12 of 36)

Newspaper: The Patriot
Date: April 4, 1979
Title: Most Schools Report ‘A Nearly Normal Day’
Author: Roger Seip

After being closed for two days because of the Three Mile Island accident, Wednesday was a near-normal day in most area schools, according to school officials.

Harrisburg School District teachers Wednesday reported a “fairly normal day.” About 65 percent of the district’s 10,000 students had returned to classes, according to district officials. Normally average attendance runs about 88 percent.

Approximately 90 percent of the district’s 700 teachers reported to work, they said.

The district was unable to find enough substitute teachers to take up the slack-a problem which has often plagued the district in normal times-and had to reshuffle classes and teachers in some instances, they said. No assignments went uncovered, they said.

Attendance at individual buildings ranged from 34 percent at Camp Curtin Early Childhood Center to 77 percent at the William Penn Campus of Harrisburg High School.

AT THE Middle School, where 64 percent of the students showed up, it was decided to continue with the Mr. Mathematics Pageant Competition which had originally been scheduled for Wednesday.

Finals will be held as scheduled Thursday from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. at the Middle School.

Benjamin F. Turner, superintendent, said he is going to recommend to the school board that the school year be extended a day, with the last day to be June 12. He said the district had schedule a 182-day school year, but that the two days lost to the Three Mile Island accident combined with a day lost because of snow, makes lengthening of the school year necessary.

However, he said that graduation for seniors will remain unchanged.

In the shadow of Three Mile Island, Middletown Area School District, remained closed.

For the Steelton-Highspire District it was “a good normal day” except that slightly fewer than half of the pupils were in attendance at Highspire Elementary school, according to Andy Padjen, high school principal. Part of Highspire is within the five-mile radius within which Gov. Dick Thornburgh has continued his recommendation that pregnant women and pre-school age remain away.

At the high school, Padjen said attendance was about 71 percent and no teachers were absent because of the Three Mile Island accident. Of those absent at the high school, Padjen said, “probably a good majority” were from Highspire.

LOWER DAUPHIN School District, which has two elementary schools within a five-mile radius of Three Mile Island, opened all schools except those two, which are in Conewago and Londonderry townships. All students living in the two townships are being excused from school, according to Dr. Henry Hoerner, superintendent.

At the West Shore School District’s Fishing Creek Elementary School, slightly more than five miles from Three Mile Island, Principal Ronald R. Shuey estimated that only 25 percent of the pupils were in class.

He said about half of the schools enrollment comes from within the five-mile radius, and all pupils from that area have been excused until further notice.

At neighboring Red Land High School, Principal Harry H. Finkelstein reported 648 of its 1,295 pupils were absent.

West Shore’s Newberry Elementary School remains closed because it is within the five-mile radius.

At East Pennsboro Area High School, principal Clarence G. Walters Jr. estimated a 10 percent absenteeism rate compared to a normal 5 percent.

At Good Hope Middle School in the Cumberland Valley School District, absenteeism was estimated at 20 percent by Dr. Anthony Colistra, principal.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 2, 1979
Title: Gas Bubble Decreasing, Radiation Levels Lower
Author: United Press International

HARRISBURG (UPI)-The crippled Three Mile Island nuclear reactor is steadily cooling down and the dangerous hydrogen bubble that blocked final shutdown efforts appears to have shrunk dramatically, a top Nuclear Regulatory Commission official reported today.

“I think it is certainly safer than yesterday,” said Harold Denton, NRC operations chief at the site, referring to the bubble which not only blocked final shutdown operations but also posed the risk of an internal reactor explosion.

Thousands of area residents, however, remain poised to evacuate if necessary.

DENTON SAID he still wanted to double check mathematical equations used to guess at the size of the bubble before saying with certainty the bubble had dramatically decreased in size. He said the calculation had been satisfactory while the bubble size was steady but may be flawed now because it leaves out other vrather than hours (on how to cool down the core),” Thompson told reporters at the NRC news center.

He also reported that general radiation levels outside the plant were declining although radiation inside the concrete containment building surrounding the reactor were at lethal levels.

It was because original efforts to eliminate the bubble produced no results that mass evacuation plans for the whole area were being considered.

Engineers at the site continued the slow process of starting to convert hydrogen gas in the containment building back to water to help cool the reactor.

The recombiners are designed to convert some of the hydrogen gas buildup in the containment building back into water by heating it with oxygen-a process similar to the way steam from a teapot is converted back into water vapor.

Once that is achieved, the engineers hope to use the reconverted water to help in the cooling process.

Success in the conversion attempt also would reduce the possibility of a second hydrogen gas explosion. Officials believe such an explosion damaged the facility last Wednesday, less than 10 hours after the nation’s worst nuclear accident began.

Authorities said the maneuver posed no new danger and Thornburgh-as if to stress that stance-ordered state employees to report for work as usual today in the state Capitol complex, 10 miles from the plant site. Carter-who 27 years ago was part of a Navy disaster in an experimental reactor at Chalk River in Canada-made a 26-minute on-site inspection of the mist-shrouded Three Mile Island plant Sunday. During his visit, he passed a wall of beige instrument panels that was covered with red, yellow, and white lights-and an occasional green one-showing the damaged reactor’s condition.

Later, he went to nearby Middletown, Pa., and told residents Thornburgh may have “to take further steps” to protect the population. He appealed to residents in the affected area to remain calm.

Civil Defense officials put six counties in central Pennsylvania on “advanced alert” Sunday for possible evacuation of the population in an area ranging up to 20 miles from the nuclear facility-some 636,000 people.

Thousands of residents already had fled the area because of the danger posed by the accident at the plant. There has been no official evacuation order, but Thornburgh suggested that pregnant women and pre-school children stay at least five miles away from the crippled nuclear facility.

The main task now faced by the engineers is to cool the reactor core so they can shut it down cold. Unless the fuel core can be cooled, the danger of a meltdown of the core-the worst possible nuclear catastrophe-could arise. The cooling process has been complicated by the hydrogen gas bubble engineers were now trying to eliminate.

Harold Denton, the Nuclear Regulatory Commision’s operation chief at the plant site, said the level of hydrogen in the containment building was increasing. But Denton said if the increase in hydrogen was due to a decrease in the size of the bubble, “that’s what we hoped to achieve.”

Carter, cheered and applauded enthusiastically by about 600 Middletown residents when he arrived at the local town hall, shook hands, grinned and waved to the crowd as he departed for Washington.

But inside the hall, the president appeared grim as he repeated three times that his main concern was the safety of the population.

“If we make an error, we want to err on the side of extreme caution and extra safety,” Carter said. “The health and safety of the people will be paramount.”

Carter stood in front of a basketball backboard-the town hall doubles as a community recreation center and, as of Sunday, served as the new NRC command post-with Thornburgh at his side.

He twice praised the townspeople for the calm with which they faced the nation’s worst nuclear accident and expressed “admiration of the citizens who behaved in such a calm manner.”

But Carter coupled the praise with an appeal to the people to remain calm “should Governor Thornburgh ask you to take further steps.”

Carter did not use the word “evacuate” or explain what “further steps” Thornburgh might ask people to take.

Joseph Hendrie, chairman of the NRC, has said it might be “prudent” to evacuate the entire population for up to 20 miles away from the nuclear plant if the hydrogen bubble which is complicating the cooling system cannot be eliminated by normal means and other, more risky methods must be attempted.

“Time is on our side in an event like this,” Denton said.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 2, 1979
Title: Most Residents in Carlisle Area are Staying Put
Author: Bill Weary

Most Carlisle area residents, considering themselves out of danger from Three Mile Island radiation are staying home.

Many of the 50,000 residents in the Cumberland, Dauphin, York and Lancaster County area who have left are from the Harrisburg-West Shore area.

But for Carlisle residents, a random telephone survey conducted by The Sentinel indicates, as one resident put it, “it would have to get pretty serious before we’d leave.”

Nonetheless, Charles Klotz, 34, 120 Garland Dr., said some of his friends with young children are leaving.

AND ONE BOROUGH woman, who lives in East North Street, said she and her family are concerned enough to leave today for her parents’ home in Arkansas.

She asked her name and exact address be concealed to prevent possible burglary of her home. Four other persons on her street are also leaving, she said.

“There are going to be a lot of people staying but I don’t feel it’s safe and my husband doesn’t feel it’s safe,” she said.

“I don’t want to risk my kids’ lives, that 40 years from now they may suffer some illness,” she said. “We probably should have left three or four days ago.”

The woman said one of their three children is a one-year old girl.

Fred A Schwarz, 32, 23 N. High St., Newville, said he had heard of some families between Plainfield and Newville leaving. Such cases, however, seem the exception rather than the rule.

“I’m going to stay until they give word,” Schwarz said, “Right now I’m not worried.”

IN FACT, Schwarz said he is currently hosting inlaws who live in the Harrisburg area. “They might stay with us until this is all over,” he said.

“I’m going to sit tight until something develops,” Daniel Raudabaugh, RDI Boiling Springs said.

“According to the current news, there’s no major cause for concern.” That, he said, is the consensus of his friends and neighbors.

“I’m not frightened at this point,” Margaret McBride, 324 S. Pitt St., said. “People seem to feel we’re far enough away.”

Frank Burkholder, 88, 84 Broad St., Newville, hasn’t considered leaving either. “Here’s my home, where I am,” he said. “It’s the only place I have to go…”

Some area residents may be staying for now-but with an eye toward quick departure if need be.

“We have packed our clothes and we’re getting ready,” Grace Miller, 68, RD Bonny Brook said. “If the warning comes, I hope we have time to get out.”

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 2, 1979
Title: Many Schools Close
Author: Deb Cline

While many schools within a 20-mile radius of Three Mile Island have closed, schools outside that area are preparing to receive residents in case a precautionary evacuation is called.

Schools and public institutions in the eastern part of the county, designated as the evacuation area, will be used as assembly points for evacuees. Such buildings in the western portion will be mass care centers.

County commissioners Sunday appealed to Governor Thornburgh to close all schools within proposed evacuation areas for the duration of the emergency.

Currently, he is only asking that schools within a five-mile radius of the plant be closed.

IN CUMBERLAND County, superintendents agreed Saturday it would be wise to close if an evacuation seemed imminent.

But Carlisle, Big Spring and South Middleton schools have remained open.

Most Harrisburg and West Shore area schools closed as did all Perry County school districts.

Mechanicsburg and Cumberland Valley schools, located within 20 miles of the plant, also were closed, more because of reduction of staff than anything else.

“We assessed the situation and found a large number of our teaching staff and support personnel have left the area because many of them are parents of small children,” Charles Shields, Mechanicsburg superintendent said.

“Also, an area of our district is Bowmansdale, which falls within a 10-mile radius of Three Mile Island,” he said. “We felt closing the schools was the intelligent thing to do since under the situation it would have been difficult to conduct classes.”

Samuel Sanzotto, Cumberland Valley superintendent, said in keeping with Governor Thornburgh’s requests that communities behave as normally as possible, he will attempt to reopen CV schools as soon as possible.

“I AM HAVING all my building principals take an inventory to see how many staff members have remained in the area,” Sanzotto said. “I would like to make plans to open our schools as soon as possible and we will be continually working along these lines.

In the meantime, other county schools remained open, with officials hoping an evacuation is not called during school hours.

Superintendents have told county commissioners it would take 1 ½ to four hours for schools to be prepared to receive evacuees from the east.

“If an evacuation is announced during the day that is a problem for us,” Harold North, Carlisle Schools superintendent, said. ” It appears some of the districts are assuming there will be evacuation imminent. I don’t know that.”

North and Carlisle School District has begun to prepare for evacuees, and the school will run the mass care centers in conjunction with local and county officials.

ALL CARLISLE school buildings, except possibly Penn Elementary, are expected to be used as mass care centers.

People in the district have already been placed in charge of various aspects of preparing for and operating mass care centers, such as security, physical facilities, custodial care, health services, food and even entertainment for evacuees.

North said the Red Cross and Carlisle Borough Civil Defense will help supply needed materials such as cots and blankets.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 2, 1979
Title: Evacuees Settle in at Hershey
Author: George Lobsenz, United Press International

HERSHEY-The hockey scoreboard loomed incongruously over the piles of pinkish-grey blankets and rows of canvas fold-out cots as Majette Willie wearily watched her three fidgety kids kick around a balloon.

After 24 mostly sleepless hours, Willie, 35, Middletown, had lost most of the fear that had driven her to call Hersheypark arena home.

But as she watched Gov. Dick Thornburgh and Lt. Gov. William Scranton III and their wives make their way through 50-odd pregnant women and pre-schoolers, she exuded a mixture of relief, resignation and thoughtfulness over what federal officials have called the country’s worst nuclear accident.

“I’m glad I came here,” she said, two days after Thornburgh recommended that all pregnant women and young children within five miles of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant evacuate.

“IT’S BEEN a relief to get my children away from there. Even if its just psychological, I feel I can breathe a bit easier,” she said.

At the same time, she reflected on a small irony that revealed “just how much we all have to learn” about the relative dangers of nuclear power.

“Just three weeks ago I decided not to put in a microwave oven because I had heard it gave off radiation. But I hadn’t even thought about the plant-and I only live about three miles away,” she added.

Nevertheless, she said she would not think about moving away from Three Mile Island.

“Where are we going to run away to? There’s nuclear power everywhere you go.”

Marlene Schierscher, 42, of Middletown shushed her little boy and girl and agreed.

“There’s nuclear plants all over the place. You’re not going to get away from it,” she said.

FURTHERMORE, she said she approved of nuclear power and said the country could not get along without it.

Thornburgh, who ordered the shelters for pregnant women and children set up at Hershey and York, thanked the evacuees for their cooperation and “moral fiber.”

Others at the arena did not share Shierscher’s and Willie’s good-natured acceptance of the Three Mile Island situation and the inevitability of nuclear power.

Harriet Baylor, 28, of Middletown said she wanted to move away from the plant.

“I want to leave. The next time this happens we may not make it to shelter. It’s just like the Bible says, man is going to end up destroying himself.”

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 2, 1979
Title: N-plant Closed Last Year
Author: United Press International

PHILADELPHIA (UPI)-For 30 seconds last November the Three Mile Island II nuclear power plant lost all water pressure in its reactor’s cooling system, the Philadelphia Bulletin reported Saturday.

Quoting a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission report, the newspaper said when temperatures around the reactor climbed, turbines shut it down, avoiding the possibility of a nuclear accident
THAT NOV. 7 incident was the most serious at the plant until Wednesday’s accident.

The circumstances of the November incident and other complaints lodged against the facility are detailed in the NRC safety reports of the plant.

The reports also reveal that production problems led Metropolitan Edison Co., the plant’s operators, to shut down the nuclear reactor three times in January-the first month that the reactor began producing energy commercially.

THE NRC reports indicate that most complaints lodged against the plant by federal inspectors have involved violation and equipment maintenance regulations.

Eldon Bruner, chief of nuclear plant inspectors for the NRC’s Northeastern regional office in Valley Forge, said Wednesday’s accident marked the first time a U.S. nuclear energy plant had experienced both a loss of water surrounding its nuclear core and an escape of radioactivity.

The Three Mile Island site was built in 1972.

Newspaper: Evening Sentinel
Date: April 2, 1979
Title: Let Us Proceed with the Truth
Author: Unknown

Pennsylvania should be lauded for their calmness in the face of an incredible breakdown in the dissemination of information over the crisis at Three Mile Island.

Granted, there never has been an emergency quite like this one, but all agencies involved-including the national news media-can be cited for irresponsibility in confusing the general public over just what is going on.

Metropolitan Edison Company and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission share initial blame. As late as Saturday, four days after the problem developed, Met-Ed and the NRC still were issuing conflicting statements, this time over the gas bubble which perils getting the damaged nuclear reactor into a cold shutdown mode.

People don’t know what to believe. It’s a wonder there hasn’t been general panic. In this tense atmosphere, NBC made it even worse by announcing a general evacuation order was imminent. Local television stations had to go to great lengths to say that just wasn’t true. No general evacuation order ahs been given.

In this situation, the entire news media is at the mercy of those in control at Three Mile Island. Until Met-Ed and the NRC agreed to consolidate their announcements, general confusion reigned. The NRC should, at the very least, have moved its general information office to Middletown immediately instead of waiting until this weekend. “Experts” were making statements out of Washington and elsewhere far removed from the actual events at Three Mile Island, adding to the misinformation.

Compounding the problem is the fact that nuclear proponents and opponents are speaking out whenever possible. Everybody’s taking a shot as to what this all means. While their concerns are justified, the impact on the general public has to be a consideration. These statements could cause more anxiety and alarm than the actual events themselves.

President Carter realized the extent of the problem when he said Sunday he personally would bear the responsibility to inform the American people about the incident.

The news media is not without blame. The crush of reporters and cameramen at Middletown is getting to be unbearable. Residents who moved to Hersheypark Arena have been treated as victims in a fishbowl; everybody wants an interview or a picture.

Thus far this crisis has taken on the appearances of a three-ring circus. Dangerous days still lie ahead; it behooves everyone to present the truth about what is happening at Three Mile Island and to proceed with orderly announcements of an evacuation, should that order indeed be given.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 2, 1979
Title: Evacuation Plan is Set; Six Counties are Alerted
Author: George Lobsenz, United Press International

HARRISBURG-State civil defense authorities have put six counties on “advanced alert” to evacuate-if Gov. Dick Thornburgh so orders-more than half a million central Pennsylvanians because of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident

The evacuation plan on the books that county civil defense authorities are poised to put into effect could eventually remove 636,000 people from within 20 miles of the stricken nuclear facility. Included in the stages of the plan are Dauphin, York, Lancaster, Perry, Cumberland and Lebanon counties.

Authorities said an evacuation would proceed according to the atmospheric conditions and wind velocities, determining which way and how fast radioactive emissions from the plant traveled.

John Comey, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Office of Emergency Management, said a plan has long been on the books to evacuate every single person from the State of Pennsylvania-about 12 million residents-if a catastrophe loomed.

Roland Page, deputy press secretary to Thornburgh, said there is a contingency plan-and the governor has not decided whether he will follow it-for high state officials to occupy the radiation-proof state civil defense command post beneath a state office building if an evacuation was called for.

There is also an existing civil defense plan for Thornburgh to set up headquarters at the Office of Emergency Management’s central Pennsylvania station in Selinsgrove, Pa., 40 miles north of Harrisburg.
PAGE WOULD not comment when asked what Thornburgh might do if the danger zone included Selinsgrove.

Comey said the state will coordinate the effort and provide housing, specialized care and food for those forced to flee.

Comey said the procedure would go by the following steps:

-Thornburgh or state Civil Defense Director Oran Henderson would broadcast the evacuation order-which is not mandatory for citizens-over the Emergency Broadcast System. Sirens, sound trucks and door-to-door warnings may also be used.
-County authorities would advise residents to leave by car and tell those with no means of transportation how to leave. “Some counties will ask people to stand on street corners and pick them up, others have set up staging areas where there will be school buses or whatever,” Comey said. The state Transportation Department will control traffic on designated evacuation routes.
-Evacuees will either stay in shelters in unaffected areas within their county or go to designated centers further away, depending on conditions.

COMEY SAID hospitals, prisons and nursing care centers were required to have their own evacuation plans. Mike Kaufher, of the Susquehanna Valley Health Care Consortium, an association of hospitals north of the endangered area, said the consortium would provide beds and transportation to Harrisburg and Hershey hospitals.

Thousands of central Pennsylvania residents have left the area on their own accord, although state officials had no figures on how many had fled.

The civil defense evacuation plan is also set up in geographic stages.

Within the five-mile radius, it would involve 24,522 residents of Dauphin, York, and Lancaster counties. Officials said they expected to be able to evacuate all residents within the five-mile radius within three or four hours.

People living in critical areas would either be sent outside the five-mile radius or to areas within the radius but upwind from the plant. Shelters were being readied in north and northeastern Pennsylvania.

Then, if the situation warranted additional evacuations, residents within a 10-mile radius and then a 20-mile radius would be asked to leave. A 10-mile radius evacuation would involve 133,672 persons and a 20-mile radius would involve 636,000.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said that it might be prudent to evacuation up to 200,000 persons living near the site before engineers take action to resolve a crisis at the nuclear plant caused by a hydrogen bubble in the reactor that poses the “remote” possibility of a core meltdown.

A core meltdown is the worst kind of nuclear catastrophe and could kill people and contaminate miles of land.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 2, 1979
Title: Nuclear Robot Arrives
Author: United Press International

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (UPI)-An electronically controlled robot, used for jobs in radioactive environments, was shipped to the stricken Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg during the weekend.

Officials here said they are not sure what use it will have at the crippled nuclear plant.

“The monitor manipulator is designed to operate at distances up to 700 feet from its control console,” said Harvey Cobart, Union Carbide’s director of public relations.

The robot, named “Herman,” is controlled by two technicians, who watch on two television monitors. Herman, designed by Carbide scientists in 1966 “walks” on tank-like treads.

Herman has been used twice recently. The robot recovered some lodged nuclear fuel pellets at a facility at the University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y., and also carried a dropped radioactive source at the University of the South in Sewanee to safety.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 2, 1979
Title: Dickinson Open, but Most Students Gone
Author: Bill Weary, the Evening Sentinel

With 60 percent of its student population gone, Dickinson College is suspending regular classes until next week.

But college administrators consider the institution still open, with dining, dormitory, and library facilities in operation-and even the length of time classes will be suspended is subject to change.

“Based on advice from the Cumberland County Office of Emergency Preparedness, the Governor and nuclear physicists on the faculty, Dickinson College continues to believe that there is no present danger in Carlisle from the Three Mile Island situation,” Dickinson president Sam Banks said in a prepared release Sunday afternoon.

STUDENTS WHO have left campus should return by 8 a.m. Monday, April 9, “when regular classes will resume unless otherwise notified,” Banks said.

He said “Dickinson will remain open and all normal operations of the college, including the library, dining hall, dormitories, and general support functions, will continue as scheduled.”

Some professors will conduct “special learning seminars” on subjects of their choice for students remaining on campus during the time regular classes are suspended, Banks said.

Charles Seller, executive assistant to the president, said Sunday afternoon about two-thirds of the students had left. He attributed the information to Bruce Wall, associate dean of residential services.

Seller said, however, “there has been no sign of large scale panic and there never has been any sign of high emotion on any scale” on campus.

Banks’ statement attributes the departures to “misleading, conflicting and sensationalized information disseminated by the national media (which has) made it difficult for many students and staff to asses the situation properly.”

JOHN ROSS, of the Dickinson College information office, said that while he was in Philadelphia Friday, he felt he “was coming back to a panicky situation” from listening to exaggerated radio accounts of the incident.

“The quality of information deteriorates with the distance,” he said. As a result Dickinson parents have been calling the college the last few days with calls of concern, he said.

Ross said less than 10 percent of the faculty have left. Departures have “been a trickle process rather than a process of mass exodus,” he said.

Area colleges that have closed all operations are Pennsylvania State University’s Capital Campus in Middletown, until April 9, and Harrisburg Area Community College.

Shippensburg State College is remaining open, according to Gary Willhide, director of public relations. He said he did not know if many students had left because of the nuclear reactor accident but said many parents have called the college over the weekend expressing concern.

Dickinson School of Law is scheduling classes as usual.