Category: Content Type (Page 17 of 36)

Newspaper: The Sentinel
Date: April 9, 1979
Article: Harold Denton: Hero of Three Mile Island?
Author: Jim Kershner

If anyone comes close to being a hero in the Three Mile Island crisis it is Harold R. Denton.

Denton, who President Carter said “has the confidence of the American people,” is the calm, sandy-haired nuclear engineer who was dispatched Thursday from the Department of Energy’s Rockville, Md., headquarters to take control of the situation.

Besides being the man on the scene with the president’s endorsement, Denton has also been the primary source of information for the hundreds of news correspondents who have gathered in Middleton to cover the incident.

Throughout the entire episode, including the first news conference when angry reporters bombarded him with often hostile questions, Denton kept his composure.

IN SPITE OF the fact that the anxious reporters shout out “Dr. Denton,” he does not hold a doctorate.
He is a 1958 graduate of North Caroline State College with a bachelor of science in nuclear engineering. He also did graduate work at the University of Maryland and was a participant in a reactor safety course sponsored by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority in 1967.

After graduation from college, Denton went to work for the DuPont company and participated in the design and operation of nuclear reactors at the Savannah River Plant of the Atomic Energy Commission operated by DuPont at Aiken, S.C.

In 1963 he went to work for the AEC himself, first as a reactor physicist, then a reactor inspector chief of the technical support branch of the compliance division, and assistant director of site and radiation safety.
In 1975 he was appointed director of the division of site safety and environmental analysis as the AEC changed its name to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

HIS CURRENT position is director of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. He and his wife, Lucinda, and their three children live in Rockville.

When he returns home he will have been transformed from an obscure member of the government’s vast bureaucracy into an internationally-known figure.

He will also have become famous as a man who reassured a nation with his calm demeanor while he headed a team that solved a problem fraught with incredible danger and complexity.

“There are no Red Adairs to come flying in from Texas and fix this like he puts out oil rig fires,” an NRC press officer said Sunday.

But there is Harold Denton.

Newspaper: The Sentinel
Date: April 9, 1979
Article: The rally: Not just activists
Author: Dennis O’ Brien

HARRISBURG – Like most rallies, impassioned radicals called for an end to Three Mile Island and its “nuclear time bomb.”

Folk singers led chants.

Petitions were signed and a number of bumper stickers and buttons were sold or handed out.

Marching demonstrators wore gas masks, shouted slogans and carried signs with sayings that read “Ban the nuke,” “Danger, radiation city,” and “Nuclear power is not healthy for little children and other living things.”

But there was something different at this demonstration – something that set it apart from the antiwar rallies of the 60s.

MOST OF THE demonstrators, out under cloudy skies Sunday on the Capital steps, were not the fire breathing activists or militant reactionaries that called for an end to Vietnam before it became popular.

They were central Pennsylvania’s middle class. Factory workers, preschool children, old men and mothers – the type you might see on a floor wax commercial or in a cigarette advertisement.

Mixed in with the long hair, the blue jeans and the army jackets, were the hard hats, the baby carriages and the teenagers in football jerseys.

“The whole TMI thing is something that’s got me worried,” said Angela Herrider, a Middletown resident and the mother of two children.

“It’s the kind of thing husbands and wives are fighting about. The husbands are saying there’s no danger and the wives want their kids out of there,” she said.

Herrider, with one five-year old and one eight-year old, said she intended to go back to college, but is now using the money she saved for tuition to enroll her children in a private school in Maryland.

“WITH RADIATION, the things is, you never know about the effects,” said another mother from Mechanicsburg. She looks to the crowd of about 1,000 people at the rally and adds, “The reason only this many people showed up is that they’re still afraid to come out… and I’m talking about my neighbors.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Thomas Winters, a physician from the University of Massachusetts, told the crowd that “there’s nothing you can do to run from the (radiation’s) effects.

“There are two ways you can battle with the end effects, though,” said Winter, a member of a group called Physicians for Social Responsibility.

“You can use a very complicated and expensive method of chemical treatments, or you can just make sure that no nuclear plants like Three Mile Island are ever built,” Winters said to a cheering crowd.
The rally slated for 2 p.m. at the capitol, was planned by Three Mile Island Alert, a group that has opposed TMA for several years.

BUT IT WAS apparent from the rally that the group was not a full-time organization, or one that was used to planning major assemblies.

At times, the public address system failed. They ran out of copies for the press of the list of speakers and their names.

There were repeated pleas for money and most of the eight or ten speakers were concerned local residents, not polished performers.

Dr. Judith Johnsrud, co-director of the statewide Environmental Coalition on Nuclear Power, charged that Metropolitan Edison had been illegally operating unit two of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant since it started up Dec.31.

She claimed there were no environmental impact statements filed before the unit began operating and the plant violated certain safety requirements of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act.

She said the group has filed a petition in the Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. stating that the plant’s license was improperly issued.

If the group wins the case, Met Ed, the government and the plant’s designers will be liable for the damages, Johnsrud said.

“You were told that this type of accident couldn’t happen now you know that it could,” she said. “How ready were you to evacuate, did you have your birth certificates, your insurance policies and your other records packed and ready? How informed were you? she asked.

Ken Cassidy, a factory worker from Middletown told the crowd that he was very concerned about the Three Mile Island and about the lack of information he had about the incidents,
WITH A pregnant wife and a 14-month-old baby, he said he didn’t know who to believe.

“They waited 2½ days before telling us that we should leave the area,” said Cassidy.

He adds that in the near future he intends to leave the area permanently.

“They claim that the biggest advantages to nuclear power are that it’s safe, that it’s inexpensive and that it’s all right for the environment, but I think this has shown that it’s not safe, it’s not cheap and it’s not going to be around, I hope,” he said.

Renny Cushing, a founder of the antinuclear Clamshell Alliance, based in Seabrook, N.H., said the alliance was supporting the antinuclear drive in Pennsylvania.

“They said that it’s safe now at Three Mile Island, and that the danger’s over. But it’s not over, it’s only beginning.”

Newspaper: The Sentinel
Date: April.9, 1979
Article: Thornburgh questions nuclear power
Author: Scott Macleod

HARRISBURG – Gov. Dick Thornburgh, a supporter of nuclear energy during his campaign for the governorship last year, says in the aftermath of Three Mile Island he is skeptical of nuclear power because of safety risks.

During his 1978 gubernatorial campaign, Thornburgh said he supported development of the nuclear industry providing safeguards could be assured.

Thornburgh said he had doubts about a reopening of the Three Mile Island facility, owned mostly by Metropolitan Edison Co. “I want to know if its safe,” he said.

The governor, who was in office only 72 days when the accident occurred March 28, indicated he believed he does not – and never has had – intractable views bout the safety of nuclear power.

“I can’t carry out my responsibilities to govern this state if there is an uneasiness in my mind or the public’s mind about the safety of any kind of facility,” said Thornburgh, who appeared weary from the strain of events.
Here are some answers Thornburgh gave during the interview:

Why Thornburgh advised pregnant women and little children to leave the five-mile radius of Three Mile Island:

“The facts as presented by Harold Denton (the U.S. Nuclear Regulator Commission’s No.1 man on the scene) and by relevant environmental and health people indicated that they have not completed the processes which would reduce to zero the probability for occasional puffs, small amounts of radiation.
“We don’t want people who are susceptible to be there.”

When Thornburgh will give the signal for pregnant women and little children to return to their homes:
“The kind of advice I’m looking for from Denton and the technological side is that they’ve licked these problems (of radiation leakage) and the assessment from our health and environmental people that it is therefore safe for these susceptible people to return.

“The hope that was expressed was that it would be in a short period of time.”

Why Thornburgh did not order evacuation of almost half million persons although the state civil defense was ready to do it if necessary:

“When we had a briefing by Mr. Denton (on March 30), it was apparent that there was no cause for an evacuation at that time.”

Newspaper: The Sentinel
Date: April 10, 1979
Article: We learned from it
Author: Frank Masland

To the Editor:

The fact I regard the Three Mile Island incident as a happy accident calls for an explanation.

Ever since we started fooling with methods of generating nuclear energy we have wondered what would happen in the event something went wrong. At Three Mile Island just about everything went wrong. We were advised some six factors contributed to the incident. The prophets of doom have contended the result of an accident would be a major tragedy wiping out multitudes of lives.

I think we can be glad for what happened at Three Mile. Everything went wrong and nobody got hurt – which speaks volumes for the safety factor. What is more we learned a lot and the only price we pay is in dollars and cents. When an airplane crashes and 150 people stay down, we pay a price, not only in dollars and cents, but in human lives and a repetition of such accidents would indicate that we don’t learn very much.

It is good this accident happened for from this experience all the nations of the world involved in the process of generating nuclear energy will benefit. It is good it happened in the United States rather than in Russia. Had it happened there, the rest of the world probably would not have heard about it, certainly would not have been given the opportunity to learn anything from it.

Let us keep in mind the deplorable fact that a technological society is an accident prone society and congratulate ourselves that, at this point in history when we so urgently need new sources of energy, it would appear we have developed a process that can go truly haywire and the only short range and long range injury is to our pocketbook.

Frank Masland
Carlisle

To the Editor:

“Nuclear Energy is out to get me,” is a fear locked within the knowledge of a vast number of the populous.
Nuclear Energy, as a threat to our existence and creativity, has been demonstrated from its early experimentation and use. Surely dabblers in nuclear energy, past and present, have ruined it for us all. They have terrorized us with warring instruments and progressively terrorized with peaceful instruments. How can one find peace and safety with something that creates much negative effect?

We blundered our present chance for a safe and positive nuclear instrument, by the course we started and still maintain. We do however, have chances remaining to implement 100 percent safe and peaceful instruments. Instruments that will not infringe on anyone’s natural freedoms, instruments that will not breed discord, disorientation, distress or fear.

They will not cause harm to air, water, plant or animal. They will not be instruments of excessive profit for dishonest dabblers.

Until we discover that place within ourselves that demands total honesty first with oneself then with everyone we contact, threats of doom exist. Nuclear energy is not a front runner of these threats.

E.L. Stum
Carlisle

To the Editor:

For most of my life, I have lived under the comfortable threat of the “Nuclear Age.” The threat has been comfortable simply because it was no threat at all, but rather a mild topic for mild discussion on the relative instability of life itself.

Nuclear explosion, nuclear energy, nuclear family, etc., were simply titles for something unknown and realistically unrelated to my own reality. Nuclear anything was something for scientists to deal with, to play with, and take care of for the rest of us. It never before occurred to me that no one knew anything about it. I have always assumed that “someone” did, somewhere, thus taking the entire matter comfortably out of my hands, and off my mind.

What the recent incident at Three Mile Island nuclear plant has done, with embarrassing suddenness, is put nuclear everything onto my mind for the first time in 18 comfortable years of the “Nuclear Age.” Now, with no provocation on my innocent part, I want to know what it all means – nuclear holocaust, nuclear reactors, nuclear age. I want to know why I never wanted to know anything about it before. The infant gurglings of my general sensibilities say “Why didn’t anyone tell me to want to know anything about it?”
It occurs to me, and this is the thought I hoped to share with persons out there in your readership who may have similar thoughts, that most of us, including myself – average, depend with our very lives on people, figments really off in the distance, who we do not know, but trust because we assume that they – or it – someone or something knows what we do not (and therefore do not think we need to know). I will watch carefully the discussions which I am sure will be appearing in the papers and other media, about this issue, and any other issue where a lot of people who are supposed to know the same things, disagree about the same things. I will perk up when I hear probabilities of error where human beings are involved placed at 600,000,000,000 to 1. And I am not sure if I will ever be comfortable in quite the same way, again.
Perhaps others, like me, will try to keep a finger placed a little closer to the pulse of the world around us, to prevent, at the very least, a lot of little surprises.

Tammy Smith
Carlisle

Newspaper: The Sentinel
Date: April 10, 1979
Article: Safe or not, a couple ‘never going back’
Author: United Press International

MARIETTA, Pa. (UPI) – Mark and Julie Sipling are never going to return to their farmhouse a half-mile from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.

“I don’t care if Governor (Dick ) Thornburgh says it is safe to return, we are never going back,” said Julie Sipling, 22, holding her 13-month-old daughter, Debbie. “We are never going to take her back up there.”
Thornburgh announced Monday that it was safe for pregnant women and preschool children to return to their homes within a five-mile radius of Three Mile Island – site of the U.S’ worst nuclear power plant accident.

MOST HEADED BACK home, some joyfully, but the Siplings say they will never return to their rented farm.

It was March 30, two days after the Three Mile Island accident that the governor advised pregnant women and small children in the area to leave because of the possible effects of radiation.

The Siplings’ farmhouse kitchen overlooked the four huge cooling towers of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant – a mere half mile away.

An hour after the governor’s announcement, they were packed and on their way to the home of Mark’s parents in Marietta, about 10 miles to the southeast.

The decision not to go back was made over the weekend.

“We have had it there,” Mrs. Sipling said, shaking her head.

“I’m just so glad to get out of that place. I never want to see the cooling stacks of that plant again.

“MARK IS GOING TO drive up and collect our stuff and then we are moving to somewhere where we can have more peace of mind,” she said. “Mark does not trust that place anymore.”

On that tense Friday the Siplings left, Mrs. Paula Richmond, who lives on a hilltop overlooking the site, also evacuated with her daughter Michelle, 7, and son, Larry Jr., 2, to stay with her parents in Williamsport, Pa., about 100 miles to the north.

When informed that all precautionary measures had been lifted, Mrs. Richmond said: “Good! I’ll eat my supper and leave immediately for home.”

Her husband, a Teamsters truck driver who is on strike, has been staying alone in their home since the voluntary evacuation.

“I personally don’t have no fears, but I hope there will be nothing wrong with the children in the long run,” she said. “We were exposed to the worst of it. Little Larry…was playing right outside when the big whoosh came.”

Newspaper: The Sentinel
Date: April 10, 1979
Article: ‘Survival’ party planned for Goldsboro
Author: Deb Cline

State Rep. Eugene Geesey, R-92, wants to help the residents around Three Mile Island prove something to the world.

To do it, he’s planning a big party in the Goldsboro area for them, the national media, the president, the governor and his staff and others after a cold shutdown is achieved at the crippled nuclear power plant.
Goldsboro is one of the towns closest to Three Mile Island.

The bash will feature entertainment and refreshments made from all local products to prove to the world that there’s nothing wrong with Central Pennsylvania meat, milk, or candy – or people.

“OUR AREA GOT a whole lot of adverse national publicity” during Three Mile Island, Geesey said. “If something isn’t done to counteract it soon, this could end up as a sort of depressed area.”

Geesey hopes the Three Mile Island ‘survival’ party will prove to the national media “that our ears didn’t fall off, our hair didn’t turn green, that we are normal human beings living in a healthy area.”

It is also designed to give the people living near the plant a good time after their ordeal last week, to get them “thinking good things again.”

The giant get-together could happen as soon as April 29 but Geesey is waiting for the cold shutdown before a definite date is announced.

HE’S WORKING with the Fairview Township supervisors and Goldsboro emergency preparedness director to organize the affair. And he hopes local people will donate some of their products, including local pigs and steers for roasting, Hershey chocolate bars, milk and other products.

Some of these products are reportedly being rejected outside the area because of fear that they might be contaminated with radiation.

Geesey said one farmer took his pigs to auction, but they were not accepted.

Another person had his canned goods rejected in New Jersey.

Rumor has it some grocery stores in Baltimore have posted signs outside saying they do not sell Pennsylvania products.

“We will use all local products to prove to the rest of the country there just isn’t a darn thing wrong with them,” Geesey said.

Newspaper: The Sentinel
Date: April 10. 1979
Article: Action promised by NRC’s Hendrie
Author: United Press International

WASHINGTON (UPI) – Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Joseph Hendrie promised Congress today his agency will “take whatever steps are necessary” to prevent accidents like the one that crippled the Three Mile Island power plant.

But, he said, “operator errors” caused the March 28 mishap and there is no need to shut down other atomic plants of the same design.

“We believe there is reasonable assurance that the plants can continue to operate without danger to the public health and safety,” he told the Senate Nuclear Regulation Subcommittee.

HENDRIE SAID the government should examine the regulatory framework for nuclear power instead of “just thinking of improved hardware or other technical fixes” as a means of preventing future accidents.
“We cannot tolerate accidents of this kind and we must take whatever steps are necessary to prevent them,” he testified.

Hendrie called for a re-examination of the ability of all nuclear plants to deal with emergencies, upgrading training for reactor operators, increasing emphasis on safety regulations in the steam-producing units of such plants and reviewing NRC licensing procedures. Hendrie revealed that some members of the NRC “senior staff and various commissioners” had proposed either stronger warnings to “or actual evacuation of people within a two or five-mile circle around Three Mile Island” between March 30 and April 1.

BUT HE SAID because NRC staff members at the plant were more optimistic, he did not recommend that Pennsylvania Gov. Richard Thornburgh order the evacuation.

Subcommittee chairman Gary Hart, D-Colo., said in opening the hearing that while the NRC is on trial, so is Congress. But he added, “This investigation will be neither a witch-hunt nor a cover-up.”

Hart and Sen. Jennings Randolph, D-W. Va., chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, asked the Senate Monday to authorize a special investigation of the Pennsylvania power plant accident and for the extra money to pay for it.

“Although the president has announced the creation of an independent commission of experts to study the accident, it cannot replace the Congress’ obligation,” Hart said.

The subcommittee has oversight responsibility over the commission, meaning it approves its budget and has authority to raise questions about its operations.

HART SAID THE subcommittee’s questions would include:

– How the accident happened and whether there were early warnings.
– Whether the commission should have responded sooner.
– Why state and local evacuation plans had not been tested in accordance with federal regulations.
– Whether the commission depends too much on utility company information in setting license requirements.
– Who should play for the accident and the cleanup.

Newspaper: The Sentinel
Date: April 10, 1979
Article: Governor signals all clear; schools open, safe to return
Author: United Press International

HARRISBURG (UPI) – Schools shut down by the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant reopened today and school life returned to normal.

After an unscheduled recess, the 23 schools in the Susquehanna River Valley that were closed because of radiation leaks from the nuclear facility were back in business.

“I think the kids have had a pretty good lesson about Three Mile Island over the last 10 days,” said W. Reed Ernst, superintendent of the Middletown Area School District by the power plant site.

“We were anxious to get back right away. Everything’s back to normal now. We’re picking up right where we left off,” he said.

“THEY SAY THEY hate school, but they’re glad to see their friends again and basically I think they like it,” said Glenwood T. Solomon, principal of Fink Elementary School down the road from the disabled nuclear reactor.

Michelle Richmond, 7, who stood in the shadow of the Three Mile Island cooling towers waiting for her yellow school bus, was happy to be getting back to her school. Her mother temporarily enrolled her in a school in Williamsport, Pa., 100 miles north.

“I really didn’t want her to miss much,” she said.

The schools were reopened after assurances from Gov. Dick Thornburgh that the nation’s worst commercial nuclear power accident was safely under control. He gave the go-ahead after advice from Harold Denton, chief trouble-shooter on the scene for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

In a statement Monday, the governor also advised pregnant women and little children that they could return home within a five-mile radius they fled 10 days ago because of radiation leakage.

ALTHOUGH LEAKS of radiation, such as cancer-causing iodine isotope that showed up in traces of milk samples are still above normal, Denton said they have dropped rapidly toward normal levels.

Radiation readings had decreased to 1 millirem per hour over the plant and .02 millerem per hour on the adjacent banks of the Susquehanna River, he said. A reading of .01 millirem is normal in the area.

“I consider the crisis over today with regard to the core,” he said. As an indication, state civil defense authorities, who have been on “full alert” status to evacuate almost 400,000 Harrisburg area residents since the accident, are now “on call” status only.

Only a week ago, experts still believed a core meltdown was possible. That is the worst possible accident that could befall a commercial reactor. Occurring when the core cooling system fails to carry off the heat of radioactive decay, a meltdown could produce a cloud of lethal gases capable of killing thousands and contaminating a wide area. WITH THE MAIN danger averted, technicians concentrated on bleeding gases from the reactor’s primary cooling system by means of a delicate thermodynamic balancing act between pressure and temperature.

It was a slow and risky process because excessive gas buildup from too low a temperature or pressure could spawn another explosive bubble in the reactor vessel or damage the piping.

After perhaps one more degassing attempt, the experts will be poised for the final step toward cold shutdown – one that could begin as early as Friday, said Denton.

The two-phased shutdown calls for the reactor temperature to be lowered carefully below the boiling point of water while enough pressure is maintained to prevent gases from coming out of solution.

WHEN THE PRESSURE of the primary coolant water is finally lowered to atmospheric levels, the reactor will be in what Denton called “a benign state.”

Robert M. Bernero, an NRC expert, said sporadic leaks of radioactive xenon gas were still occurring, but that they were impossible to control.

Paul Critchlow, Thornburgh’ press secretary, confirmed that the NRC had detected higher than normal radiation levels around the plant Monday afternoon, but said there was no cause for alarm.

Newspaper: The Sentinel
Date: April 11, 1979
Article: For most, the crisis wasn’t that bad
Author: Deb Cline

Three Mile Island hasn’t been all bad.

In spite of increased anxiety, threats of radiation exposure and possible evacuation felt by many and the uncertain longterm economic results of the nuclear accident, local mental health professionals have seen some positive sides to the crisis.

The good things about the accident are most apparent in the way people view themselves and their friends and family and the way people worked together during the most serious moments.

“In crisis, people do evaluate where they are, where they’ve been and where they’d like to go,” said Stephen Coslett, a clinical psychologist and Dickinson College professor.

“That can be a healthy thing for couples and other people, too.”

People re-evaluate, Coslett said, because until a crisis jolts them out of their daily routine, they often get into a rut.

“THEY DON’T ever really step back and take a look.”

During a potential life or death situation, he added, “some things don’t seem so important. (People begin to think) maybe there are some bigger things in life than that.”

John Calhoun, coordinator of Holy Spirit Hospital’s crisis intervention center, agrees crises such as Three Mile Island probably cause people to re-examine their priorities in life.

But he said, “that is an immediate kind of thing. Whether it continues on a long term basis, I don’t know.”
According to David McLane, Carlisle Counseling Center director, TMI may also have jolted people into some other kinds of thinking.

“I have sensed a greater sensitivity on the part of adults to their children because a great deal of the unknown about the accident focuses on children 10 years of age and younger. It has created some enhanced sensitivity to kids,” McLane said.

COSLETT SAW benefits for the entire family during the height of Three Mile Island.

“Families, the ones who left, took care of themselves. They didn’t depend on county or local officials. That sent a real important message to kids,” Coslett said.

“You saw a lot of very busy professional people leaving. It said to the kids, ‘I may be at the office an awful lot , but when the chips are down, we’re here.’

“It said loud and clear, ‘When it gets to push and shove, you guys are first.’ That was a good message for an awful lot of families.

“I was pleased they took care of themselves,” he said. “Being head of a family is a difficult thing. This was one time they acted as a family and did a good job. I like that.”

Coslett believes the fact that people could leave the area if they wanted to was healthy, perhaps cutting down on crisis intervention calls or visits to mental health centers during the crisis.

THE NUMBER of calls to the Holy Spirit crisis intervention center, though, has increased since the crisis calmed, a not altogether unexpected occurrence, according to Calhoun.

Calhoun said the reaction of people during past disasters indicates there is a lull in calls during a crisis, but that calls pick up after the crisis has abated.

“Our work definitely has increased in relation to anxiety related to the event,” Calhoun said.

He said the number of calls may have increased 10 to 20 percent their usual level. They “are mostly an expression of they felt while they were going through it, some uneasiness, nothing drastic.”

McLane said the number of calls taken by the Carlisle Counseling Center’s crisis intervention center has not increased at any point during Three Mile Island. However, they may increase several months from now, depending on the longterm impact of the accident.

“The degree of economic impact will affect the referrals coming to us,” McLane said. “Loss of a job, high utility payments, things like that tend to precipitate mental health problems.”

BUT NO ONE yet knows how serious the longterm impact will be, or if there will be any.

The immediate psychological and emotional reactions of many persons to Three Mile Island included fear, depression, preoccupation with the accident, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, attempts to keep very busy, denial and anger.

Dr. John Mira, associate medical director of the Carlisle Counseling Center, said such symptoms are normal during a crisis but should disappear within a few weeks of the event.

More longterm reactions, Mira said, may be manifestations of latent emotional problems. Or, they may become part of the reactions of already severely neurotic or psychotic individuals.

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

But psychological and emotional reactions would have been expected to be more severe if Three Mile Island had resulted in loss of life or damage to land surrounding the plant.

IF EVACUATION had been necessary, some individuals would probably have reacted with extreme denial, refusing to leave their homes under any circumstances.

“For some people, their home is their source of security,” Costlett said. “Evacuation is very traumatic for those people.” “Although a small percentage, these people would almost rather die on their front porch than leave. Their attitude is, “I pay my taxes. This is my castle. This is my security.”

Coslett believes, however, that most people reacted well to the situation, either leaving if that made them feel better or working on their own contingency plan.

Keeping busy in other ways was another good way to cope, according to Calhoun.

But, he said, “That does not mean you should be blocking out or completely forgetting about what’s happening. It’s out there and it’s real. It’s just as healthy to talk about it and get out your feelings and frustrations and anxiety. It’s always good to do that.”

Coslett believes it is a lot easier to cope with definite news even if it is negative than news that is uncertain.

Frequent conflicting reports about Three Mile Island didn’t help matters.

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

MIRA BELIEVES some uncertainty, perhaps fear, will continue until the Three Mile Island accident is at least a year old.

“If they start up the plant again, people will be uncomfortable until one year goes by. If nothing happens then, they will probably be able to accept it.

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

But although some negative aspects of the accident may remain, Coslett believes the positive attitude reflected in many Three Mile Island teeshirts (I survived Three Mile Island”) may prevail.

“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 trauma in thinking that we coped with the greatest nuclear power disaster in the world and we came out of it okay.”

Editor’s Note: Portions of this story appeared in the Wednesday, April 4, Evening Sentinel.