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Newspaper: The Patriot
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: Most School Districts in Area Expect to Reopen Wednesday
Author: John Troutman and Bob Gentzel, Staff Writers

With reports that the nuclear crisis at Three Mile Island appears to be easing and the state Department of Education applying pressure, most area school districts will reopen Wednesday.

The education department’s pressure on school districts, which fall outside a five-mile radius of the plant, to reopen is being applied even though most school buses throughout the area are supposed to be on standby in the event an evacuation is ordered.

Kevin Molloy, director of the Dauphin County Office of Emergency Preparedness, said he was “very concerned” about schools reopening and indicated he planned to discuss this matter with state officials.

As of late Monday, the following school districts had announced the resumption of all classes Wednesday morning:

East Shore-Central Dauphin, Derry Twp., Susquehanna Twp. and the Dauphin County Technical School.

West Shore-Camp Hill, Cumberland Valley, East Pennsboro Area, Mechanicsburg Area, Northern York County and Cumberland-Perry Area Vocational-Technical School.

The Capital Area Intermediate Unit also announced the resumption of all special education classes Wednesday, and the Diocese of Harrisburg announced that all Catholic schools in Dauphin, Cumberland, York, Lebanon and Lancaster counties would reopen Tuesday.

Benjamin F. Turner, superintendent of the Harrisburg School District, said city schools “probably will be reopened Wednesday” if adequate staff can be summoned.

He said many staff members have left the area with their families and school officials will spend Tuesday “trying to recall staff and getting the word out that we want to reopen Wednesday.”

Classes in the Lower Dauphin School District will resume Wednesday for all students except those living in Conewago and Londonberry townships, municipalities which fall within a five-mile radius of the plant, according to Henry Hoerner, school superintendent.

Hoerner said that Conewago and Londonberry elementary schools will remain closed indefinitely and all secondary students living within the two townships also would be excused from classes until further notice.

OFFICIALS OF the Steelton-Highspire School District said Monday night that no decision had yet been made on reopening, but 24 hours’ notice would be given before schools are reopened.

The Middletown School District will remain closed indefinitely since all district schools fall within a five-mile radius of the plant.

West Shore School District will open all buildings except the Newberry Elementary School Wednesday morning, said Jacob N. Wentzel, superintendent.

He added that “students living within five miles of Three Mile Island will continue to be excused from attendance until further notice.”

Friday, three West Shore Schools-Newberry, Fishing Creek Elementary, and Red Land High School, were evacuated by civil defense officials when schools in five miles were ordered closed. But Wentzel said Fishing Creek and Red Land are just outside the five-mile limit, and were evacuated as a precaution.

In Perry County, civil defense officials said three of the four school districts that were closed Monday in case they were needed as evacuation centers will reopen Tuesday.

David Fry, county civil defense director, said classes would resume Tuesday in West Perry, Newport, and Greenwood school districts.

FRY SAID the Susquenita School District, the only Perry County District to fall within a 20-mile evacuation ring from the nuclear generating plant, will remain closed Tuesday, but will reopen Wednesday if the emergency is lifted.

He said the schools were originally closed by superintendents after being advised by civil defense officials that the county’s fleet of school buses should be on standby to help move up to 9,000 county residents who reside within 20 miles of Three Mile Island.

The announcement of school reopenings were issued in rapid-fire order this morning between Robert Scanlon, secretary of the department of education, the executive directors of three Central Pennsylvania intermediate units, and several district superintendents.

Department spokeswoman Ann Witmer said Scanlon “encouraged the districts to reopen as soon as they possibly can.”

He also told the educators that school districts outside a five-mile radius of Three Mile Island will be required to make up any days they missed because of the nuclear incident “much as they would a snow day,” she said.

Since the governor asked that schools within the five miles be closed and that request still stands, those schools wont be required to make up those lost days, she said. Thus, Middletown wouldn’t be required to make up any days, because all its schools are within five miles.

BUT SHE said no final decision has been made on the status of West Shore and Lower Dauphin, which have some schools within the five-mile radius.

Those districts may be required to make up the days lost by pupils whose schools lie outside the five-mile radius.

West Shore Superintendent Wentzel said that if the department does require some of his schools to make up days, “I have a problem with that. I think we were placed in an unusual hardship.”

If the district is forced to make up days, they will be made up by all schools, including Newberry Elementary, he said.

Several districts which had closed had said they couldn’t operate Monday because of the numbers of teachers and pupils who had left the area, and others had expressed concern about the possibility of having pupils in schools when an evacuation was ordered.

But Scanlon promised the educators he would recommend to Thornburgh that in the event a “planned evacuation” becomes necessary, the announcement be made “outside school hours,” Witmer said.

And word that the governor was pressing to have schools reopened-relayed locally by Capital Area Intermediate Unit Director D. Bruce Conner, who attended the meeting with Scanlon-was read by many school officials as a signal that the greatest danger had passed.

Mechanicsburg Superintendent Charles E. Shields said he decided to reopen based on the governor’s request, coupled with reports that the nuclear reactor was being brought under control and a decision on evacuation was being “postponed.”

Harrisburg’s Turner said he was not upset over the school district having to make up the missed days.

Newspaper: The Patriot
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: Humane Society has Evac Plans
Author: Unknown

Plans have been made to evacuate animals from the Harrisburg Humane Society to other animal shelters should a mass evacuation be called for, according to Mrs. Blair Claybaugh, president of the local group.

The animals would be taken to the Women’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, using ambulances from both the local and Philadelphia society.

And a large U-haul van has been reserved to take the rest of the approximately 300 animals presently housed at the shelter, should such an evacuation become necessary.

Mrs. Claybaugh urged pet owners to make every effort to take their pets with them should they leave the area. “We are already experiencing problems with hurt animals, apparently owned animals that have been abandoned when their owners left the Harrisburg area,” she said.

“No one likes to see the broken bones and bashed in faces of animals hit by cars” she said “and we therefore urge compassion for pets as well as people in this time of crisis.”

Mrs. Claybaugh said “while we cannot refuse to accept animals at our shelter, we cannot be responsible for their ultimate safety.”

Mrs. Claybaugh said the society would appreciate financial aid and volunteer help if the animals must be evacuated.

Newspaper: The Patriot
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: First Baby Born to Evacuee in Midst of Nuclear Scare
Author: Tom Kelchner, Staff Writer

Picture Caption: This 5-pound, 10 ounce unnamed baby girl will have a lot to talk about when she gets older. Her mother, Mrs. Cynthia Simpson of Harrisburg, was at the Hersheypark Arena evacuation center prior to delivering her baby Monday morning at Holy Spirit Hospital.

As one might expect in an evacuation center full of pregnant women, nature took its course Monday.

One of the evacuees at Hersheypark Arena delivered the child she was expecting and five more could be along at any time, according to Red Cross Shelter Manager Bruce Beaton.

Cynthia Simpson, 24, of 1949 (illegible) Road, was taken from the shelter to Holy Spirit Hospital Monday morning and delivered a 5-pound, 10-ounce daughter at 11:10 a.m. hospital officials said.

Beaton said there are five other expectant mothers among the 200 (illegible) who are staying at the center.

The center is equipped to cope with any births which might occur on short notice, he said.

A fully equipped obstetrics room staffed by registered nurses and a physician has been set up at the center in addition to a staffed infirmary, he said.

Red Cross and Herco staff fed supper to 216 persons Monday evening, he said, after the group watched a magician and Walt Disney movies throughout the day.

“Hershey Arena people are really great,” Beaton said.

“Anything we want we ask they get it, they’re really super. Every request we’ve had they’ve honored.”
About 55 evacuees from Frey Village Retirement Center in Middletown have settled into the South Mountain Restoration Center in Franklin County after being transported there Saturday in buses and ambulances, according to center administrator Donald Downs.

The center, run by the state Department of Public Welfare, has facilities to handle 1,000 residents but only had about 750 before the evacuees arrived, Downs said.

An additional 16 residents of the Homeland Nursing Home at 1901 N. Fifth St. were taken to South Mountain, he said.

“They survived the trip very well, they’re comfortable and well fed,” he said.

About 30 staff members at the center have volunteered to work double shifts of 16 hours and volunteers have helped the evacuees when they arrived and since, Downs said.

“We’re prepared to take care of them until the crisis is over,” he said.

Another 21 Homeland residents were sent to a second evacuation center in Franklin County on the campus of Wilson College in Chambersburg, this weekend, according to Homeland Resident coordinator Ginny Capp.

Capp said the 21 at Wilson are staying in Disert Hall Dormitory and are taking their meals at college dining facilities.

“In a way it was a big adventure for them,” she said.

“School students (from Wilson) have been coming down and talking to residents to help them along and cheer them up,” she said.

Capp said she and the residents found Chambersburg peaceful after “the high anxiety level in Harrisburg.”

Newspaper: The Patriot
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: Mass Transit Figures in Exit
Author: Randy Myers, Staff Writer

Area transportation industries and related concerns figure prominently in the mass evacuation plans of county and state emergency officials.

Those industries were affected widely over the weekend in the wake of voluntary evacuation by thousands of area residents fleeing potential disaster at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station.

Gasoline and bus ticket sales soared over the three-day period.

Gas station managers throughout Dauphin, Cumberland and York counties reported sales increases varying from 20 to 300 percent.

A spokesman for Greyhound Bus Lines in Harrisburg said ridership out of Harrisburg on Friday, Saturday and Sunday was about 40 percent higher than during the same period last year.

Spokesmen at both Trailways Bus Lines and Capital Area Transit said ridership was normal for the three-day period.

At Harrisburg International Airport, spokesmen for TWA and Alleghany airlines said ridership was normal, and a spokesman for Altair Airlines said passenger counts were down.

AN AMTRACK spokeswoman said passenger traffic to and from Harrisburg was normal throughout the weekend.

The greatest effect on transportation was evidenced in gasoline sales, with at least one station running out of fuel as early as noon Saturday.

Ralph Glatfelter said a 40 percent increase in sales emptied pumps at his York County Exxon station in Dover at noon Saturday.

“Friday was ridiculous,” Glatfelter said, and by Monday things weren’t much different.

“$2, $1.85, $3” were the size of many purchases, he said.

“Gallons per sale were lower than normal,” he said, indicating a higher volume of customers purchasing smaller amounts of gas.

Al Dolatoski customers were making the same kinds of purchases at his Sunoco Station in Camp Hill, where “sales went way up; more than double what we usually do.”

“I noticed a lot of people filling up, even if it only took $1.50, they were topping it off. I guess they figured they’d get as far as possible,” Dolatoski said.

IN MIDDLETOWN, increased purchases at Bob’s Citgo Sales on Friday and Saturday proved to be predictions of slow business on Monday, when many local customers had already left town.

Station manager Jack Etter said sales, mostly fill-ups, jumped nearly 40 percent Friday and were about normal Saturday.

But on Monday, only two of 10 persons who had appointments to have their cars serviced showed up, and gas sales were not exceptional, Etter said.

In New Cumberland, Paul Ramsey said sales at his Arco station at Front and Bridge streets doubled normal rates over the weekend.

Business was “extremely hectic” and by 5 p.m. Sunday his station was out of gas, Ramsey said.
“The majority of the people coming through have suitcases and small children. They’re still leaving,” Ramsey said Monday.

On Sunday, New Cumberland Mayor Leonard Sorenson said about 15 percent of the borough’s residents had fled the area.

At Paul’s Amoco Station on Linglestown Road in Linglestown, weekend sales tripled sales figures for the preceding weekend, according to owner Paul Rowe.

ROWE SAID Friday’s sales alone doubled the amount of gas his station sold Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the previous weekend.

City residents also apparently flocked to gas pumps over the weekend.

Joe Thomas said sales at both his T&L Arco Service Centers were double normal rates on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

He said business returned to normal Monday.

Leondard Lehman said business at his Gulf Station at19th and Paxton streets was “a little above average” Friday and Saturday, with Friday night being “hectic at first.”

“Older folks were gassing up getting ready to leave,” Lehman said.

While many residents filled up their cars’ gas tanks either in preparation to leave or on their way out of town, Troop State Police in Harrisburg said highways leading into and out of the area were carrying light traffic.

“Traffic patterns have changed, if anything they have gotten lighter,” a police spokesman said.

The spokesman said there has been “a great deal of movement of campers and trucks with camper tops in all directions. It’s a bit early for that type of movement.”

He said traffic coming into the Harrisburg area has been light.

BUSINESS BY Harrisburg bus lines did not contribute to the weekend’s lighter traffic, with Greyhound reporting a substantial increase in ridership and Trailways reporting normal traffic.

W.V. Dailey, city manager for Greyhound Bus Lines in Central Pennsylvania, said weekend ticket sales were 40 percent higher than sales during the same weekend last year.

He said average sales so far this year have been about the same as figures from 1978.

“A lot of people appear to be taking the opportunity to go places they might not have gone otherwise,” Dailey said Monday.

He said trips of “a couple hundred miles” have been popular, with destinations including Pittsburgh, Scranton, and Washington D.C.

Both Dailey and Gerald Smith, vice president of traffic for Capitol Trailways in Harrisburg, said their companies’ buses could be used to transport area residents should an evacuation be ordered.

“We have been in contact with (state) civil defense planners and experts and are willing to help as much as we can if an evacuation was necessary,” Dailey said.

Greyhound maintains about 60 buses in Harrisburg and has 3,000 vehicles licensed in Pennsylvania, he said.

Dailey said he has been attempting to stockpile equipment in the perimeter areas around the Harrisburg area.

Smith said county emergency preparedness officials would determine Trailways’ role in any evacuation operation.

“Right now, we’re under the auspices of the Harrisburg Police Department. If they order buses to move people out, we’ll be right there to help,” Smith said.

Lt. Carroll T. Wagner, personnel and training officer of staff and technical services for the Harrisburg Police Department, said city school buses, CAT buses and Trailways buses would operate from dispatch centers at their respective terminals in the event of an evacuation.

Wagner said the buses would pick up city residents at 39 strategic points throughout the city.
AT HARRISBURG International Airport, the three operating airlines reported fairly normal passenger traffic and said they have not been contacted by any emergency preparedness officials about the use of the airlines as evacuation modes.

Barry Beaver, customer service agent for TWA in Harrisburg, said there was a slight increase in outbound traffic over the weekend, while inbound traffic remained normal.

Beaver said despite the airport’s location less than two miles from the nuclear power site, there have been no disruption in passenger service.

“We can’t pretend it’s not happening, but everything has been operating normally,” Beaver said.
Dave Shipley, public relations director for Alleghany Airlines, said passenger loads have been normal both entering and leaving Harrisburg.

At Altair Airlines, customer service agent Mark roach said the number of no-show passengers who had booked reservations had increased since Wednesday’s accident.

The number of passengers buying tickets at the terminal was smaller than normal, and “inbound traffic was definitely less,” Roach said.

Though the airline had not been approached about its role in any possible evacuation, Roach said company personnel were keeping abreast of the situation at the power plant.

Amtrak’s director of public affairs for the Northeast Corrider, Lois Morasco, said the national rail network has not been approached about any evacuation procedures.

“We stand ready to help, but at this time we have not been called upon and I know of no plans to include us in any mass evacuation plan,” Morasco said.

Newspaper: The Patriot
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: Cumberland County Officials Ready for Evacuation
Author: Roger Doran, Staff Writer

CARLISLE-Deputy Sheriff (illegible) E. Spike Alspaugh (illegible) intercepting anyone coming (illegible) the Cumberland County Emergency Operations Center in the basement of the courthouse (illegible).

“These people are too busy,” Alspaugh said. “They don’t need (illegible) wandering in and out.”

(Illegible) staff in the operations (illegible) on telephones complete-(illegible) for any possible evacuation. Later, however, (illegible) the hopeful word that conditions at the Three Mile Island nuclear generating plant had improved and that an evacuation may even be ruled out.

Nonetheless the planned procedures remained intact.

“We’re ready,” said Tom Blosser, director of the county EOC.

“A lot of hours have been spent getting ready for something like this,” said Commissioner Raymond W. Sawyer Jr. “We can handle our share of whatever is asked of us.”

The optimism managed to penetrate the noise of the operations center where staff had been gathering all morning, going about their assigned tasks. While several phone lines were tied up, others in the room gathered in small groups, conversations rising and falling around the room like the babble of a cocktail party.

THE EMERGENCY center, which includes the county’s communications network, was constructed in various phases over the past three years at a total cost of slightly more than $400,000. It is designed to maintain operations involving about 40 people for at least two weeks.

“We can take care of staff needs for that length of time,” Blosser said. “We have food and fuel for that time, and sleeping quarters for that many.”

And, Blosser said, “the timing of this emergency really worked out right for us.”

He said that the underground water tank, placed in the north-west corner of the courthouse lawn last year, “just had the kinks worked out a couple of weeks ago.”

The center has its own generator to supply its power for several months of operation.

While the EOC complex was designed for an extreme emergency, such as a nuclear attack, its impetus came from the need for a central operations center because of Hurricane Agnes in 1972.

Few thought its possible use might come because of the failure of the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island.

“At any rate,” Blosser said, “we could never have done what we are now capable of doing if we hadn’t gone ahead with our plans.”

Commissioner Raymond W. Sawyer said that the county had followed every recommendation made to create such a facility. “Our people have attended every training session available to us, and we’ve passed all this along to others.”

Elsewhere in Carlisle, the Cumberland County seat 23 miles away from Three Mile Island, the prevailing attitude is one of calm-almost another world from the thinned-out population center on the West and East shores.

Newspaper: The Patriot
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: Middletown Mayor Says ‘Looters Will be Shot’
Author: Jon Harwood and Tom Kelchner, Staff Writers

Middletown Mayor Robert G. Reid said Monday that he has issued a shoot-the-looters order to the borough police department.

“I gave my police instructions that if they see any looters, shoot them,” Reid said.

The concern about looting stems from the number of residents who have left communities near the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Londonderry Twp. Kevin J. Molloy, director of the Dauphin County Office of Emergency Preparedness, Monday estimated that 40 percent, or about 80,000, of the 200,000 county residents within a 20-mile radius of the plant have left the area.

However, Middletown and other communities close to the plant said Monday they had received no reports of looting or vandalism.

Also, several communities have followed Middletown’s lead by establishing curfews as preventive measures against looting.

In Dauphin County, 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfews are in effect in Lower Paxton, Lower Swatara and Swatara townships and the boroughs of Royalton, Highspire, Hummelstown and Steelton.

About 30 to 35 percent of the borough’s residents have departed, Reid said, but “a lot of these people came back (Monday) to go to work,” he said. Reid said Monday’s report of the reduction of the hydrogen bubble in the plant’s Unit 2 reactor and Sunday’s visit by President Jimmy Carter “lifted people’s spirits.” However, borough officials continue preparations for possible evacuation and residents are “still a little jittery,” he said.

“This won’t be forgotten as long as that plant is down there. It could be down there another 50 years, and even the kids will remember this,” Reid said.

Many residents also returned to Lower Swatara Twp. Monday, but about 20 percent remained out of the township, according to Township Manager Donald E. Bowman.

Bowman said there were no problems reported in the township. “It’s been quiet,” he said.

Highspire has been “very quiet,” Borough Police Chief William R. Youtz said Monday. “Everything is pretty well under control.”

Officials reported Saturday that 25-33 percent of the borough’s population had left, but Youtz said Monday he had “no idea” what that figure is now, “and I’d rather not say.”

In Royalton, the borough’s two-man, part-time force has been given permission to put in extra patrol hours because of the large numbers of borough residents who have departed. One borough officer said that no increases in crime had been reported, but noted that residents have not yet returned to report missing items.

Also, borough council has canceled its regular meeting, scheduled for Tuesday at 7 p.m. No make-up date has been set.

Steelton Police Chief Kenneth Tindal reported Monday that “crime is down if anything” and that “there has been tremendous cooperation between police departments.”

Borough police patrols have been watching for suspicious vehicles or people in the area and “anybody that doesn’t belong out there we now about it and let other municipalities (police forces) know.”

Police Monday tried to estimate the number of borough residents who have left and Tindal said his best guess was 25 percent.

“Basically what we’re doing is not to discourage them,” he said. “If they feel more secure going somewhere else, as a public official I say ‘go ahead,'” he said.

Tindal said he met with borough councilmen and the mayor Monday afternoon and they prepared a handbill listing evacuation information for borough residents.

Swatara Twp., which is outside a 5-mile radius of the plant and inside a 10-mile radius, instituted a curfew Sunday night because “quite a few people” have left the township, Police Chief Robert L. Walmer said Monday.

Walmer estimated that about one-third of the township’s population, which exceeds 20,000, has left the area.

Reflecting the thoughts of numerous area residents, Swatara Commissioner David Colestock said Sunday that he was taking his family “into the mountains” but that he would return alone on Monday. ” Just knowing that (his family) is on their way out of here makes me feel better,” he said.

Lower Paxton Twp., also outside the five-mile radius, instituted a curfew Sunday night because 30 to 35 percent of the township’s 33,000 residents have left, officials said. Calls to check houses have averaged 40 a day, officials said.

Londonderry Twp., which houses the nuclear plant, has no curfew. “I guess we’re so close we don’t need a curfew,” one resident said.

The township does not have a police department, but state police, which patrol the township, reported there has been one minor burglary in the township between Wednesday and Sunday.

Capt. Joseph I. C. Everly, commander of the state police at Troop H, said only one other minor burglary, in Conewago Twp., had been reported in the last five days.

Everly said that 32 troopers were brought into the area from Troop A in Greensburg to assist local officers. Also, additional troopers have been added to “anti-looting patrols” on the midnight to 8 a.m. shift, he said.

Since the incident at the plant, troopers also have investigated four accidents, “which is nothing,” he said.
He said troopers noticed no congestion caused by residents leaving their homes. A few traffic tie-ups have occurred on Route 441 near the nuclear power plant caused by curiosity seekers, news reporters and visiting VIP’s, he said.

In the southern Dauphin County area, troopers from Troop H normally patrol in Royalton and the townships of Londonderry, West Hanover and Conewago. During the emergency state police patrols have been overlapping areas with officers in Middletown, he said.

During President Jimmy Carter’s Sunday visit, about 25 troopers supplemented secret service guard in Middletown, Everly said.

Troopers also have provided escort for oversize trucks carrying equipment and lead bricks to the Three Mile Island plant.

Everly said he did not know how many residents had left their homes in the townships near the power plant where state police patrol, but added that he found most restaurants on Route 22 closed Monday morning when he was looking for a place to buy breakfast.

In West Donegal Twp., Lancaster County, township Police Chief Raymond Libhart said the level of crime in his township has been about normal since Wednesday.

No looting has been reported, he said.

“We have round-the-clock patrols and they keep a pretty good eye on things,” he said.

Libhart said his officers had investigated no traffic accidents since the beginning of the emergency at the nuclear power plant and no congestion caused by evacuees has been reported.

He estimated that about a fourth of the residents of the township have left their homes.

“Some left Friday and returned Sunday and some left Sunday night,” he said.

Newspaper: The Patriot
Date: April 4, 1979
Title: Evacuation Chances ‘Slimmer’: County Relaxes Alert
Author: Ron Jury, Staff Writer

Dauphin County has relaxed its alert status on the contingency evacuation plans and told civil defense directors within a five-mile radius of the crippled Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station that they are the only ones who should maintain 24-hour operations.

The announcement came on the heels of meetings Tuesday where local municipal civil defense officials said they were having a problem keeping at a high level of readiness for a possible evacuation as people return to the area and volunteers are being forced to return to their jobs.

In a prepared statement, Commission Chairman John E. Minnich said, “While the situation at Three Mile Island remains of concern, no evacuation appears imminent. In view of this, the county commissioners have directed the Office of Emergency Preparedness to advise all local emergency preparedness personnel to stand down to a ‘standby alert status.’

“The office is requesting only local emergency preparedness directors within the five-mile radius to maintain 24-hour operations.

“County planning operations will continue and there will be no change in its (alert) status.
“Since a potentially dangerous situation continues to exist, all personnel should be capable of activation if needed,” Minnich said.

The county broadcast that message to local officials late Tuesday.

Some 200 local officials met in the courthouse Tuesday and were unanimous in saying that the governor should make a decision on the status of the current crisis and whether the alert should continue.

Minnich and several other officials strongly voiced that concern to the Governor’s Office on Tuesday. Minnich even delivered a letter from the commissioners to the Governor’s office.
However, Gov. Dick Thornburgh did not address that question at his press conference late Tuesday.

Minnich said this means that the four hospitals within the 10-mile radius can resume normal operations and admit non-emergency patients. The county will not attempt to hold the hospitals back, he said.

As part of the county’s plan, the hospitals were limiting admissions to keep patient populations at a minimum in the event of an evacuation.

Schools in that same 10-mile radius previously announced their plans to reopen this morning.
The commissioner said he did not agree with the return to normal, but agreed he is “acquiescing to higher-ups who have information” they are not sharing with the county.

Minnich said the county’s plans will be damaged if there is only several hours’ notice and an evacuation now has to be implemented.

The county plan relies heavily on school buses to provide necessary transportation in the event of an evacuation although the plans also call for using buses from Philadelphia and New York City.

If an evacuation is announced and the schools are in session, several hours will be lost until those buses can be pressed into service, Minnich added.

Local officials voiced strong concern about the status of the alert and one spokesman said “our capability to respond (to an evacuation on the local level) is rapidly diminishing” the longer the alert continues.

Another official said that “as the hours pass, we are losing volunteers.” He said that volunteers cannot afford to remain off their jobs if the situation does not merit it.

“Who is going to pay the lost wages” of these volunteers? a civil defense chief asked.

Many of the non-paid local volunteers have been manning civil defense offices and fire stations on a 24-hour basis in a constant state of readiness, officials said.

Minnich said that under the county’s relaxed alert, those volunteers can return to their jobs and only the civil defense directors need to maintain the operation.

The local officials accused the state of putting pressure on the school districts to reopen, but Lt. Gov. William Scranton III denied any pressure was being applied to the schools.

Scranton, who visited the county office briefly late Tuesday afternoon, said officials should assume the alert will remain until there is a cold shut down of the nuclear reactor, although the chances for an evacuation get “slimmer as time goes on.”

Asked whether the governor was going to downgrade the alert, Scranton said “not at this time,” and added that state officials are relying on status reports from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

County officials waited for the governor’s press conference and said they would take a cue from him on whether to relax the alert status or not.

Newspaper: The Patriot
Date: April 4, 1979
Title: Cold Shutdown Next Objective
Author: Richard Roberts, Staff Writer

A hazardous gas bubble that was considered a main stumbling block in cooling down the Unit 2 reactor vessel at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generation Station has been eliminated “for all practical purpose,” a federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission official said Tuesday.

Harold Denton, director of the NRC’s Office of Reactor Regulation, at a news conference in Middletown Borough Hall also said that the possibility of a hydrogen explosion in the reactor vessel or reactor containment building no longer is considered a “significant problem.”

But he did not rule out a possible evacuation of area residents, depending upon the method selected for cooling the reactor down.

In another development, Gov. Dick Thornburgh announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the State Department of Environmental Resources had discovered small amounts of radioactive iodine in some milk produced within an 18-mile radius of the plant.
The iodine 131 levels are not considered to constitute a health hazard.

“I think the danger point is considerably down from where it was a few days ago because of the concerns about the bubble and hydrogen explosion,” Denton said. “We can fall back on the traditional options for ringing the reactor core to a cold condition.

“The main obstacle to doing so is to pick one which doesn’t do further fuel damage and which doesn’t result in the release of highly radioactive water inside the containment to the environment.”

A potential danger remains that a loss of pressurized coolant in the reactor could cause the core to overheat and release highly radioactive products of fission from the fuel rod assemblies, which were extensively damaged during the initial accident March 28, he said.

“I think that the concern we had with the bubble was it interfered with the normal proven ways of cooling,” he said. “The hydrogen brought with it a chance for complete disruption of the coolant system due to an explosion.

“With those potentials out of the way, I expect there to continue to be frustrating problems, that the equipment may fail. But with each day that goes by, the core gets cooler.”

He attributed the decrease in size of the bubble to “a little bit of luck and a little bit of forethought.”

Denton said he hoped that “from here on out we can move rapidly” towards allowing the return of pregnant women and pre-school children to their homes within a five-mile radius of the plant. Thornburgh on Friday afternoon requested their evacuation and ordered schools with the radius closed.

Denton reiterated his stand that the governor must make any decision concerning an evacuation. He advised the governor Monday night that “routine, low-level” radiation is being released from the plant and that he is “very optimistic” about progress in proceeding toward cold shutdown.

But he said he was “not yet ready to give a prediction” when the reactor would be brought to cold shutdown. “The staff is looking at it,” he said. “But I’m hopeful we can now move forward as we’ve eliminated these (bubble and hydrogen explosion) problems.”

Before cold shutdown can be reached, the coolant that circulates inside the reactor vessel must be depressurized, the temperature must fall below the boiling point and a cooling system known as a residual heat removal system must be tested for leaks, he said.

The residual heat removal system will transport primary coolant outside the main containment building into the auxiliary building.

“Since the RHR brings contaminated water from the containment out and cools it and returns it, it’s very critical that we don’t turn it on until we have all the leaks or potential leaks in that system isolated and be sure the system would perform adequately for the type of conditions we’ve got,” he said.

The reactor is stable, he said. Temperature of the core is 281 degrees and the core pressure is 1,100 pounds per square inch. A few fuel rod assemblies remain above 400 degrees.

Special converters called “recombiners” have been put into operation to remove hydrogen gas from the containment building and combine it with air to form water, he said.

Thornburgh said milk from 22 dairy farms showed iodine 131 levels of from 11 to 46 picocuries per liter in samples were taken Saturday and Sunday.

Iodine 131 is a radioisotope that accumulates on grass, is ingested by cows and contaminates their milk. Radioactive iodine, when ingested by humans, collects in the thyroid gland.

The radioactive content of the milk is less than a proposed federal maximum recommended allowed level of 12,000 picocuries and less than the maximum of 300 picocuries found in locally produced milk in the wake of fallout from a 1976 Chinese nuclear weapons test.

“Based on these figures and advice from appropriate federal, state and medical authorities, I can say there is no present danger to consumers from milk produced in this state,” Thornburgh said.

Denton said the FDA had “refined their numbers,” and that the maximum amount of iodine 131 found in milk was 31 picocuries and averaged 10-20 picocuries per liter.

“If you were to consume milk like that for a month, the radiation level would be approximately the same as would be permitted under our limits for routine operations,” he said. “I don’t consider these radiation levels of 10-20 picocuries per liter any cause for alarm with regard to milk.”

The total amount of iodine released since the initial nuclear accident at Three Mile Island is about one curie, he said.

Radioactive iodine and cobalt have been found in wastewater dumped from Three Mile Island into the Susquehanna River, Denton said. The NRC and DER on Monday night asked Metropolitan Edison Co. of Reading, operator of the plant, to cease dumping the contaminated wastewater, he said.

He said he doubted that any radioactivity has been detected in the water supplies of cities downstream. “The plant has essentially been releasing radioactivity at or near, slightly above or slightly below our normal limits for releases,” he said.

The NRC will make “some further analyses” of the water, and Denton said he anticipated that MetEd eventually will be allowed to resume dumping the radioactive wastewater into the river.

Some radioactive gases have escaped from waste gas storage tanks during attempts to sample the gases, he said. “It’s difficult to take a sample without having a leak somewhere within the sampling point and back to the tank. The total amounts of radioactivity getting out aren’t changing the off-site dosage significantly,” he said.

In the wake of an instrument failure in the containment building, an NRC task force has been assigned to investigate the effects of high-level radiation on instruments, Denton said. A radiation level of 30,000 rems- 30 million millirems-has been measured at the top the inside of the structure.

The average annual radiation dosage for area residents is 100-200 millirems.

“Most of the instrumentation at the plant is redundant, and we have a means to get the information we are seeking,” he said. “But we do have a task force looking ahead and making contingency plans if we don’t lose vital instrumentation.”

A state Commerce Department spokesman said Tuesday that about 100,000 bottles of potassium iodide had been sent to Middletown as a precautionary measure by the FDA and that more is on the way.

Steven Fink, state Department of Commerce press secretary, said potassium iodide is a drug used to counteract overdoses of radiation. “It’s being housed in a storage facility in Middletown but I don’t know where,” he said. “It was not ordered by anyone in the state.”

He said the each bottle has about four dosages.

Newspaper: The Patriot
Date: April 4, 1979
Title: TMI Incident May Hamper City Bond Sale
Author: Erwin Endress

Inevitable financial market effects of the accident at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Plant could seriously hamper Harrisburg’s ability to sell $16.4 million in general obligation bonds April 24 to build new municipal facilities in Harristown.

Such was the word to City Council Tuesday night by officials of Financial Management Services, the city’s financial advisers, who recommended a delay of at least several days in the mailing of notices of the sale and a preliminary statement.

The officials, Martin Margolis and John Black, partners in the firm, said disclosure requirements in connection with the preliminary statement now must include a section setting forth existing and potential ramifications for Harrisburg of the nuclear plant accident.

In urging the delay, Margolis asserted, “We don’t want to say that the city at this time might still have to be evacuated. That would have to be very detrimental to any bond sale.”

He stressed a section dealing with the accident at the plant is necessary in the disclosure statement which, he noted, must be “forthright,” because it’s “an event which could potentially have an effect on bondholders.”

A delay of several days, the FMS officials advised, could result in the presentation of a brighter picture in light of more optimistic reports issued over the last two days concerning conditions at the crippled plant.

“The more space we can put between the accident at the nuclear plant and the bond sale, the better,” Black counseled.

He and Margolis said the incident at the power plant could not only affect the potential interest rate but ability to sell the bonds.

Even so, council did not act to set aside its earlier decision designating April 24 for the opening of financing proposals. Nor was a delay ordered in the mailing of bond sale noticed and now-to-be revised preliminary statements.

Margolis and Black subsequently agreed with city Business Administrator John F. Frye Jr. that the mailing of notices would, in effect, constitute a “poll” of underwriters having a history of dealing in bond issues in commonwealth and especially in the midstate.

Margolis said his own preliminary contacts with underwriters already suggests that some and, perhaps, many will, when they receive the notices, suggest that the sale date of April 24 be postponed.

He said four out of five he had contacted had, “to a greater or lesser extent, suggested that the notices of sale be put off.” They and others can be expected, Margolis said, to respond to that effect in writing once the notices of sale have gone out.

But having received such recommendations, Frye reasoned, the administration and council will again be in position to decide whether to proceed or to delay the bond float.

Furthermore, Frye said, even if the sale date should finally remain unchanged, the city and council retain the right of rejecting all proposals if they appear to be unsatisfactory to the city.

“If we become more certain that the April 24 date should be put off, we will tell them (the administration and council),” Black said.

Harrisburg is preparing to float the bonds to finance a new city hall and create a municipal public safety center on Market Square in keeping with a pledge to the downtown renewal project being administered by Harristown Development Corp.

Present in the councilman’s Caucus Room as council deliberated with Frye, Margolis and Black, was William Keisling, HDC executive vice president, but Keisling did not participate in the discussion.

In a related development, Margolis and Black disclosed that as much as $1 million of the $4,225,000 bond issue floated by the city last month through a group of underwriters headed by Rothschild, Unterberg, Towbin, still remains to be sold.

The FMS officials said the Three Mile Island accident has undoubtedly affected the ability of the underwriters to sell those bonds, which were floated to build two new fire houses and to meet a $1.3 million local share requirement to the Maclay Street Neighborhood Strategy Project.

Frye and the FMS officials agreed that while a delay of several days in sending out notices for the $16.4 million issue might help, no harm would be done by sending them out Wednesday as planned because final decisions on the bard sale remain ahead in any case.

Frye said, “They (FMS) have done what we have asked them to do. They have advised us. But we have to make the final decision.”

Margolis and Black said the related preliminary statements, containing disclosure of the nuclear power plant incident and the possibility of an evacuation, will be mailed out some days later than the sale notices.

Except in terms of additional printing costs, they said, there would be “no problem” in making additions to the present draft document to include references to the power plant accident. Other last-minute revisions could also be made.

While Margolis and Black said there is no doubt that “uncertainties” related to the plant incident will have to be included, Frye said that even if they were not included, potential bond purchasers who may never before have heard of Harrisburg now associate the city with the incident and the possibility of a mass evacuation.

Newspaper: The Patriot
Date: April 4, 1979
Title: Myers Raps Operation by Met Ed
Author: Dick Poland, Staff Writer

CARLISLE-Cumberland County Commissioner Jacob A. Myers Tuesday blasted Metropolitan Edison Co.’s handling of the Three Mile Island crisis and said the company should evacuate the nuclear plant so another firm can operate it.

Myers accused the Reading-based utility, part of a consortium which owns the Three Mile Island nuclear generating facility, of “a very blatant posture (of) putting your corporate benefits and concern for your company far above your concern for public welfare.”

Myers’ statements were contained in a letter sent to Walter Creitz, MetEd president.

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

The commissioner, speaking for himself and not necessarily for the board of commissioners, explained that the letter wasn’t condemning nuclear energy in general or the Three Mile Island plant in particular. Rather, he said, it was aimed at MetEd’s management of the facility and what he said was the arrogance it has displayed in its release of information about the nuclear accident.

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

“Consistently, Metropolitan Edison’s position has been nothing more than to try and preserve its own position-insuring, wrongfully and inaccurately, that there was indeed nothing to be fearful of.”

Copies of Myers’ letter were sent to the chairman of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Gov. Dick Thornburgh.