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Newspaper: The Patriot
Date: April 4, 1979
Title: Accident Traced to Error
Author: Casey Burko and Bill Neikirk, Chicago Tribune Press Service

The nuclear accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating station was triggered because a manual valve in a key backup cooling system was inadvertently left closed after a test several days before the incident, the Chicago Tribune has learned.

As a result, the nuclear reactor was denied critical cooling water for 12 minutes, causing it to overheat dangerously, sources said. Even a 30-second loss of coolant is considered dangerous, they said.

Officials in the industry and in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission attempting to piece together the cause of the accident said the backup cooling system failed to kick in when the main cooling system malfunctioned last Wednesday.

When cooling water from an emergency core cooling system finally was rushed into the reactor 12 minutes later, it crashed against the overheated core of nuclear fuel, causing a thermal shock of intense proportions. More than 25 percent of the fuel was damaged.

When that happened, a dangerous bubble of hydrogen gas apparently was formed, rising to the top of the reactor threatening further efforts to cool down the system.

The disclosures, pieced together from several sources, apparently were among the reasons the NRC ordered on-site federal inspectors sent to the five other nuclear power sites in the country with similar designs.

Industry sources said the test in the cooling system is believed to have taken place two days before the accident. As part of that test, the manual valve in the auxiliary cooling system was closed, rendering the entire backup system inoperative. The valve apparently was never reopened.

Many newer plants are designed so the backup cooling system cannot be manually shut off, sources said.

Although there has been no official word from the NRC on the cause of the accident, Roger Mattson, director of the NRC’s office of technical review, appeared to confirm the reported causes when he said the backup cooling system failed to come on after the primary system malfunctioned last Wednesday morning.

“There were failures of equipment and there were operator actions on the initiation of safety equipment,” Mattson said.

Shortly after the accident, John Herbein, vice president of Metropolitan Edison, operator of the plant, said that “two pumps were lost.”

“We lost these pumps,” he said, without further explanation.

As information on the sequence of events leading to the accident began seeping out, nuclear technicians at the plant continued their efforts to reduce further the size of the hydrogen bubble, which has dissipated dramatically.

But a new concern arose. Radiation inside the huge, silo-like containment building surrounding the troubled reactor reached such levels that officials feared instruments might fail.

The interval radiation buildup totaled 30,000 rems-a lethal dose for living things-and raised speculation that the gigantic power plant that rests on an island in the Susquehanna River may never be used again.

“The contamination inside the containment building is unprecedented in the history of nuclear power,” said Rep. Morris K. Udall, D-Ariz., chairman of the House subcommittee on energy and the environment.

Newspaper: The Patriot
Date: April 5, 1979
Title: An Open Letter from Harrisburg: To Our Friends Beyond the Radius, Hi!
Author: Bill Blando, Staff Writer

An Open Letter to Friends and Relatives Outside the Five-, 10- and 20-Mile Radius, and Anyone Else Who May Care:

Yes, we’re still here. And, we glow only with pride, having survived (so far) the radiation scare and the media blitz.

Thanks for the calls. We know you were worried. So were we. Still are. But right now, we’re OK, calm but cautious. To paraphrase the awful Lina Wertmuller film with the almost-accurate title, most of us remain in our usual beds, not yet experiencing the end of the world.

This has been some kind of week, as our favorite sportscasters say. The first couple of days, starting last Wednesday, served as an attention-getting device. The big day was Friday, to start a very long weekend for us and the technicians at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station who bring power to a lot of people mostly outside of the Harrisburg area. In those three days, such terms as “evacuation,” “rems and millirems,” “meltdown,” “hydrogen bubble,” “nuclear explosion” and “to err on the side of caution” fell from the tips of many tongues.

How to describe the events which led to President Jimmy Carter’s visit, with Rosalynn, too? Incredible? Fantastic? Unbelievable? They all fit, sort of. (Of course, a case could be made for the contradictory, concocted and confusing, at least until Harold Denton came on the scene from Washington.) Unreal? That’s not bad.

Do you remember the old Orson Welles radio thriller, “War of the Worlds”? Well, there were lots of similarities to that 40-year old program and the way things started Friday morning.

Not listening to the radio in the early bright, I missed the initial announcement, but Betty, my ever-alert wife, called from her job to tell me that something new and different was happening in the radiation story, adding that perhaps I’d better get cracking, if not packing.

I flipped on the radio switch, and there was the familiar rock sound-nothing unusual yet. But then it came, in familiar Wellesian tones, “We interrupt this program…”

The phrase was to be echoed and re-echoed throughout the day and, like the old Mercury Theatre of the Air dramatization, in decreasingly shorter intervals.

At one point, the station I turned to-a CBS outlet, coincidentally the same network that was destroyed over the air by Mr. Welles-interrupted one of its Spectrum speakers, trying to evaluate the social significance of a movie called “Norma Rae,” three times.

First, it was to hear a civil defense official remind us to be ready to evacuate, “although there was no evacuation yet,” and to plan to bring only basic necessities, such as glasses and prescription medicines.

The second cut-off came when an official from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Agency urged area residents to stay indoors.

Finally, after the third interruption, the Spectrum speaker was abandoned altogether, this time in favor of a telephone conversation with Gov. Dick Thornburgh, which was given the playback treatment.

One of the speakers, I forget which one, advised us that “there is no reason to panic at this time.” The question which begged to be asked was, “at what time would there be reason?”

But there are important things to be done in an evacuation, obviously. First, it is necessary to re-establish communications with one’s spouse, if only to say goodbye.

Unfortunately, the home phone was dead. That meant seeking a pay phone that might work, which meant going outdoors, thereby violating the advice to remain indoors. There were other chores, too-gassing up the car and tapping the reserves for a little traveling money.

I was not alone in my mission.

I lucked out at the gas station, pulling right into it and put to the pump.

The attendant, who doubles as a mechanic assured me that “this is the slowest it’s been all day. You should have been here earlier,” he added. “All I’ve been doing is pumping gas.”

While talking, his pumps were attacked by cars from three sides.

“Aren’t you afraid,” he asked, “of being outside?” He took my payment and shrugged, and as I drove off, vehicles were backed up on both sides of the pumps with the last car in line straddling the incline between the station and the sidewalk, with its tail hanging out over the street.

At the bank, I wasn’t so lucky, but the long lines moved quickly. Perhaps it was an act of subconscious faith that I didn’t withdraw all of my meager funds.

I asked the girl if the bank people planned on locking themselves in the vault until the whole thing blew away.

“No,” she said without a smile. “It might be safer, but I’m going home and hope it’s all right.”

Meanwhile over the radio, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Edison Co., which operates the stricken nuclear plant, was explaining that it was “not an uncontrolled emission” which touched off the dangers of the day. “It was planned,” he said emphatically, proceeding to charge the governor and everyone else with “overreacting.” There was “no danger,” he said, adding that the evacuation alert was ill-advised.

Commentary about the situation was interspersed by several brief musical interludes apparently to mark time for what was billed as a press conference by the governor. The radio commentators speculated that the governor would lift his stay-indoors recommendation, which he subsequently did.

But he also urged all pregnant women in a five-mile radius of the plant to leave the area and ordered the closing of area schools. That was surprising because until then the advice was to keep school children inside the schools.

Later, I heard stories about overly protective and nervous parents storming schools to yank their kin out. I can only imagine how harrowing such displays might have been for the children left behind.

Chores completed, I reported to work. “You should have been here a little while ago,” I was told upon entering The Patriot newsroom. “It’s been a wild and crazy place. More phone calls than a telethon, and even a lunch hour siren in the Capitol area to trigger a bit of panic in the streets.”

Reporters from all over the country streamed in and out, getting calls, making calls and typing reams of copy on portable machines of different sizes and colors.

A couple of radios were blaring incoherently in different corners of the newsroom along with the squawking of a couple of police radios. There was even a TV set playing, but for the most part ignored.

Despite all the activity, the air hung heavy with skepticism, “You just can’t believe what anyone says,” was a phrase repeated over and over. One of the younger reporters said he had just been ‘speaking with a nuclear expert for two hours and I couldn’t understand anything he said.”

Later, exchanging views with Barker Howland, the genial elder statesmen of our newsroom who holds the title of religion writer, among others, he remarked that he’d bet “church attendance would be up this weekend. It goes back to the old adage about there being no atheists in a fox hole.”

He should know that territory, being an ex-Navy chaplain. “There’s only one thing I can compare this to,” he said referring to the day’s events. “I have the same feeling now that I had when a bunch of us were left at an airstrip in Korea and the CO (commanding officer) told us, ‘Sorry boys, you’re on your own. That was the last plane today.’

“Yes, it was that same feeling, knowing that that was the last plane, watching it fly off and not being on it.”

That’s probably as good a way as any to end this, because Howland, at least, had something to compare it to. And I, quite frankly, didn’t.

But, how was your week?

Newspaper: The Patriot
Date: April 5, 1979
Title: Some Reach for Humor
Author: Roger Doran, Staff Writer

CARLISLE-While the drama unfolding on Three Mile Island pushed a lot of people to the edge of their nerve ends, biting fingernails, screaming at the dog and trying to figure out how to sue MetEd, it didn’t dampen spirits entirely.

Some reached for the funny bone.

At Dickinson College here silk-screening T-shirts with slogans became a release for 200 students left on campus. Classes at the college of 1,600 are informal this week, since college officials called off the regular routine until Monday.

A slogan contest that drew about 150 entries was held Tuesday night, and Wednesday students were huddled around a table getting T-shirts painted.

“It was a way of relieving some tension among the students here,” said Robert Cavenagh, a faculty member overseeing the T-shirt printing.

“Hell No, We Won’t Glow” was being printed on the shirts for a fee.

Elsewhere, there were variations of how to treat that now dissipated mysterious gas bubble ranging from “throw 27 tons of Alka Seltzer on it” to calling the druggist and ordering 2,000 pounds of Di-Gel.

Perhaps much of it is gallows humor, something like Gary Gilmore’s reply when asked, as he faced the firing squad in Utah, if he had a final request. “Yeah, how about a bullet-proof vest?” he asked.

But times of stress usually add some significant one-liners that serve the temporary purpose of pulling one through. Ask a combat veteran and he’ll tell you the humor gets better as the action gets closer.

The trick is to know when to laugh.

In the early assessments of the TMI situation, as the public was told radiation fallout was less dangerous than having teeth X-rayed, some were comforted, others confused.

“Is MetEd hustling toothpaste?” a visiting journalist wondered.

This, of course, led to a bushel of “having a radiant smile” lines. The radiation theme, like the possibility of radiation fallout, pervaded the atmosphere.

“Anything we raise here,” Cavenagh said at the Dickinson slogan contest and T-shirt sale, “will go toward some charity to help the people in Middletown.” He said he didn’t think the dollar figure would be a large one as a result of the T-shirt business “but at least this is a gesture.”

Some entries were philosophical, such as “Nobody’s Perfect,” a truly forgiving state of mind while some reflected ever-present doubts such as “I Survived Three Mile Island…I think.”

Then, as expected, there was “Kiss me, I’m Radionated.”

Another six-word slogan, “I’m Part of the Critical Mass,” cut both ways like a two-edged sword.

“That slogan,” Cavenagh said, “could be adopted by groups lobbying against nuclear power.”

Which is, he said, no laughing matter.

Newspaper: The Patriot
Date: April 5, 1979
Title: TMI Suit is Filed, Withdrawn
Author: Bill Pennewill, Staff Writer

An Etters area couple have withdrawn their class-action civil suit filed in federal court against Metropolitan Edison Co., and Babcock and Wilcox in the wake of the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear generating station.

The suit-seeking to shut the plant and gain compensation for everyone living within a five-mile radius of Three Mile Island-was filed Monday in the U.S. Middle District Court office in Scranton by James A. and Mary Ann Callahan of Etters RD 1 and withdrawn Tuesday, according to officials.

Callahan, who lives within five miles of the nuclear reactor, Tuesday refused to discuss the case.

“I’d just as soon not talk about it,” Callahan said, noting he had sent his family out of the danger area.

Paul Riffle, of the Athens Law firm of Riffle and Foster, attorney for the Callahans, said no specific monetary claim was contained in the “short-lived suit” seeking damages from MetEd and Babcock and Wilcox, supplier of the Unit 2 reactor at Three Mile Island.

Riffle said issues in the suit include the question of negligence in design, manufacture, construction and operation of Three Mile Island.

He said other issues raised in the civil action include:

–Whether operation of the nuclear power plant constitutes an ultra-hazardous activity
–Whether operation of TMI constitutes a nuisance
–Whether members of the plaintiff class should be compensated for damage to property because of direct contamination.

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.