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Reader Forum Remembering Three Mile Island
"It was the first step in a nuclear nightmare," said CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite as he began his evening newscast on March 28, 1979. "As far as we know at this hour, no worse than that. But a government official said that a breakdown in an atomic power plant in Pennsylvania today is probably the worst nuclear accident to date.... "
College Park, Md.: I was in Harrisburg during the meltdown. The local news media told us nothing. What information we could get on the serious nature of the accident came from the national television news in the evening. It has been a continuous stream of lies and evasion, from the beginning to the present. :
Harrisburg, Pa.: I was in Thule Greenland at the scene of another nuclear accident -- a nuclear weapons accident which was classified until 1996. Navy seal divers were recovering a nuclear bomb which settled onto the Artic Ocean floor following a B-52 bomber crash in 1968. When I heard that my hometown was in peril I wondered if I would ever see it again. All of a sudden the radiation signs and placards at the Thule Airbase which were about 18 inches square seemed to be 10 feet square! Our teletype machine broke on Friday -- the day the hydrogen bubble might explode. I became so worried that I called home. My girlfriend said she was not leaving town and thought everything would be all right. Now many people in that area suffer from cancer or have already died from cancer including both of her parents. I hear of many people with thyroid trouble. washingtonpost.com: A number of readers have asked about the radiation effects after the accident. Our special report includes a page on the aftermath of the accident, with Post stories and Web links on this subject.
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Fairfax, VA: I grew up in Marysville, a small town just north of Harrisburg, but well within the danger zone. I remember looking at my block, wondering if I was ever going to see it, or the people I lived near, again. Two or three days into the crisis, around 9 p.m., all the lights in town went out. We later found out that a car struck a utility pole, but no one knew that then. Within minutes, most of my neighbors had loaded their cars with prepacked suitcases, and were leaving. The sense of fear and uncertainty that night was incredible. :
Mt. Airy, MD: I was born in Harrisburg and and was living there when TMI was under construction. Of course, as a child I had no idea what those big towers were. After leaving, they were a landmark that told me that we were almost to Grandma's house. We were living in D.C. at the time of the accident and what I remember the most is our house packed with aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc. I had one uncle who owned a grocery store across the river who stayed to take advantage all the reporters and curiosity seekers in the area. :
Baltimore, MD: I was a senior engineer on the nuclear engineering staff of BG&E at the time. I recall the collective feelings of the staff went from: a. bravado and disbelief; to b. caution in jumping to conclusions; to c. grudging admission that maybe something was wrong; to d. realization that it was, indeed, a real accident; to e. apprehension that the reactor really might melt; and, finally, to a feeling of awe and humility that the technology that we had thought was foolproof wasn't. I also recall that the chairman of the NRC was getting opposite reports from genuine experts as to whether the hydrogen bubble would explode, and that the chairman didn't know whom to believe. That uncertainty among the top minds in the nuclear industry directly affected the way we, as nuclear engineers, perceived the seriousness of the event. In the end, we felt comfort in the fact that, as bad as the damage was, the plant had withstood the "best shot" that misfortune could deliver, without a single death or injury to the public. Although I wish the accident had never happened, I truly believe that it confirmed the quality of our nuclear plants and the effectiveness of our defense-in-depth philosophy. washingtonpost.com: BG&E is Baltimore Gas & Electric, the power utility in Maryland.
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Owings, MD: I was living in York, Pa., which was within the 10 mile radius of TMI. I was a single parent of a very active three year old, who was blessed with the chicken pox during the accident. I say he was blessed, because we were told to stay inside and close our windows. I had a friend on the cleanup team who called me twice a day with updates. I only had a radio at the time and tried not to listen to the negative coverage. The media has not changed its tune for the past 20 years regarding nuclear energy. I have been involved with nuclear energy directly and indirectly ever since. The media will never tell the truth. It will never show positive results with any poll. Will it become popular when this electricity dependent society has too many brown outs? :
Wendell, MA: I was a high school senior living in D.C. and very involved in the Potomac Alliance, the local anti-nuke group. I used to do teach-ins in area high schools about nuclear power and alternative energy in the months before the accident. Many people were not very familiar with this issue at the time. Shortly before the accident, Jane Fonda made a movie which drew a lot of public attention to the topic. From inside the anti-nulear movement it was not the magnitude of the accident at the Three Mile Island that stood out, but rather the fact that it was actually receiving press coverage, unlike previous accidents. I remember early in 1979, we had a protest on the Capitol steps about nuclear power. It was raining and only a few dozen people attended. Immediatly following the accident, we set up a national coalition office and coordinated a national demonstration. On May 6, 1979, when we returned the Capitol steps, we were joined by about 100,000 people from all over the country, including Peter, Paul & Mary, Bonnie Raitt, and others. washingtonpost.com: "The China Syndrome," the Jane Fonda movie referred to above, came out two weeks before the accident at Three Mile Island.
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Arlington, VA: I grew up in a small town near Lancaster, Pa., which is close enough to TMI to be in the danger zone. I was only 5-years-old when the accident happened, but I remember being afraid to go outside. It is one of my earliest childhood memories. :
Falls Church, VA: We were living in Juniata County, PA (about an hour north of TMI) when the TMI disaster occurred. My most vivid memories are of the house being filled with my grandparents, aunts and uncles from Harrisburg and Mechanicsburg. There was a lot of tension and worry. I remember my parents complaining about the lack of information that was being made available to the public. There were also discussions about whether we were far enough away to be protected from the effects of radiation. To this day, I believe that we were lied to as far as what amounts of radiation were released. My grandmother was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and now suffers through (how ironic) radiation treatments. My mother and I have both been diagnosed with hypothyroidism. We have seen a high rate of birth defects in both humans and animals in the area. It's been 20 years, we deserve the truth! :
Arlington, VA: In 1972, Hurrican Agnes devastated central Pennsylvania. There was fear then, but nothing like in 1979. We could see the flood waters, but we knew that in a few days or weeks, we could start rebuilding our lives. With Three Mile Island, we couldn't see the danger, but we knew that if this "flood" hit, we could never come back. Many people I know still have not forgiven MetEd, and never will, for what they did to us, and what they wouldn't tell us. :
San Jose, CA: I was a freshman at the University of Delaware, about 100 miles southeast and downwind of TMI. We were following the news very closely, as most of us came from Pennsylvania or Delaware. One night we were in the dorm and the radio news station suddenly interrupted itself with the siren of the Emergency Broadcast System. All we could do was look at each other in horror as we heard, "This is not a test!" It turned out to be a notice of flash flooding over one of Wilmington's major highways, but for a few seconds we thought it was all over. :
Arlington, VA: Both my grandfather and my father were actually working at TMI during the accident. They were cement masons that had actually helped build the reactors. I can remember wearing a t-shirt that said "Some prayed. We stayed" and the name of the company they worked for along with the date of the accident. I have a photo of my grandfather working inside after the accident. My grandfather died at the age of 59. Each and every time I read an arcticle or see something on television concerning TMI, it reminds me of him. :
Haverhill, MA: I lived near TMI and worked nights within the five mile radius while attending college. I will never forget how sunny it was that Wednesday morning when I innocently walked to my car and went home to sleep. When I got up that afternoon, I learned of the accident. Then on Friday, it worsened and I had just taken my car into the shop for repairs. I called a taxi, reclaimed my car, hastily packed some things, and left the area. The experience still makes me cry because of the intense emotions of fear and anger and confusion. The fact that radiation is invisible and odorless seemed to make it easy for some people to act as if it is also harmless. I still wonder about the health effects because the mean dose over the entire population is meaningless -- what matters is the wind and if the radiation plume carrying the largest doses happened to be where you were those days. I was also struck by the fact that the Amish people in Lancaster who don't even use electricity were subject to this horror that resulted from our modern lifestyle. Ironic and sad. I'll never be the same. :
Tucson, AZ: I am from New Cumberland, Pa., which is located about eight miles northwest of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Middletown. I was a senior in high school during the TMI accident in March 1979. I'll never forget it. The turning point was the announcement to evacuate pregnant women and children within a five-mile radius, which prompted a mass exodus of well over 100,000 people from the Harrisburg area. No one really knew what was happening. My high school closed for a couple of days. The most eerie coincidence was the release, that very week, of the movie, "The China Syndrome." I made the mistake of seeing it just one or two days after the TMI accident, and from what we knew, the movie paralleled events at the TMI plant to an uncanny degreee. Even my conservative parents, who were pro-nuclear power and insisted that nothing was really wrong, nevertheless sent me to visit my older sister for a few days, who was living out-of-state to attend college. washingtonpost.com: Many people best remember "The China Syndrome" for one ironic line of dialogue: A nuclear expert explaining what a meltdown would mean to TV reporter Jane Fonda says that it could "render an area the size of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable."
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Lake Placid, NY: We lived 45 miles from TMI as the crow flies. After Gov. Thornburgh assured us on Thrusday night TV that there was no problem for the public, my husband flew out of Harrisburg airport. Sitting next to him was an engineer who had come out of TMI. He said the truth was being hidden -- that people living as far as 200 miles could be in danger. I got a call to leave. We ended up in Williamsburg, MD, where many people evacuated. We tolerated the inconvenience of taking an unplanned vacation, but the coverup has consumed our lives. Justice has not worked. :
San Francisco, CA: I am a Pennsylvania native and former longtime District of Columbia resident who was a college senior in neighboring Carlisle at the time of the TMI incident. We were about 20 miles away from the site. My most vivid recollection is that the president of the college immediately canceled classes for a week and that many faculty members left town immediately. Although a significant number of students also departed, many remained for a weeklong party of now unimaginable proportions. Ah, the recklessness of youth. :
Arlington, VA: I grew up within 5 miles of the power plant and attended Londonderry Elementary School from which the cooling towers of Three Mile Island could be seen. I remember that we came back inside from a recess and the teachers seemed very nervous and kept us in our rooms. Periodically the teacher would come in to the room and say, "Johnny, you mother is here" and the child would leave. At first we didn't know what was going on and the departures only made those of us remaining even more scared. At some point, the teachers told us about the accident and the possibility that the area would be too dangerous to live in for 40 years if the worst happened. The world seemed a very chaotic, scary thing to a small group of 5th graders that day. :
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