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core memories
WRITTEN BY Maria V. Snyder
Three Mile Island. TMI. THE NAME EVOKES AN AUTOMATIC association with the most serious nuclear power plant accident in the United States. Even 30 years later, memories of those living in Central Pennsylvania during the accident are still vivid.
The accident began in TMI-2’s plant on Wednesday, March 28, 1979, at about 4 a.m. The main feedwater pumps stopped running and prevented the steam generators from cooling down. Both the reactor and steam turbines automatically shut off, which increased the pressure in the system. In order to fix the problem, a relief valve opened to decrease the water pressure, but once the pressure decreased, the valve failed to close. Cooling water therefore poured from the open valve instead of going into the reactor core.
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Although alarms rang and warning lights flashed, the
operators
mis-
The
) ) ) core memories
experience.
feature
Left: Protesters, shown in March 1985, stating their opposition to the restarting of TMI-1 reactor, which was to take place in October 1985.
Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA
1/6/2009
Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA
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Right: TMI personnel cleaning up the contaminated auxiliary building.
lack
of
official
information was one of the worse aspects
family’s
of the accident. Information that was
egg farm in
relayed via radio and the three broadcast
Elizabethtown,
networks
was “business as usual.
had
been
confusing
and
contradictory.
We
couldn’t
it leave
the
diagnosed the problem and
“It was a scary time,” remembers Dick
made it worse by reducing the
Morgan. He was working in Elizabethtown
flow of water to the core. This
returned
when the news reached him. “It was total
caused the nuclear fuel to overheat
remembers, “The school was empty.
panic … the rumor mill started rapidly.”
It was really weird.”
to a point where the fuel pellets began to melt. It was discovered later that
Workers wanted to leave.
TMI-2 suffered a severe core meltdown
“
scenario where melting nuclear fuel would breach the walls of the building and release major amounts of radiation to the Luckily, experts later determined only a negligible amount of radiation had
been
released
into
the
atmosphere. The accident caused
people
she
fled.
Overall,
approximately 140,000 people volOver the course of the next two days, reports from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission varied. At one point, an NRC spokesman reassured the public that “the danger was over,” even though they had
”
atmosphere.
Greenly
school,
untarily evacuated the area.
It was a scary time ... the rumor mill started rapidly.
could have resulted in the worst-case
When to
Many
Becky Greenly can remember being in
that melted 52 percent of the core. This
chickens.”
failed to stabilize the plant. On Friday, March 30, NRC went from underestimating the damage to
social studies class when a person entered
overestimating the danger. The
her
growing uncertainty about the
middle-school
classroom
and
no deaths or injuries to plant
whispered to her teacher. No one said
workers or local residents. But
condition of the plant prompted
anything to the students, but they closed
to those who lived in the
Governor
the vents and windows of the building.
area, the incident was
advise pregnant women
“Kids were being picked up by their
and pre-school aged
parents,” Greenly said. “It was chaos for a
children
while. They kept calling names over the
within
an unnerving and terrifying
Thornburgh
to
living a
loudspeakers.” When she arrived home on her
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Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA
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President Jimmy Carter touring the TMI-2 control room with (left to right) Harold Denton, Governor Thornburgh, and James Floyd, supervisor of TMI-2 operations, on April 1, 1979.
5-mile radius to leave the area. Later on
“could render an area the size of the state
home all the important stuff—pictures,
the 30th, the discovery of a large hydrogen
of Pennsylvania permanently
clothes, and plants. No books!”
bubble triggered more panic.
uninhabitable.”
Barb Read was attending Millersville
Throughout the day on Saturday,
remembers being concerned but not afraid
University during that time. She lived on
March 31, the authorities and experts
about the accident. “Not until we went to
campus and had, at first, brushed off the
studied the hydrogen bubble. If the bubble
church,” he says. “There was a buzz in
news. “We went out to dinner Friday
burned or exploded, it could have caused
the church. The rumors were wild;
night and came back to mass hysteria,”
a breach of containment and released
everything was being blamed on TMI.
Read remembers. “Girls were screaming
massive amounts of radiation to the
Someone said all the flies had died within
and crying, ‘It’s gonna blow!’ The line for
atmosphere.
a 5-mile radius.”
the phones went down the stairs, across
Unaware of the possible danger, Barb
The lack of trust in the media and
the lobby, and out the front door. By
Read and her roommate, Sue Ellerbrake,
rumors of a cover-up all added to the
Friday night, the campus was dead
stayed at school. Ellerbrake went on a
confusion. Even sensible Dr. Fetter sent
[empty].”
date Saturday night and Read worked on
his wife and three daughters to
a paper, listening to the radio. “The news
Shafferstown to stay with relatives. “I
“We are faced with the remote but very
reported the bubble was growing, and I
stayed. I didn’t want my house looted.”
real possibility of a nuclear meltdown at
started to get concerned.”
That night, Walter Cronkite reported,
Three Mile Island atomic power plant.” The coincidental release of the movie
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Dr. Werner Fetter of Elizabethtown
When Millersville issued a mandatory
On Sunday, the experts determined the hydrogen bubble would not burn due to
campus-wide evacuation on Sunday,
lack of oxygen. Panic finally eased after
The China Syndrome, 12 days before the
April 1, Read panicked. “We called our
two major events: President Jimmy Carter
accident, also helped fuel residents’ fear.
parents. The rumors speculated the area
and Governor Thornburgh toured the
In the movie, an energy official informs
could be radioactive for 500 years!” Read
plant, and Harold Denton, the director of
Jane Fonda’s character that an explosion
now laughs at the memory. “We took
reactor regulation for the NRC, had
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Three Mile Island today, with reactor TMI-1 restarted in 1985 and still running on the left, and TMI-2, the location of the meltdown of 1979, currently in long-term monitored storage. arrived to coordinate the efforts to control
Links for more information:
the plant and coordinated communications
• www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html (NCR: fact
with the public. “He [Denton] was the kind of person we needed,” Dr. Fetter says. “They put him in
sheet on the Three Mile Island accident) • http://americanhistory.si.edu/tmi/ (Smithsonian: National Museum of American History – Three Mile Island: The Inside Story)
charge, and he was calm and didn’t flowercoat anything.” The accident had caught everyone offguard. Since then, the NRC and other government organizations have made major changes to policy and procedures. Yet public fear and distrust remain, and the incident has halted and slowed nuclear plant construction throughout the United States, thereby “killing the nuclear industry for 30 years,” Andrew Kadak, MIT professor of nuclear engineering, said. Only 35 new commercial reactors have been put online since 1979. Cleanup of TMI-2 lasted 12 years and cost $973 million. Currently, the reactor is in long-term monitored storage. TMI-1 reactor was restarted in October 1985, and has a license to operate until 2014. In January 2008, a license renewal application, which would allow TMI-1 to operate until 2034, was submitted to the NRC. Memories of fear and panic will remain with those who lived through those five days in 1979. Everyone would likely agree with Dick Morgan, who says, “It’s an experience I don’t want to go through again.” ) ) )
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Rolling Green Cemetery 1811 Carlisle Road Camp Hill, PA 17011 (717) 761-4055
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