Thirty Years Ago Yesterday….

…the accident at Three Mile Island occurred. The accident, whereby Metropolitan Edison’s nuclear reactor nearly melted down, happened two days after my 18th birthday. I was in twelfth grade, eager to graduate and move on. However, the loss of coolant and resulting release of a large amount of radioactivity into the surrounding environment was a big deal. Although nobody died in the accident itself, statistics suggest that there has been an increase in leukemia and other cancers in the surrounding communities situated most closely to the plant, which still operates one reactor to this day.

My parents’ house is just over 60 miles from Three Mile Island, and when the accident occurred and for the next few days, things were absolutely nerve wracking. Nobody knew the extent of the damage to the reactor, and nobody knew for sure that the nuclear reaction had been slowed enough to control it. We also didn’t know just how close we came to a full-scale meltdown of catastrophic proportions. For a few days, things were really touch and go. Gov. Dick Thornburgh, who had only been in office for about 60 days when the accident happened, had a full-scale crisis on his hands, and it was an unprecedented one. Nobody knew precisely what to do. And coming two weeks after the release of the movie The China Syndrome, a media frenzy ensued.

I remember when Pres. Jimmy Carter, a trained nuclear engineer, visited the site in an effort to calm a terrified public. Carter’s presence that day was both welcome and reassuring.

At one point, a plan to evacuate a radius of 60 miles from the crippled plant was announced. My parents’ house is just outside that radius by a mile or two, so we were debating whether to pack up and go, too. It was an incredibly stressful and uncertain time that remains indelibly burned in my memory banks. Of course, the crisis passed in a few days, and the damaged reactor was sealed in concrete. But for those few days, it was touch and go.

My alma mater, Dickinson College, is about 25 miles from TMI as the crow flies. Students had just come back from spring break a week or so before the accident happened, and after the accident occurred, the College administration made the prompt decision to shut down and sent students home for the duration. I remember arriving on campus that August and seeing students wearing t-shirts that would be real collector’s items today: they commemorated surviving what became known as the College’s 1979 “radiation vacation”. I wish I had one of those shirts.

I drive by that plant on the Pennsylvania Turnpike each time I go home to Reading to see my parents, and each time, I see those cooling towers looming over the shallow Susquehanna River. I see the steam billowing from the cooling tower of the still functioning Unit 1, and I remember those scary, wild days of my youth. It’s hard to believe that thirty years have passed since that frightening day.