I believe I was either first or second to report the TMI event. I was News Director at WGSA/WIOV in Ephrata. If I wasn’t first, then WKBO IN Harrisburg was. We both had bulletins on air by 7:20. I gave the story to ABC RADIO in NYC and they bulletined it right away.
They asked me to go there and cover for the Network until Bettina Gregory could arrive. I said no because I was the only news person we had. Oddly, ABC started sending me $650 stringer checks. I got maybe 5 of them.
I remember calling my then wife and told her to grab our 8 year old daughter and 4 year old daughter and go to her parents in northern Cambria County. I remember telling her to drive north on 501 and get on 80, but instead she drove…right out the Turnpike, right BY TMI.
We news media people all hung together until the bubble burst, and then we met up for drinks at the Host Town in Lancaster.
Thomas