In the spring of 1979, I was in the 6th grade at Conewago Elementary School. Our house was within 5 miles of the reactor (as the crow flies), and my mother and stepfather were on a cruise ship in the Bahamas completely cut off from the news. I am the youngest of 4 kids, my sister was around 19 at the time, and my brothers were 15 and 16 years old.
I knew no parent was coming in for me, she was on a cruise ship in the Bahamas.
I remember the first day vividly, I was sitting in school and slowly my class started disappearing. Parents coming in, grabbing their children, and then getting the hell out of Dodge, until it was that I was the only child left. I knew no parent was coming in for me, she was on a cruise ship in the Bahamas.
I was so thankful when the principal announced that school was closed. There are truly no better sounding words in the world, to an all American kid then “school is cancelled.” I went home to a ghost town. Living in an upper middle class neighborhood, I lived amongst people with the means to leave. No one to play with, no one to see, no cars driving to and from. I didn’t understand.
I remembering feeling like I was in an Alfred Hitchcock film
I remember considering the words I was hearing from adults and news, that everyone should stay indoors. My brain simply did not understand that would help so spent most of my time riding my bike through my abandoned neighborhood. I remembering feeling like I was in an Alfred Hitchcock film …. I kept a close eye on the birds.
My mother’s cruise ship caught fire out there in the middle of the ocean where she was, they all had to disembark at the closest dock, where she learned that her children were in the middle of a nuclear melt down, so she flew home and we all spent the rest of the time in hotel in the Poconos.
Michele