In March 1979, I was a Junior at Dickinson College. While the College was about 20 miles from TMI, many of my classmates were told to evacuate by their parents. Newspapers were very important in those days and the New York newspapers greatly exaggerated the disaster. The Daily News made it sound like the reactor had exploded. Consequently, many students from the NYC area and its suburbs left for home.
From a normal campus population of 1600, the number of students dropped quickly. It probably bottomed out around 400.
Even though we were just back from Spring Break, some of fraternity brothers and I decided it was time for a road trip.
We drove to the Outer Banks of North Carolina and slept in tents on the dunes. We had a number of memorable misadventures on the trip.
As news reports signaled that the crisis was under control, we headed back to Carlisle.
We stopped at another Phi Psi chapter house at the University of Virginia on the way home.
Although a scary time, it turned out to be an unscheduled, but fun second Spring Break for this college kid.
Steven