“Don’t go outside, you don’t want to get radioactive particles on your skin,” I yelled to my younger sister during the time of the accident at TMI. That warning to her, which went unheeded, was one of the memories I have of that scary time in 1979.
The news of the accident came as a real shock to me and many others. I didn’t know what to think. My parents were away on a trip at the time. I was holed up in my parents’ house on the East Shore with my sister, waiting for my parents to return. They had heard about the accident, and they must have felt the creeps looking at the cooling towers of TMI as their plane landed at the Harrisburg airport, right next door.
Very soon after they came home, we packed up some clothes and – with my brother and his wife following us – we drove to my older sister’s house on the mountainside about ten miles northwest of Carlisle. We stayed there several days, hunkered down waiting for the okay to go back home. We were wondering if the nuclear fallout would be such, that we may never be allowed to return to the house that my dad built new in 1960. Would the whole Harrisburg area be condemned? Another Chernobyl?
I remember hearing that the majority of the 250,000 or so people in the greater Harrisburg area, had evacuated.
At my sister’s house, we watched the TV network anchors describe how the accident happened, give the latest updates on radiation fallout, and discuss the planned visit to TMI by President Jimmy Carter. If the nation’s chief executive feels safe enough to come to TMI, I figured, it must not be that bad. I remember seeing President Carter in his protective gear and those little yellow booties, walking through the nuclear plant.
Eventually, we were allowed to return home. My younger sister is alive and well today, despite her apparent recklessness during the accident. My memories of that event are alive as well.
Dave