I was a senior at Cedar Cliff High School in Camp Hill, PA. The morning of the accident, I was in an Exploring the Media class, and our teacher had a relative who worked at a local TV station. Over the classroom intercom, our teacher got a message to go to the office for a telephone call. His brother called him to warn him there had been an accident at the TMI nuclear power plant about 10 miles from Cedar Cliff, but details were sketchy. Not long after that phone call, there was an announcement over the intercom system telling everyone about the accident and saying we should all report to our homerooms and close all the doors and windows. Of course, there were no cell phones with social media or internet news, and we had no access to radios or TV sets, so we had no idea whether the accident was serious.
what I wrote still scares me today
In the hallway, I saw my friend who drove me to and from school most days. We quickly discussed what little information we had about the accident and the little bit we had learned about nuclear radiation in science class. We were convinced that closing doors and windows would be useless if there was a radiation leak. We decided, “If I’m going to die, it sure as he** isn’t going to be in homeroom.” We went to the parking lot, got in her car, and drove away … listening to AM radio to find out whatever we could about the situation.
Karen’s 1979 prom dress
News reports advised we had nothing to fear, and I remember being somewhat comforted by the fact that President Jimmy Carter, who had studied nuclear science, visited the control room a few days after the accident. However, as the situation at the reactor changed over the weekend, we began to feel uneasy that the reactor might not be stable. There was some type of bubble that might burst and release additional radiation. Pregnant women and small children had already been advised to leave the Middletown area, and there was talk of possible wide-spread evacuations. I spent time with my boyfriend, but I also spent time writing in my journal… and what I wrote still scares me today. Teenage hormones don’t mix well with confronting an unknown death from invisible atomic particles.
If evacuations had been ordered, we would have been split up
On Monday, I would be at our family home in Mechanicsburg, and my father would go to his office in Carlisle. My mother’s office was in Lemoyne. If evacuations had been ordered, we would have been split up and sent in different directions. So over the weekend, we decided to all go together to a motel near Chambersburg, PA, about 40 miles from TMI. While we were self-evacuated, my father went to work every day. My mother and I didn’t have much to do in the motel room, and there was a mall nearby. So, we decided to shop for my prom dress, even though my boyfriend hadn’t actually asked me to the prom yet. We spent a couple of days trying on dress after dress, until we finally found the right one … a floor-length mint green sleeveless gown.
Buying that gown was a sign of optimism, a leap of faith that we would have a safe home to go back to, that no one would die in homeroom, and that my boyfriend, friends and I would all go to prom. That all happened, although the outcome wasn’t nearly as happy for others who believe the radiation released permanently affected their health.
Before TMI, I supported nuclear energy, and although I still did so after the accident, I was far more worried about the possible dangers and about the big picture question of whether there was a way to safely store and dispose of nuclear waste. Forty years later, my worries haven’t been resolved. I find it difficult to believe that I can pick up a small, handheld device and instantly communicate with almost anyone almost anywhere in the world… but we haven’t figured out how to safely store or dispose of the byproducts we learned to unleash in the 1930’s.