My wife and I were at the Clinical Labs at HMC. There was a 4 quadrangle national geologic survey map in an office. We got a large chalk compass from the graphics department and found we were 7.8 miles as the crow flies from TMI. We heard of cars smashing into each other as they left the parking lots in Harrisburg. We heard of people in Philadelphia, mocking our overreaction while thinking “don’t they know they’re downwind of the plume?”
We volunteered our compact station wagon for patient evacuation, and my wife took the weekend shift of her coworker who was hysterical after receiving calls from her folks up north. We settled in on Friday to watch Walter Cronkite. He told of a hydrogen bubble building in Unit 2 containment. We looked out the north window and the neighbor was packing their pop-up. We looked out the south window and the neighbor was loading their RV. We looked at each other, both working the weekend.
We looked out the north window … We looked out the south window … We looked at each other
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter showed up at TMI with booties and protective garb. It calmed us down. Carter was the most unsung president we’ve had, and we’ll never see the likes of this moral man again in the oval office.
We were part of the March 28th Coalition. We were in Harrisburg for the first anniversary of TMI. Dick Gregory spoke of the likelihood of a domestic nuclear accident being as great as if: someone let go of a toy helium balloon down here, and it wrapped itself around the arm of the statue on the Capitol Dome. The crowd looked up and…. there it was.
Now we look at nuclear as a redeeming energy option in the face of manmade climate change, along with wind, tide, solar, and battery technology. There is no industry intention to use fracked gas as a bridge fuel, demonstrated by the pipelines and pumping stations reminiscent of the ducts in the film “Brazil”. Methane leakage from that industry will accelerate climate change.
What’s certain is death, taxes, and manmade pollution sans learning curve.
David