I was five years old and had chickenpox when Three Mile Island almost melted down.
My family lived three miles from TMI, in Bainbridge, and had moved to the area because my father had a job as a union construction carpenter on the island. Although at the time of the
accident he was no longer working on the island.
me and my brother and sister
I remember I was home from kindergarten when the alert came on the TV. We were riveted by the news, and I was sure we were going to die and my house was going to melt into the
ground. The emergency response system on the TV was not a test. My mom called my dad who left work to pick up my older sister and brother from the school where they had been
bussed.
Without a lot of fuss we packed up just what we needed and hit the road in our green Toyota Land Cruiser to head to my Grandma Sesack’s apartment three hours away in Central City, PA.
We kissed our cats goodbye, left out plenty of food, and my Dad let our dog loose. He was my Dad’s old hunting beagle, that was tied outside (which was still permitted in those days). We
left dog food on the front porch and hit the road. It was such a dilemma as to what to do with the animals. There was no way Grandma’s apartment could accommodate 5 of us and Dino the beagle.
I remember my friends families that were dairy farmers. And the difficult choice that had to make, to stay and take care of the cows.
As I clomped, (my mom asked my not to clomped, but somehow I couldn’t help it) up the wood steps to Grandma’s apartment over the Hardware store, I remember feeling scared and thinking I would never see my house again. Grandma’s cat, Colby, hated me and my clomping shoes, and made me miss my cats at home even more.
We listened to the news in the background as Grandma applied the Calamine lotion.
I remember my brother and I, he had chicken pox now too, standing in my Grandma’s pink tile bathroom staring at the strange tile with a picture of a german shepherd. We listened to the news in the background as Grandma applied the Calamine lotion. My mom and dad watched and seeing Jimmy Carter on the TV in front of the cooling towers gave them faith that they could journey home to check on the house and pick up important papers.
After spending many days in Grandma’s apartment with frequent trips down the block to buy Archie comic books, we journeyed home.
Everything was fine. Dino was sleeping on the front porch. For years afterward little Bainbridge Elementary had practice drills in case of another TMI “Incident”. We would take school field trips to the TMI visitor center where they would remind us how safe Nuclear Energy was. If anyone got sick or behaved strangely it was blamed on TMI.
Many years later, I had twins, and the two neighbor girls I played with growing up also had twins. I joked, it must have been due to the radiation from TMI.
My mom still lives in the house that my Dad built 3 miles from 3 mile Island.
And that is how I remember it.
Deborah
a small buckle my dad received as a safety award
trash bag for the car