On March 28th 1979 I was a 22 year old engineer who had recently married and moved here from Pittsburgh. I was learning the area and two days earlier started what was to be 30+ years with AMP Incorporated. My wife, Judy, and I had been married less than six months, she was two months pregnant with our first daughter, Lisa…and we were excited. Excited to be starting our lives together, new job, family begun – life was good.
I felt that uh-oh feeling in my stomach
My boss at AMP, Winslow Brown, decided that before I started at the 13th Street plant just off the South Bridge (home now of the Sylvan Heights Charter School), I should learn more about the connector business by spending two weeks at the York County plants that AMP had…at Junior Street Loganville and Seven Valleys. On March 28th I left our Mechanicsburg apartment with a gas station map on the seat of our 73 Dodge Dart and found Rt 83 South for the first time (pre WAZE, pre cell phone, pre internet…remember?). The radio was on. I noticed that the music I expected to hear wasn’t playing and instead the local stations had “Breaking news” (real “breaking news” … that meant it was important – not like today when every newscast opens and calls the lead story “breaking”).
To this day I remember hearing “accident”, “nuclear power plant,” and thinking it sure sounded important. I was new to the area and knew three places – Harrisburg, Carlisle, Mechanicsburg on the map. That was it. When the news person said “..near Goldsboro” it still sticks with me that I thought “Whew – I think that’s far away..maybe near Philly.” Maybe 20 minutes into my drive – and that’s exactly when I looked up at the sign on Rt 83 that said “Goldsboro” off the Newberrytown ramp. I felt that uh-oh feeling in my stomach. Do I turn around? The story was unfolding so fast there really wasn’t thoughts of evacuation or other steps. As an engineer I knew things like “meltdown” weren’t good – but figured there were scientists that knew what to do. And surely someone would tell us what to do if there was a bigger problem. I drove on so I wasn’t late to my new job.
everyone in a small conference room with a radio on.
The other thing that sticks with me is when I arrived, walking into the building – an old York County building, one of AMP’s small electronic connector assembly plants that dotted this area before outsourcing to Carolinas, then Mexico, then China, and the Tyco takeover closed all – and no one at the receptionist desk. No one in the plant manager’s office. But everyone in a small conference room with a radio on. (Zero computers in 1979. The factory didn’t have a TV set).
I got a “welcome” and then a flurry of catching up chatter. Still a serious tone but mostly unknowns…more questions than answers. So I found a phone and called my wife. Tried to be as reassuring a husband as a 22 year old could muster. She was worried some, confused more and we agreed, we’d figure out more that night at home and she’d watch what news was shown on our black and white TV that picked up channel 27 and 21. (No 24 hour news. No internet. No text messages.) I left her with the land line number just in case – assuring her that someone would find me if she left a message (and hoping someone would remember “the new kid” and where I was).
I remember trusting Walter Cronkite
The day went on. I thought about it but to be honest was just trying hard to learn my new job. There didn’t seem to be any new news that I remember and instead that evening we watched Walter Cronkite piece things together. And we called our parents in Pittsburgh to talk. Everyone that week wanted to hear from someone they trusted. I remember trusting Walter Cronkite – and worrying when he worried and talked about effects of a meltdown…the 10 mile radius (and me taking my engineers drafting compass out and drawing a circle around Goldsboro …and seeing us at 11 miles and wondering who exactly came up with 10 miles…and not feeling good.) Talk of radiation’s impact on pregnant women raised our worry levels. We stayed that week – but packed and by the first weekend drove back to Irwin near Pittsburgh to stay with family and watch like the rest of the world on TV.
Besides Cronkite I remember relief when someone, anyone, cut through the clutter and started telling a believable story. Governor Thornburgh tried. Seeing President Carter in the control room didn’t quite do it. He tried and I knew he was an engineer and the President but I felt more like it was staged to show how safe things were. Talk of a “hydrogen bubble” at an atomic power plant to a baby boomer like me that grew up hearing of hydrogen bombs and the like was an unfortunate but real coincidence. No worse than the other coincidence of release of “The China Syndrome” movie a few weeks before I guess. Harold Denton from the NRC ended up being the closest thing to the voice of reason. Finally, the hundreds of opinions, rumors, stories seemed to gel with one person and when he spoke, we’d feel a little better.
never did buy the “I survived TMI” t-shirt
Sunday night we decided to come back to Harrisburg for week two. My wife and I kept bags packed in case. I worked a block from Sutliff Chevrolet and could make it across the river and to our apartment in 10-15 minutes I figured. Then to the turnpike in Carlisle and west if we had to. Back at work there were empty desks when I’d go to the bigger buildings near the East Mall (way before Highmark and BassPro) as many people did evacuate out of town (plus some were in National Guard that watched Middletown and closer towns while emptied) and waited for some “all clear”. It was weeks until things settled in to new normal.
We stayed. For years it would creep into our minds “was there any effect?” That October when Lisa was born we both waited for the “…she’s fine, healthy and beautiful” from the nurse at Holy Spirit and that was enough for then. As best we knew, our daughter was OK (never did buy the “I survived TMI” t-shirt …too soon, too real).
I mentioned “TMI” and both said “what’s that?”
daughter Lisa and husband Mike
The in between years? Less worry each year. More talk of Met Ed’s super high cost of electricity and when we bought a house making extra sure not near TMI…or in Met Ed territory to deal with outrageous electric bills (offset by kerosene heaters in the living room at the time). I do remember flying for work and the first time the plane banked over the four cooling towers on approach to the airport. Last few years it made me smile to hear other passengers try to explain to seatmates what TMI was and to some a history lesson in 5 minutes of what went on. (I cringed a bit last year when I did same to two people in their 30’s that worked for me. I mentioned “TMI” and both said “what’s that?”. So I explained…and got no reaction. Asking “what are they teaching you kids today …” and “where were you when it happened” – not realizing how much time had passed till they laughed and said “Umm.we weren’t born yet”. Ugh). That told me that in 40 years although feelings and fears were no longer fresh – they weren’t exactly buried either to anyone like me who lived through it.
“You had to live here of all places?”
Fast forward to 2010. Three kids later – but that first one – our “TMI baby” Lisa gets married and has our first grandson – Brady. I visit them at their duplex off Broadway street … in Goldsboro. Yep – I know where it is now. It’s been 31 years but I look my daughter and son-in-law in the eye and say “you had to live here of all places?” – half serious but half not (31 years will take the edge off anything I guess). I sat on their front porch and retold what I wrote here above. Just trying to make them feel a little of what her mom and I went through when we were their age and had our first child … more for perspective and less to convince them to move. So on later visits (before they did move a few years later) I’d take my grandson in a stroller on walks across the railroad tracks and up the river. Stop and took pictures of him with white egrets on the shore – and the infamous cooling towers in the background, two of which still marking the horizon with steam that some days I can see from Harrisburg out the window I’m writing this from.
The oil crises from ‘70s in rear view mirror. Nuclear energy never became the save all. (We do fracking to get gas now and sell it . Solar and windmills trying.) Talk of shutting TMI down today now met with more of a shrug.
Life went on. It always does.
John
Brady … in Goldsboro