Friday, March 30, 1979 was unseasonably warm. The day before my husband and I had heard about an accident at Three Mile Island, but in a press conferences the public was told that if we didn’t live close to TMI, we didn’t need to worry. I was 7 ½ months pregnant and was out taking a walk with my two-year-old son when I heard from someone that the news had become more concerning—the distance for safety was now a 10-mile radius from TMI. We lived on the campus of Messiah College at the time which was 11 miles away.
We quickly packed clothes for a week, grabbed a few photo albums and headed for my aunt’s house in Ontario.
My husband, an elementary school teacher, came home early because schools had been canceled. We decided to call my obstetrician for advice. He said he believed we were getting information after the fact and he advised us to leave the area. We had relatives in Niagara Falls, Ontario and in Reading, PA. My doctor said that he normally wouldn’t recommend driving to Niagara Falls at my stage of pregnancy, but in this case, he thought I should.
We were frightened that the radiation would negatively impact the health of our son and our unborn child. We quickly packed clothes for a week, grabbed a few photo albums and headed for my aunt’s house in Ontario. Once there, we watched news updates on TV—there was a lot of coverage in Canada. We thought seriously about the possibility of never being able to return to our home.
Beth
