I was working at WLYH-TV as the production manager when the accident happened.
Since we had a teeny news department, several of us volunteered to supplement the news department. I covered an anti-nukes rally at the capitol and a press conference with the NRC’s Harold Denton in Middletown. My parents evacuated to Brooklyn to live with my sister for the duration. I didn’t evacuate per se, but stayed at the station (including sleeping there).
what should I take in case I can never return?
Prior to setting up camp at the station, I went to my house and packed my car with the thought “what should I take in case I can never return?”… one result of that was carrying out my two-drawer filing cabinet and strapping it on the roof of my Renault R10 using my canoe rack. The R10 sat at the station for days with that filing cabinet on top of it, ready to follow my parents to Brooklyn. I never went.
Five years later, a friend of mine and I made a slide show for the five year anniversary event at the forum.
I was arrested twice while protesting at the plant in the years that followed. The first time I ended up on the cover of the Philadelphia paper… the Bulletin, I believe.
Josh