I was a sophomore at Shippensburg University (State College at the time, SSC). It was early spring and I was very involved with my sorority, Delta Rho. I was a new sister that semester. We heard about the TMI story s-l-o-w-l-y in 1979, compared to how you would hear instantly, today. The incident occurred on Wednesday, people slowly began to hear and talk about it on Thursday, but Friday was when the news really made an impact.
if the ‘stuff’ from TMI can kill a rabbit, what’s it going to do to us?
A gal who lived on my floor in the dorm, and who was pledging my sorority, was from Middletown. Friday, she told us her parents called and said their pet rabbit, who lived outdoors, had died. They were coming to pick her up that morning. I thought, wow if the ‘stuff’ from TMI can kill a rabbit, what’s it going to do to us? The dorms slowly started to empty. It seemed like kids from suburban Philadelphia were being picked up by their parents, more so than the kids who lived locally.
My roommate, Lynne, and I were from Carlisle. I called my mom and dad early Friday afternoon and said don’t you think we should go someplace? Maybe to our grandparents in Pittsburgh? They were quite casual, and said no, you’re fine, no need to worry, we are going to a party Saturday night in Harrisburg, you stay where you are. As we watched our dorm and other campus dorms slowly empty out, and classes were canceled Friday afternoon, because of lack of attendance, we worried. It killed a rabbit, and of even more concern, our sorority formal was scheduled to be held on Saturday night in Grantville at the Holiday Inn. That’s a pretty important event for a 19-year-old sorority girl!
Everyone said this could possibly be our last weekend on earth — and I believed them.
We went to dinner in the dining hall that night and it was close to empty. On a Friday night, we normally would have found a fun off-campus activity (i.e., a fraternity party), but the night before a formal we typically took it easy. As we walked off campus, headed to College Park Apartments to visit sorority sisters, it was a very strange and unnerving night — the moon was hazy, poking in and out of clouds, the weather was unusually warm for a late March night, and it was deserted everywhere — no lights and eerily QUIET. My roommate and sorority sister and I were best friends — we said isn’t this a weird night? It’s like we’re the only people on the planet. We admitted to each other that we were really scared, but if our parents wanted us to stay, what were our choices? After we arrived to our sisters’ apartment, TMI was ALL anyone talked about. Everyone said this could possibly be our last weekend on earth — and I believed them.
We awoke Saturday and began to prepare for our sorority formal — that meant getting to the hotel by 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon, wearing our best dress clothes (before changing into our formal gowns) — taking snacks and beverages to ‘formal tailgate’ along. As this metamorphosis of the formal day began, my mood began to change. I was excited to be with my date, Jeff, who also had not evacuated, he was from Mechanicsburg. Carloads of guys and gals traveled to Grantville together in groups of four of six. Some people took the long way and crossed over the I-83 bridge to look at the TMI towers, but my car took I-81, thank goodness. As we listened to The Cars and The Knack on the car’s 8-track player, my fears began to melt. By the time we arrived to the Holiday Inn, set up our stereos, mixed our gin and tonics, and tapped the keg, my worries and panic greatly diminished. We dressed in our gowns and suits, and went to the ballroom for our diner and DJ dancing. The lack of hotel staff/servers was noticeable — a millisecond of dread, but at that point we didn’t care. Throughout the night, you often heard, this is our last weekend, let’s party! I must say 40 years later, as an adult, the partying was heavy. I saw marijuana joints being passed around the dinner table, a lot of heavy drinking, crazy, crazy dancing, and many more late-night ‘confessions of love’ made than normal. No one cared, not any of the sorority sisters or their dates, our professor/advisors, none of the hotel staff, the DJ — it was like a sanctioned end-of-the-world party.
We returned to campus around 3:00 in the afternoon the following day. It was still empty but we were reliving our fun antics from the night before. We had a sorority meeting that night, as usual. Attended classes on Monday morning and continued to listen to the news reports about TMI. Most of it being word-of-mouth, of course, no Internet. We heard more on the radio than we did TV news (no cable in our dorm rooms in ’79). Our lives as Shippensburg students began to fall back into place, as kids returned to campus. I wasn’t the type of young person to be overly concerned about how TMI happened and what we could do prevent a similar accident in the future. My life and world were small, preserved within the confines of SSC. It wasn’t until after I graduated that I took an interest in TMI and the events that occurred in March 1979. I always have that story to share with friends and family — the weekend I thought might be my last on earth, so I decided to enjoy it!