I was born and raised in Harrisburg. My family moved here from Pleasant Gap, PA in 1956 and have lived here since.
In 1979, I was a senior at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). On the afternoon of March 28, 1979, several of my housemates and I decided to go to an late afternoon matinee of a movie we had heard a lot about – The China Syndrome. The movie was sobering and scary, but not as scary as what was on the news when we got home after the movie – there was a meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.
Everything we heard on the news seemed to mirror what we had just seen in the movie. I tried to call my parents in Harrisburg to make sure they were all right, but had difficulty getting through as all circuits were busy. When I finally did reach them, we kept our conversation short. They told me that they and my sister were safe, what their assigned evacuation route was, and where they would be headed should they have to evacuate. The next several days were harrowing, knowing that there was nothing any of us could do but wait. My parents and sister decided to stay in Harrisburg unless forced to leave because my father felt that in his job as an engineer with Bell Telephone in Harrisburg, he might be called upon if the communications networks in the area were damaged or compromised.
Interesting enough, I was taking a Physics class during the Spring 1979 semester and we were learning about nuclear physics. I tried to learn as much as I could so that I could understand the science behind the meltdown story and ended up getting an A in that part of my physics class.
Another side note – Stephen Stills, formerly of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, was scheduled to perform a concert at IUP in April. I had scraped together enough money to buy two tickets to the concert. When he heard about the accident at Three Mile Island, Stills cancelled his concert at IUP. I never did get to see him in concert.
Sharon