- Middletown, PA
- 5 on scale
- People involved
- March 28, 1979 – Relief valve failure and partial meltdown, hydrogen explosion within reactor building
- March 30, 1979 – Pregnant and nursing women and small children advised to leave, radioactive gas vented to prevent larger explosion
- April 1, 1979 – President Carter visits and tours the facility
- April 6, 1979 – Evacuation advisory lifted, disaster declared over
- April 1979 – August 1993 – Cleanup
Historical markers like this can be found all over Pennsylvania, marking civil war battles, revolutionary war battles, or nuclear accidents. The text of this sign was very hotly debated between Met Ed and environmental groups.
This page provides a historical account of the events at, and following, Three Mile Island in 1979.
The two decommissioned cooling towers
The two operational cooling towers
The first newspaper (each one published by Harrisburg PA’s The Evening News) front page represents the day after the accident, and each successive headline about one week after. There is a clear, downward trend among column inches dedicated to TMI alone as time goes by
The public reaction to TMI was varied. Here at Dickinson College, not far from the reactor, the reaction is one of bemusement. An integral part of the college experience is being on campus to witness a national event, something that will go down in the history books, which people will remember where they were when they first heard the news. Being on a college campus during such an event is a once in a lifetime experience, arguing about it over lunch in the caf, bending the ear of relevant professors, and staying up late to watch the news unfold on TV with dorm-mates. For the Dickinson College classes of 1979-1982, TMI will forever be that event. And make no mistake, the students were ecstatic. From the interviews we’ve conducted with a then member of the scientific faculty, and a then chemistry major we were able to gleam a look at the radioactive atmosphere of the time.
Though the students may have been excited, the parents were horrified, showing up in droves on campus to bring their children home upon hearing the news. But any anxieties the students held were quickly ameliorated by the cool, calm, and collected heads of the physics and chemistry departments. The professors assured their students that nothing of great danger was happening, they met regularly in the social hall with the student body to discuss the situation, as well as with administrators privately. A t-shirt contest was held in the wake of the accident, as tempers and temperatures cooled.
The winner of the Dickinson TMI t-shirt contest, a common theme was “I survived TMI”
An anti-nuclear message, from 30 years after the accident
Read about the Fukushima nuclear disaster here, or learn about how nuclear disasters are caused here.
Read about our interviews with people affected by the Three Mile Island accident here.