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Evacuation. Please stay
indoors with your windows closed.

You're having dreams?

What are the dreams?

About the Three Mile Island.

I sat and thought about this stuff
for years afterwards.

And how even after 40 years,
it'll still rear its ugly head.

It was the first step
in a nuclear nightmare,

the breakdown in an atomic power plant
at Pennsylvania today.

Middletown, Pennsylvania
is on edge tonight.

Highways are backed up
and telephones are jammed.

The accident
at Three Mile Island in 1979

was the worst nuclear accident
to ever happen on American soil.

Plant officials
say the accident is not serious.

They wanted to keep information
from the general public.

The company statements
haven't answered important questions.

And they wanted to cover stuff up.

How much radioactivity
has already escaped from the plant?

Remain indoors.

Close all windows and doors.

But the world needs to know
what happened at Three Mile Island.

And what's happening
in your dreams?

People start moving out,
and there's lots and lots of traffic.

And then, all of a sudden...

it blew up.

It is an awful responsibility
which has come to us.

Nuclear power stations
devoted to peaceful purposes.

Nuclear energy is working wonders,

providing a happier world for all mankind.

Is this the future of energy
or a recipe for nuclear disaster?

Three Mile Island was directly across
from my childhood home.

Only thing separating it was the water,

the railroad tracks,

and a two-lane road.

And it was kind of just
a fixture of the community.

The Middletown area was the perfect place
to build this nuclear power plant

because of the Susquehanna River
being right there,

supplyin' all the cooling needs
of the plant.

Unit 1 went online in 1974,

and Unit 2 went commercial
in December of 1978.

Three Mile Island
reactor number two

went into commercial service
just three months ago.

When the towers went up in our community,
that represented progress.

I was a very happy homemaker.

I was running a small business.
I ran a daycare.

My husband worked on the railroad.

I could see the towers
from my kitchen window,

but I had no clue what nuclear power was.

A nuclear power plant
is really just a big tea kettle.

Nuclear fuel
and a chain reaction produces heat.

The heat turns water to steam.
The steam moves turbines.

The turbines produce electricity.

Nuclear energy was promoted
as the next best thing.

It was gonna bring in jobs,
and it's gonna be so cheap.

There was no thought about radiation,
or the dangers, or anything.

I never even thought about it.

For a community like ours

that was feeling the negative impacts
of the demise of coal and steel,

you had an industry
coming to our community

that employed a lot of people, paid well...

Gas shortages
are currently being experienced

by car owners across the country.

Dependence on foreign oil
threatens our economic independence.

If you look at
what's going on nationally,

nuclear appeared to be the answer.

This is the power
and the promise of the atom.

When nuclear power plants
were being marketed,

they were the promise of tomorrow.

You could not have been
more pro-nuclear than me.

Yeah, I worked at
power plants all over the country,

and I ended up
in the power plant up in Michigan,

which was identical to Three Mile Island.

All nuclear power plants are designed
to keep the reactor cool.

And the operator,
at the initiation of an accident,

can grab his lunch bucket and go home,

and the plant would be safe.

As a result of that, there was
a mindset throughout the industry.

"A major accident could never happen."

And I believed that.

But, you know, I was wrong.

I know from personal experience,

at four o'clock in the morning,
that is the worst possible time of day.

You're struggling to stay awake.
I don't care how dedicated you are.

So the operators were sittin' there,
fat, dumb, and happy.

And then, boom.

Every alarm starts
goin' off simultaneously.

We have a turbine trip.
The reactor is offline.

Reactor coolant pumps are up and running.

And these operators are goin',
"Holy Jesus, what is goin' on here?"

We're not getting any
emergency feed water.

Guys were stabbin' in the dark
for over an hour.

Indications on the pressurizer
are saying it's getting too full.

By that time,
temperature in the reactor was goin' up,

even though the water level
continued to indicate that it was full.

Shut down
the reactor coolant pumps.

So they decided
to shut off the pump that

was making the water level go up,

but it's not.

You never shut down water across a core.

They needed to cool that reactor.

They did not know what was goin' on,
and it scared them.

I got a phone call
right around five o'clock.

I was told that Unit 2 had shut down,

and that the duty superintendent
wanted me into the plant right away.

I had worked at Three Mile Island
since Unit 1 first opened up,

but Unit 2 at that time
was only operating about three months.

So I just didn't know
what I should be expecting.

At that time,
operators in the control room

were trying to analyze flows,
pressures, temperatures.

And one of the major concerns was

there's no fresh water
flowing through the system.

There was no flow across that core,

so the water just
continued to sit there and heat up.

Finally, the on-call shift supervisor
recognized the relief valve is open.

It's leakin'.

That's what the problem is.

At one point during the accident,

a relief valve opens up
to relieve the pressure.

That valve stuck open.

Water is no longer
circulating inside the core

and under no circumstance

is the water level
supposed to drop beneath the core,

because so easily
it can spiral out of control.

So, we shut the valve,
and then focus on the reactor.

That stopped
the scenario that they were in,

but by that time,
we're super-heating the reactor.

As the temperature continues to increase,
the core will melt

and create
a self-sustaining nuclear reaction.

Extremely radioactive, highly dangerous.

At that point, you're in totally,
totally uncharted territory.

Temperatures were soaring
inside the reactor vessel,

indicating the potential
of a nuclear meltdown.

I heard a really loud noise
coming from the plant,

and it was something
I've never heard before.

This is the house I grew up in.

The bus stop is right up here
at the corner of the driveway.

So it was directly across from there.

As a six-year-old,
I couldn't make sense of it,

but asked, "Why? Why do we hear
that noise? What was that noise about?"

And I'm being told to, you know,
"Come on, stay calm."

"Everything's gonna be okay."

So, I went outside, waiting for my bus
to come to get to school,

but I was scared.

I had absolutely no idea
what was goin' on across the street.

At about the moment I was
tracking the radiation monitoring system,

all of a sudden,
I heard a radiation alarm.

I immediately went down the hallway
towards the reactor building.

Two technicians accompanied me

so we could get in
and find out what was going on.

There was nothing
that we could easily identify

as being a cause of radiation.

But very quickly,
I noticed a increase in the meter reading,

and overhead were the
unshielded sample lines

coming over from Unit 2 reactor system.

They were highly radioactive.

At that moment, it dawned on me
that we had a major problem in Unit 2.

We immediately left the area.

One of the technicians ran into
the auxiliary building of Unit 2

to clear the building.

And I ran to the office
and used the paging system.

We are failing fuel fast.
Declare an emergency.

This is Mike Pinzac
in the KBO newsroom.

Met-Ed company officials had to shut down

their Three Mile Island nuclear power
station unit number two this morning

after an accident occurred
within the plant's turbine system.

Officials have been saying that
there is no danger to the general public,

and that the situation is under control.

I was still in bed.
The phone rang.

It was Governor Thornburgh.

He said, "Critch, there's a
site emergency at Three Mile Island."

And I said, "Governor,"
I said, "What is Three Mile Island?"

We were still getting our feet wet.

We had just taken office 72 days earlier,

and so this event
came as quite a shock to us,

because we simply
had not anticipated anything like it.

After an initial
three or four minutes of press...

There was very little information
except that an incident had happened.

We started making phone calls
to Metropolitan Edison,

the company that owned the reactor,
"What happened? What does this mean?"

Based on what we had heard
from Met-Ed, things were generally stable.

This was not anything terribly serious.

We didn't get a lot of information,

but they said
they knew what they were doing,

and that things were under control.

The Metropolitan Edison company
has informed us

that there has been an incident
at Three Mile Island Unit 2.

Everything is under control.

There is, and was,
no danger to public health and safety.

Metropolitan Edison has been

monitoring the air in the vicinity of
the plant constantly since the incident.

No increase in normal radiation levels
has been detected.

How did you
determine the radiation?

How would you know which areas
are contaminated and which are safe?

- Bill, can you...
- Well...

Who's this?

...the nuclear engineer with the DER.

Uh...

Metropolitan Edison immediately sent
people out at the plant boundary

and to Goldsboro,

because the wind was blowing
toward that direction, to take readings.

Before we came up here,
I got word that they detected

a small amount of iodine...
radioactive iodine on the ground.

- What?
- Radioactive iodine on the ground.

Iodine.

We were all surprised.

That was the first moment

that anyone stated that there had been
some radiation released.

I was really angry

because I had gotten up there,

essentially avowed that what
Metropolitan Edison said was correct.

Where are the personnel

who are charged with the responsibility
of monitoring the atmosphere?

Standing by in our office.

Why aren't they at the plant?

Because we rely on
the company's instrumentation.

I'm confused.
You're just taking what they tell you?

Yes.

There were rumblings
in the community

because some of our neighbors
had police monitors.

And it was my neighbor Paula who called

and told me that people are talking about

that there is an accident
down on the island.

And I said, "Um, are you sure about that?"

"Or are they misunderstanding
what's happening?"

She said,
"No, the police have been called down,

and maybe even the fire department."

My kiddos went to school.

My little one was outside playing.

And we were told
that everything was under control.

And I believed them!

There was no reason for me not to.

And that's when we started

seeing journalists coming
into the community asking questions.

I'm saying to myself,
"What's really going on down there?"

I got a phone call
from Rolling Stone

asking if I want to cover
the accident at Three Mile Island.

I said, "Boy, this is great. Fantastic."

I was 25 years old,
and it was a big opportunity at the time.

People were terrified about
the possible dangers of nuclear power.

Because at that point,

everybody's hearing
stories about The China Syndrome,

which was the big movie of the time
that came out 12 days before the accident.

The China Syndrome.

Today, only a handful of people
know what it means, and they're scared.

Now at theaters everywhere.

The movie predicted parallels to
the event going on at Three Mile Island,

which was completely eerie.

- What do we got, turbine trip?
- Yeah.

The movie was about
a nuclear power plant

where the accident caused literally
something called the China Syndrome.

If that's true, then we came very close
to the China Syndrome.

The what?

If the core is exposed
for whatever reason,

the fuel heats beyond
core heat tolerance in minutes,

and it melts down through the bottom
of the plant, theoretically to China.

But it blasts into the atmosphere
and sends out clouds of radioactivity.

Render an area the size of Pennsylvania
permanently uninhabitable.

The fact that we're in Pennsylvania

at a nuclear power plant
when this is happening,

people didn't understand
how it could be so coincidental.

The movie was prophetic.

And it brought into the vernacular
the concept of a core meltdown.

The concept that
a reactor is potentially unstable.

People had never heard that before.

When The China Syndrome came out,

there was a loud cry
from the nuclear industry

that this could never happen.

And within 12 days,
people found out that it could.

There was a large thud
heard in the control room.

And at the same time a pressure spike
in the containment building,

but it came straight down.

There was not a lot of understanding
of what it was.

But the first reaction to it

was to see if any operating equipment
inside containment had failed.

A quick check by the operators identified
that everything was running normal.

"There's no sense worrying about it now.
Let's move on."

Within the next hour, radioactivity
was getting into the control room.

Everything just kept deteriorating.

People were having to wear a mask

'cause they had
higher boron contamination.

It was a clusterfuck in the control room.

At that point,
I was focused entirely on,

"Are we releasing radiation
to the general public?"

But we had no idea.

Radiation has been recorded
as far as 16 miles away

from Three Mile Island,

though federal investigators insist

that the levels are not high enough
to threaten human health.

Officials are worried,
however, that higher quantities

recorded at the power plant's north gate
could be dangerous.

Why was there such a delay

in notifying the community
that there was a problem at the plant?

I don't think there was a delay...

It happened at 4 o'clock.
They were notified at 9.

I don't think the general public
was in danger at any point

throughout the transit
we experienced this morning.

From what we've seen,
the safety of the plant's adequate.

We're using very sensitive instruments
to monitor the area radiation,

and at that point we...

we saw nothing.

We put a meeting
together in my office

with the Metropolitan Edison people
and Mr. Herbein.

And it was a "come to Jesus" meeting.

I said, "What is going on here?"

The response was,
"Yeah, we've been releasing."

Wh... Wh...

"Why did you not let us know this?"

And he said, "Well, no one asked me." And...

Which is just...
dumbfounded, just made me dumbfounded.

It was as if this was a guy who said,
"This is our business, not yours."

We knew from that point on they were not
a reliable source of information.

This is an update on the incident

at the Three Mile Island
nuclear power plant today.

The situation is more complex
than the company first led us to believe.

Met-Ed officials insist
this is not a serious accident,

but they do admit that radiation
has escaped into the environment.

How dangerous did
the power company say the situation was?

They assured me there
was nothing to be concerned about.

Are you satisfied
with that answer?

I think we will get better answers.

Do you see any need to start
evacuating people out of that area?

No, we do not.

After I get back home,

we were watching TV and what was going on

right down the road from my house.

I remember them talking about radiation.

Radioactive steam has escaped
into the atmosphere and was detected.

I didn't understand it,

but what was explained to me
was that it could harm me.

You have your family there
and all that you love...

We want real answers.

And we want to know
what our future holds for us.

There's still questions
that need to be answered.

What caused the mishap here today?

And how long will the nuclear reactor
be out of service?

The cause will be determined
only after the danger has passed.

For now,
the crucial issue is stabilizing the plant

as the situation could become much worse.

In the control room,

people were required
to put the respirators on

until the alarm cleared.

It took us a while
based on a lot of radiation measurements

to get to the point where we felt
comfortable not putting respirators on,

but the whole drive then was,

"How do we
get to a position of stability?"

It became obvious that we had to get

one or more of those
reactor coolant pumps in service,

which were the main source
of recirculating water through the core.

However, we had a concern about
if it would possibly destroy the pump

and do more damage by
trying to start it than leaving it alone.

The control room set up a test.

The pump was turned on,
forcing flow through the core.

And there was a collective
sigh of relief in the control room

when the pressures
came back to their normal levels

and that was
our first indication of stability.

It basically stops the devastation
that's going on at that moment.

Throughout the night, dozens of
workers checked air samples for radiation

near the accident site
at Three Mile Island.

The air samples you checked right outside
the container were not lethal?

No. They weren't lethal, no.
I'm sorry, I gotta go.

- You have fears of radiation?
- No.

No, not at all. I gotta go, sorry.

The radiation level outside the plant
has been at a very low level,

and it certainly has not endangered
any of the people in the area. Not at all.

Keep in mind, we have 72 nuclear reactors
in operation in this country.

They've been in operation,
some of them since 1974,

and we still haven't injured
a single member of the public,

and I think that's significant.

There has been no technology that man
has ever been involved with

since the first time
he started to use fire

that can claim any record like that.

I got to the plant
on the morning of the accident,

and 30 hours later, I was still there.

We didn't know exactly
what condition the fuel was in.

Was the core uncovered?
Was there core damage?

That's why we needed the boron sample.

Boron was very critical
in the primary system

because boron controlled the reaction
that was in the reactor vessel.

So we needed to make sure
there was enough boron in the system

to shut down the reactor completely.

Nobody was asked to volunteer.

Ed stepped forward.

He was one of my technicians.

So the concern was that
no unnecessary radiation exposure occurred

for any of the individuals
that were involved.

We had everything pre-established,
how it was gonna be done,

who is gonna do what,
no wasted energy, no wasted time.

They were the right people to do it.

There was reports
that were incomplete.

Coffee cups sitting there.

Sandwiches that had bites out of them.

It was like the Rapture took place.

There was some
radiation monitors that were alarming.

We silenced those.

The Teletector pegged
tremendously high.

It was definitely a concern.

You know, you have people
that depend on you at home.

We decided we were gonna grab the sample,

and we were just
gonna be fast about doing it.

And that's when I sort of became, uh...

pretty contaminated.

On a weekly basis,
you're allowed point-three rem.

When my badge was read,
it came out to be two-point-eight rem.

Almost a hundred times
what you're allowed to have.

It was hours that I was in the shower
trying to get rid of the contamination.

And, uh... it didn't work very well.

I was still contaminated when I came home.

I wouldn't touch my kids.

But, uh...

Excuse me.

It's still just a guess,
how much he was exposed to.

Boy needs a big pat on the back...

'cause he did it willingly.

And their sample confirmed
the boron concentration was way low.

The plant was not in stable condition.

Earlier today, it was very hot
and radioactive inside the plant.

One million times
more radioactive than normal.

The plant is not cooling down

as fast as would normally be expected.

Uh, the cooling down...

It was a very sobering thing
finding out how dangerous this really is.

But also we were getting
such conflicting information.

And I couldn't believe that many
journalists from all over the world

came into our small town.

And a lot of them felt
like I felt,

"We're not being told the truth,
or at least the total truth."

By the second day,

people realized
the press conferences were bullshit.

You saying there's
no China Syndrome possibility at all?

I'm saying we don't have
any China Syndrome possibility

with the events that occurred at
Three Mile Island over the past two days.

And at that point everybody
turned into an investigative reporter.

Why should the public believe

that something like this
would not happen again?

They all wanted to just go after 'em.

How long was the core uncovered?

We don't know that.

On what authority
then do you tell us

that we could not find ourselves
in something more serious?

There are no guarantees.

There's no guarantee, sir, that you won't
be struck by a meteorite tomorrow.

And if there would be any safety defects,
ask the NRC.

I am sure they would take action

to see to it that those things
are immediately corrected

or the plant would be shut down.

At the time of the
Three Mile Island accident,

I was in the NRC headquarters
in Washington.

And the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission's job

was to oversee the nuclear power industry

to ensure that
public health and safety was maintained.

The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission is monitoring the situation

at their headquarters in Washington.

We knew we were getting
off-site radiation levels,

but for the first day and the second day,

this chain of very
imperfect communications,

with very imperfect information
to start from,

basically left people
very much in the dark.

Workers said the level
of radiation was still not dangerous.

Members of Congress
are quite agitated about the accident,

wondering if something like it could
happen in their own states and districts.

So there was a quick hearing today.

We knew this was very serious,
but in the media frenzy

it was this perfect storm of information
being misunderstood and misused.

Things can just go crazy.

How close did we come to a core meltdown,
to a China Syndrome?

Could it have happened?

I don't think so.
I think we were nowhere near it.

People had all seen China Syndrome.

That immediately is portrayed
in the public as "Jane Fonda's meltdown,"

which was disconnected
from what reality was.

We're going to focus
on nuclear power, that almost...

So fear in the community
never should have happened.

The NRC told
a Congressional committee

that the danger to the public
was never serious.

This could be a terrible black eye
for the nuclear industry

as a viable energy option for the future.

The Carter Administration has
pinned considerable hope on nuclear power

to fill the energy gap
during coming years.

The question now arises,

just what will happen
to more peaceful use of the atom?

It was 10:00 p.m.,
I was in my office.

A call was put through.

It was one of the NRC inspectors
that I had met during the day.

And he said,
"I'm calling from my motel room."

"Please don't use my name,
but I want you to know

that I think you've been given
a slightly misleading impression about

what's happening in the plant."

"In fact, things are much worse
than you may have been led to believe."

"There is much more serious core damage,

uh, and the consequences
could be very long-term."

"Months, if not years."

And he hung up.

That framed
what happened thereafter

because we now begin to doubt
that the NRC that had come on to the site

was actually being straight with us.

Inside the Three Mile Island plant itself,

officials of the Metropolitan Edison,
the operators,

and the federal
Nuclear Regulatory Commission

say the level of radiation
is extremely high,

that's inside the facility.

And they confirm there is
a continued release of radioactive gases.

In a nearby van,

scientists were analyzing radiation
from air, water, and vegetation samples.

At this point, after three days,

there was an increase
in radiation going to the public,

and it was actually going up with time.

Not a lot,
but enough to be concerned about.

Radiation levels outside
Three Mile Island

are no higher than a dental X-ray,
according to Pennsylvania state officials,

which they say justifies the decision
not to evacuate the surrounding area.

It was the NRC's responsibility

to make a recommendation
if evacuation should be needed.

So, we're looking ahead
to what might be some trip point

or some significant thing
that would call for evacuation.

So I did this analysis at that point,

based on these
projections for off-site releases.

I came up with 1,200 millirem per hour,
which would be extremely high.

But if levels get that high,
that might be a reason for an evacuation.

It's going!

Get up!

Levels as high
as 1,200 millirem per hour were detected

in the cloud of gas.

I was shocked.

The helicopter was reporting
1,200 millirem per hour,

and the whole tenor of the room changed.

Met-Ed disagrees
with assessments

that the reactor is out of control.

The discussion in
Washington headquarters became,

"Is this really worthy of an evacuation?"

If you're evacuating,
you're leaving towns, businesses,

homes unprotected, emptied.

The looting opportunities
would be enormous.

Even in a planned evacuation,
people lose their lives,

children in incubators, old folks
on life support systems, accidents.

Okay, so there's a report...

...evacuation.

Hey, chief.

It was a serious concern
because we had to figure out,

"What can we tell the public?"

There was consideration today
in the governor's office in Pennsylvania

of a possible evacuation
of almost one million people

who live in Harrisburg and other towns,
villages, and farms in the area.

I got phone calls.

"What are you doing there?
You need to get out of there!"

The Vice President
of Metropolitan Edison says,

"Residents have nothing to worry about."

I became very angry
at the prospect

of not being able to make good decisions
based on what was happening.

All that we love dearly
is sitting right here under those stacks.

People within a ten-mile area
of Three Mile Island

have been put on alert

for the possibility
that an evacuation may be ordered.

It was eerily quiet.

But then you'd have a fire truck
or a police car with bullhorns

giving us conflicting information.

Close all windows and doors!

They'd tell you, "If you live in
a brick house, keep your windows open,"

and then they'd say, "Close your windows."

They were spinning the population
up, then spinning them down.

It was, "You may have to run."
"Uh, you don't have to run."

At this time,
there's no evacuation.

All they managed to do was confuse
all the people that lived in the area.

It's a lot worse than
what they're telling us. Typical lies.

They ought to close
those nuclear power plants down.

What if they come up
and told you the truth now?

They gotta cover up something.

And suddenly...

this siren goes off, and it doesn't stop.

You had no idea what was going on.

At that point,
Governor Thornburgh was asking the NRC,

"Should we evacuate?"

He's addressing the group...

But there was disagreement
within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

of whether they were
making the right decisions.

Let me say frankly,
no plant has ever been in this condition,

no plant's ever been tested
or analyzed in this condition.

I think we ought to be moving people.

But not yet, I don't think...

They've had two days to get ready,
and they're scared.

The government, the NRC,

utility officials
were playing Russian roulette.

The future of nuclear energy,

and the lives of millions of people
were hinging on the state of that reactor.

I don't know what
we're protecting at this point.

I think we ought to be moving people.