Episode 5 — The plant that kept running

Dateline: 28 March 1979, control room, Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station, 1000 River Road, Middletown, Pennsylvania

The Harrisburg Patriot-News reported that operators noted a loss of feedwater at 4:00 a.m. and initiated emergency cooling under existing procedures. Radiation monitors registered a brief rise before returning to background levels by mid-morning. The paper stated that the unit remained online at reduced power and that no off-site release had been confirmed. Evacuation orders were limited to pregnant women and children within five miles.

The account repeated in Middletown kitchens today does not mention feedwater or monitors. People say the plant on River Road has run without fuel since that morning, and that the operators who stayed on shift still punch the same time clock at the gate. The cooling towers are described as releasing steam only when the wind is from the west, and the steam is said to settle in the river instead of rising. No one in the retelling recalls an emergency procedure or a limited evacuation.