The nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, near Middletown, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, occurred on 28 March 1979. On 1 April 1979, the Philadelphia Inquirer published an evacuation plan for the area around the nuclear power plant. The map above shows the three zones of immediate concern. While the Lykens Valley was north of the evacuation area, many residents who lived within the affected area fled to stay with relatives in the Lykens Valley.
Portions of the articles which described the evacuation plans follow here:
REACTOR GASES PLAGUE EFFORTS,
FORCE MAPPING OF EVACUATIONS
Residents within a “10-mile to 20-mile quadrant downwind” of the crippled Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, southwest of Harrisburg, may be evacuated before an attempt is made to remove a bubble of radioactive and potentially explosive hydrogen in the reactor, federal officials said yesterday.
A plan is being considered to force the bubble from the reactor through pipes to an adjacent building where the hydrogen would be burned to produce water. Officials would not estimate when that maneuver might be attempted.
“It [the evacuation] may turn out to be a prudent, precautionary measure,” said Joseph Hendrie, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), at a news briefing in Washington….
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EVACUATION: HOW PLANS WOULD WORK
If large amounts of the hydrogen gas that has collected in the reactor itself and the reactor’s containment building were to combine with small amounts of oxygen, there could be an explosion, raising the possibility of radioactive debris showering the area.
But officials last night discounted the possibility of an imminent explosion. Harold Denton, the senior NRC official on the site, said last night. “We are making progress in eliminating the hydrogen altogether, but obviously , if we were to sit idly by and do nothing, the amount of oxygen would continue to go up. It it does go up, it doesn’t mean you have an explosion. You have to have a potential ignitor…. There is no source of ignition in the vessel.”
He said it would take at least 12 days for the hydrogen bubble to reach a flammable stage.
Denton made his remarks after the Associated Press quoted an anonymous NRC official as asaying the bubble could explode in only two days.
Gov. Dick Thornburgh, commenting on that report, said, “There is no imminent catastrophic event at the plant. I appeal to all Pennsylvaniaians to display calm and resolve in this situation.”
In the evacuation plan, a 20-mile area downwind would most likely stretch eastward from Three Mile Island to a point just west of Lancaster. Prevailing winds in the area are from the west and northwest.
The evacuation was suggested because an attempt to remove the bubble could increase the risk of an non-nuclear explosion that would rupture the adjacent containment building and release large amounts of radiation, nuclear technicians said.
Lieutenant Gov. William W. Scranton III said yesterday that “we are making preparations to call out the National Guard in the event of an evacuation,” and said it would tke “several hours” to remove everyone within 20 miles of the plant. Authorities calculate that more than 600,000 people live within the area. Any evacuation, he said, would involve “cars, buses, National Guard trucks and State Police vehicles.
A team of 65 county, state and federal officials, working in a windowless “nuclear proof war room” a block from the State Capitol, were working yesterday to develop emergency evacuation plans for as many as 630,000 persons.
Lt. Gov. William W. Scranton III said the state had been assured by President Carter that the federal government would provide any assistance needed to accomplish a rapid evacuation if necessary.
“Carter’s pretty much given us a blank check,” Scranton said.
Army officials, federal military police and the state national guard were told yesterday to be available for assistance if there is an evacuation.
The rush to develop evacuation plans began after officials of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) determined that residents within a “10-to-20 mile quadrant downwind” of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant might have to be evacuated is an attempt were made to remove radioactive gas now trapped in the reactor.
Details of the evacuation plans and techniques are confusing, partly because officials are operating outside the the technical chain of command, and partly because the highest state and federal officials working on the plans said they did not expect an evacuation.
Technically, it is Gov. Dick Thornburgh who would have to make the decision to order an evacuation.
If he does so, then, technically, each county would be responsible for its own evacuation plans. There is no single state plan for such an evacuation, according to Jack Glourner of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.
However, state and federal officials are working with county officials in the Harrisburg area on evacuation plans.
Robert Blair of the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration said yesterday that if an evacuation were ordered, it would be carried out in phases. First, he said, residents within a five-mile quadrant downwind from the power plant would be removed.
Blair estimated that those people – an estimated 20,000 – could be removed within three hours. (However, he said, some officials estimated that as many as two-thirds of those people had already left their homes voluntarily, so less than three hours might be needed.)
As soon as the first phase of the evacuation were completed, Blair said, officials would begin to evacuate the next five-mile segment of the quadrant.
After completing the second phase of evacuation, officials would move on to the next five-mile segment of the quadrant, Blair said.
County officials said they would follow these procedures is an evacuation were ordered.
First, notice would be given to the public by radio and television announcements, sirens and public address announcements from police and fire vehicles.
Most residents would be expected to leave by using their own cars. However, each county is determining how many buses would be necessary to transport residents without cars.
Officials would notify residents by radio and television about where they should go to get on the buses. In addition, workers are prepared to go door to door to see if people need special help or ambulance assistaqnce to leave their homes.
John Brabits, assistant director of the Dauphin COunty Emergency Preparedness Office, said his office was planning on using 42 buses. The buses would take residents to “staging areas” outside the evacuated region where the people could be housed and fed.
Those areas would be public institutional buildings such as schools and state hospitals. They would be stocked with food and bedding and would be staffed by a variety of personnel, such as nurses and ministers.
County officials said, however, that they expect most residents to drive to the homes of friends or relatives rather than to the evacuation centers.
State police and officials of the state’s Department of Transportation (PennDOT) would be responsible for keeping roads clear to avoid massive traffic jams. PennDOT officials said yesterday that they were temporarily suspending all construction on roads where more lanes of traffic might be needed for an evacuation.
The evacuation plans are being formulated in a “nuclear proof” facility in Harrisburg that is temporarily being called the State Emergency Operating Center. It is in the basement of the Safety and Transportation Building a block north of the state capitol.
The facility, built in 1947, can hold 27 persons. John Comey of the state’s Emergency Management Agency said yesterday that workers were bringing in 270 beds for it. He said it was “totally self-contained” and that officials could continue to work there if an evacuation was ordered.
The center contains many windowless, cement-block rooms and long, dark corridors. There are maps, blackboards and police communications equipment in the rooms.
Comey described the operation as looking like a “war room.”
Plans are also being made to evacuate patients from area hospitals and mental institutions and prisoners from the 1,100-inmate state prison at Camp Hill.
Spokesmen at six hospitals within 12 miles of the nuclear plant said authorities had already found available bed space at hospitals more than 20 miles away. A spokesman for the prison, which is about 10 miles from the power facility, said that buses are being readied to move the prisoners. For security reasons, the official would not say where the prisoners would be taken.
A spokesman at the Harrisburg State Hospital, which houses 600 mentally ill residents and is about 15 miles from the power plant, said that he did not know whether the evacuation would affect that hospital….
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News articles from Newspapers.com.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.