What Really Happened at Three Mile Island?
At 4 A.M. on March 28, 1979, the nuclear accident in the United States began Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. The pressure valve in the Unit 2 reactor wouldn’t close in The Three Mile Island Power Plant. The cooling water and radiation leaked out of the building, and the core began to over heat.
Almost immediately, the back up cooling pumps started to work. But then, the controllers turned off the valves because of a misreading. The plant operators didn’t understand what was happening, and the whole time. contaminated water was leaking all over the plant. The radiation levels were high, but not dangerous. The Governor of Pennsylvania, Dick Thornburgh, wanted to call an evacuation.
Over 12 hours later, the operators turned back on the water pumps. The plant was an hour away from being 5,000 degrees. The core was destroyed. The protective shell was still intact, and no more radiation was coming out. It appeared like it was almost over. But two days later, hydrogen gas was discovered.
On March 28, the gad had exploded and let out radiation into the air. Governor Thornburgh told the people to stay indoors, and over 100,000 people had left the surrounding areas. Three days later, on April 1st, Jimmy Carter inspected the nuclear plant. His visit calmed the people, and slowly the hydrogen gas was let out. Three Mile Island eroded the trust people had in nuclear power.
