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Understanding 9/11tv Three Mile Island Collection CSPAN January 21, 2017 10:24am-10:36am EST
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clad, >> mcgill university history professor looks at u.s. israeli relations from harry truman to barack obama. house of the representatives i would commit political suicide if i did not support the state of israel. >> for our complete schedule, go to www.c-span.org. >> american history tv is joining our cable partners to showcase the history of harrisburg, pennsylvania. visit c-span.org. our history ofh harrisburg. >> we are in the storage tower
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of the pennsylvania state archives. the state archives is the repository for the public records of pennsylvania, particularly those from state government. we have some responsibility of the county records. we hold records and that amounts to 250 million pages of material throughout our storage tower. we will be looking at some the nucleararding accident at three mile island. the accident started on march 28, 1979. there was a partial meltdown of the reactor in the facility. it's located south of harrisburg, about five or six miles. is in thety susquehanna river.
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in 1979, i was a freshman about 10 miles west of harrisburg. is information was coming out in bits and pieces. people were becoming concerned about the children. decided to get in the car and leave the area. the accident occurred on wednesday. college,ay at professors and students started leaving. by friday, the vast majority of the campus was empty. i did not go home. i lived in york and it was the same distance as the college was. there was no purpose in going home. we were called into the dining hall, which was in the auditorium. one of the physics professors
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explained what was going on. aware ofle weren't what nuclear energy was or what to do. concernedeople were about the release of radiation. that's why a lot of people left the area. they were afraid there would be physical consequences. archivesylvania state has things of the collections. there are three major collections that house the bulk of the three mile island materials. we have papers from a governor thornburgh. there is a subset of his papers that relate to the three mile island incident. that was a state commission.
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more recently, one of the federal officials in charge of helping to deal with the accident donated a collection of his papers related to his involvement at three mile island. thick thornburgh was in office during the time of the accident. one of the things that came from the commission is the chronology of the events. minute i minute, what was happening starting at 7:02 a.m. on wednesday, march 28. a supervisor notifies the watch officers that the plant has been shut down. it continues from there. at 7:12 a.m., they are unable to reach york county and give lancaster a try. they get a call from president carter. he agrees with the evacuation
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decision. says haroldrter benton will be his personal representative in this incident. the governor had a press conference from the media center. the schools were closed. among the papers we received from a governor thornburgh are telegrams and letters regarding what people thought should be done to deal with this accident. there were some very interesting suggestions. he telegrams the governor to say to prevent meltdown, if safety rods are inoperative, run or x solution into damaged nuclear reactors. a letter came from terry richardson of kansas city,
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missouri. he has a lot of advice for the governor. what is interesting is he also drew sketches of how he thought this problem it could be handled. there were a lot of people opposed to the use of nuclear energy. were opposed to the use of nuclear energy, and also were very concerned about the facts, and there was criticism of what was happening at the time. this is a telegram to the 30.rnor on march so it is on that friday. it says dear sir, it is in the greatest moral position for you, to state that there is no danger to wilma and -- women or children of this time. conflicting -- evidence that there is little to no danger. it seems a prudent man would want to heir to the side of the. safety.
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calm be cursed by those who will surely be maimed, deformed, and horribly mutilated. you have no alternative, sir. you must act now. udall was also's sent to and president carter at the white house. he also mentioned that there was a press conference on friday, march 30. we have a transcription of that press conference. number one, no evacuation order is necessary at this time. recommendation is pregnant women and children stay willf five mile radius remain in effect until sometime tomorrow. my earlier advice that people living within 10 miles of the plant site remain indoors.
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in efforts to keep the public informed, he had a state wide televised address to report to people and a three mile radius of the incident. pennsylvanians, i hope to very soon now tell a tired group of women and children that they can know home now. i will treasure that moments for as long as i lived. i think it will mark the end of the most dangerous days any governor has had to face in this century." among that -- a rover designed to deal with such incidents. could used so a machine go into the containment building without having to send human beings inside to deal with the meltdown. the rover that is on this way in museamte new sam --
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was used to clean up three mile island. as i mentioned, he was sent to be part of the cleanup. they included a file of letters and cards from a school children for thanking him for his role in that. here are a few examples. in these mostly calm from an elementary school class in york, pennsylvania. one of our favorites is where this one is where a student during nice flower. scared, and if it wasn't for you, we would be dead. i am really very happy. radiation got me upset." some of these have nice drawings of the cooling towers. from an elementary school in
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northern pennsylvania, governor thornburgh received this huge letter. and this came from sheffield elementary school, prepared on friday, may 4, 1979. as you can see at the bottom here, they shut down all nuclear power plants. over the years, we have had various researchers come into the state archives to look at these collections. some people come to remind themselves of what happened during that time, it appeared -- period. and of course governor thurn --thornburgh's response to the incident. and also response to the issues
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dealing with nuclear power today. >> this weekend we are featuring the history of harrisburg, pennsylvania together with our comcast cable partners. learn more about harrisburg at c-span.org. you are watching american history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span3. >> coming up on american history tv, from the 33rd international churchill conference, author candice millard talks about her book "hero of the empire: the boer war, a daring escape, and the making of winston churchill." this is about 45 minutes. [applause] >> thank you. our next speaker, and i accidentally sat next to each
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