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Early Friday morning, one of the small planes circling continuously above the Three Mile Island plant picked up a disturbing signal - a high and unexpected plume of fresh radiation coming from the stack alongside the auxiliary building.
Within minutes the reading had flashed down to NRC headquarters in Washington and back to Gov. Richard Thornburgh's office, setting off a string of reactions that would suddenly escalate Wednesday's incident into a full-blown crisis.
The first word reaching Washington that morning indicated that the radiation level above the plant had hit 1,200 millirems. NRC officials, alarmed by the strength of the radiation and even more by its very existence, bypassed normal channels and quickly alerted the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources in Harrisburg, which in turn notified Thornburgh's office of the new problem. Shortly after 9 a.m., radios in the Harrisburg area informed the public that there was an "uncontrolled release of radiation" coming from Three Mile Island.
In fact, what that small plane had picked up was a deliberate venting of radioactive gas by Metropolitan Edison, part of an effort by company technicians to relieve pressure that was ominously building up in a holding tank. But the company had failed to give the necessary warnings to state or federal officials and so authorities, unaware that the venting was deliberate and not part of a spreading accident, set in motion extraordinary plans to protect the residents of the area.
In Washington, in the basement of West Wing of the White House the Situation Room is equipped with the most complete electronic instrumentation possible to assure the president of the best intelligence communication. Two of the machines are the Associated Press and United Press International wire service tickers - and it was these machines that first let the president's staff know early Friday that things had taken a turn for the worse in Pennsylvania.
With the new report of radiation, the Situation Room called the National Security Council's Jessica Matthews, who quickly wrote a memo to national security affairs adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who briefed the president. Carter then called Joseph Hendrie, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Suddenly the situation was unpredictable and the outlook was not good.
Carter asked Hendrie: What can we do to help you? What do you need? Hendrie answered immediately: They needed to get another team to the site and better communications. Carter's aides already knew that. They had tried to reach Thornburgh's office in Harrisburg and had been unable to get a call through for half an hour. Brzezinski got his military aide, Col. William Odum, on the case and within an hour helicopters were landing at the Bethesda Naval Hospital pad to pick up the team from NRC headquarters in Bethesda to ferry them to Three Mile Island. Meanwhile the White House signal corps was installing "drop lines," which plugged the Pennsylvania state offices at Harrisburg and the control room at the nuclear plant into the White House switchboard. It was done in four hours.
This spreading sense of trouble, however, had somehow missed state and federal officials nearest to the plant. At about 8:30 a.m., E. C. McCabe of the NRC told reporters huddled at the door of his trailer across the Susquehanna from the plant that his monitors had measured "a maximum of 20 millirems for a few minutes and then it dropped off very fast."
At about the same time, William Dornsife of the State Department of Environmental Resources was telling his superiors that radiation levels that morning appeared lower than the day before.
And just before 9 a.m., as he headed through the plant's north gate. NRC supervisor Carl Berlinger said he knew nothing about a radiation leak. "I'm sure they wouldn't let us in there if there was a serious health problem."
But in Harrisburg the tension continued to ratchet upward. Thornburgh, totally dependent on the conflicting advice of experts, felt compelled to act - but not in order.
At 10 a.m. he urged everyone within a 10-mile radius of the plant to stay indoors until further notice.
The word spread immediately down Highway 441 to Middletown, where Mayor Robert Reid and civil defense chief Butch Ryan sent sound trucks into the street to warn residents to take cover. "Stay tuned to television and radio for more information," the loudspeakers boomed. "Do not call friends and neighbors . . . keep the telephone lines open." Similar warnings were issued in other communities near the plant.
Inside the borough hall, Ryan was hustling his volunteers toward the streets with radiation counters. He handed one of the yellow Geiger counters to a worker and gave blunt instructions: "If you read 100 or more on this thing, you get your ass back here. DON'T go on the radio. I don't care if you use a siren or what. Just get back here."
Reid and his aides called the schools. Cancel recesses, they said. Every child must eat lunch at school. No one goes into the streets.
But the mayor wasn't heeding the governor's advice to stay inside. In minutes, he had driven from the town hall to the American Legion post, where officials of Metropolitan Edison had scheduled a press conference.
Even as Reid was arriving and the semicircle of tripods and hot lights was forming near the stage at the front of the legion hall, another act in the growing sequence of confusion began.
At 11:15 -; whether deliberately or accidentally - the air raid sirens began to wail across the city of Harrisburg. Some now believe it was the work of an employee in the Employment Management Agency, trying to reinforce Thornburgh's warning to stay indoors. Instead it had the opposite effeet. Back at the legion post in Middletown, a television technician in contact by walkie-talkie with Harrisburg turned to a colleague: " People in Harrisburg are running around like crazy," he said.
At the same instant, Middletown's overloaded phone system went dead.
It was with that prelude that John Herbein of Met Ed began his delayed press conference, "Conditions," he said, "are stable."
Under questioning, Herbein admitted that the company had deliberately vented radioactive gas into the atmosphere for 45 minutes that morning, from 7:30 until 8:15. He also admitted that the venting had caused radiation levels above the plant that were higher than expected. But he disputed the NRC readings of 1,200 millirems. The level, he said, was closer to 350 millirems.
Nor did Herbein see any need for panic. "It's certainly the civil defense's prerogative to take those steps," he said, "but we don't think it was necessary. If the civil defense chooses to tell inhabitants of Middletown to keep their windows and doors shut, that's their prerogative." And then, almost defiantly, he added: "We have our windows and doors open."
Almost lost in this free-for-all between the company and the media was Herbein's passing mention of a bubble of hydrogen gas apparently building up in the reactor core.
"It's serious, but not to the extent that we have to evacuate the citizenry," he said.
But in Harrisburg, Gov. Thornburgh was being told just the opposite. Since urging all residents to stay indoors, the governor had raced through a series of phone calls and meetings, seeking to understand more fully the events of the morning and the potential danger they held for his state. The plain fact was that no one then knew the extent of the danger of low-level radiation to the residents closest to the plant, but by then no one was willing to take chances.
Thornburgh met with officials from the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, who urged him to order a partial evacuation, even though they believed the radiation levels were still below the danger level.
A similar recommendation came from NRC Chairman Hendrie in Washington. His experts had advised him that the gas bubble then building was potentially more serious than Herbein had hinted to the press. Hendrie told Thornburgh he should urge – not order – people to begin to move out.
Thornburgh also conferred with Carter about the problem. They agreed there was no reason for panic. But at the White House, Brzezinski had called the president's assistant for intergovernmental relations, Jack Watson, to tell him that the situation on Three Mile Island was "at best uncertain." Watson would become the chief link between the governor and the White House. Within minutes, Matthews and Odum were in Watson's office briefing him and his chief aide, Gene Eidenberg.
Eidenberg recalls that he asked how serious it could become and that Matthews replied: "This could be very serious."
Still uncertain of conditions at the plant, Thornburgh decided he must act again. At noon, he called reporters to the media center on the sixth floor of the state Capitol.
"I am advising those who may be particularly susceptible to the effects of radiation, that is, pregnant women and pre-school-age children, to leave the area within a 5-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility until further notice."
Despite the governor's repeated efforts to play down the severity of the situation, the effect of the evacuation order was chilling. In Middletown, a convoy of 26 yellow school buses began lining up on the edge of town to take people to the Hershey sports arena 11 miles away.
Near the town hall, five small children clung tightly to their mother and each other. "Mommy, I'm scared. Mommy, I'm scared."
At the Middletown Elementary School mothers arrived running to retrieve their children.
"The kids were calm, but we had a hard time keeping the parents from panicking," said Joe Prokopchop, the principal.
Bonnie Morgan, 19, and Clarence Bankes, the father of the child she was expecting any day, came into the borough hall after hearing the warning. Their eyes were red. They were distraught, scared.
"Nervous? That's not the word for it," Clarence said.
By then traffic was thickening on Union Street, the town's main drag, Cars loaded with clothing and suitcases began crawling up the hill heading out of town.
As the painful exodus mounted, Mayor Reid stood in front of the borough hall watching. He had just issued orders to his 13-man police force to shoot all looters.