March 28 1979: A day that lives in Pennsylvania infamy

For those who lived through that fateful day in 1979, the memories are still vivid.. There were fears of true and utter destruction.. what could have been was not — but what had a lot more danger than what officials at the time admitted..

March 28, 1979… 4am.. Just a normal day in Harrisburg shattered by a nuclear accident at Three Mile Island..

A cooling malfunction at the Unit 2 reactor at Three Mile Island triggered the worst commercial nuclear accident in U.S. history.

A stuck-open relief valve caused reactor coolant to drain undetected for hours, leading to a partial core meltdown.

The initial cause of the accident happened 11 hours earlier, during an attempt by operators to fix a blockage in one of the eight condensate polishers, the filters cleaning the secondary loop water. These filters are designed to stop minerals and other impurities in the water from accumulating in the steam generators and to decrease corrosion rates on the secondary side. The operators decided to blow compressed air into the water and let the force of the water clear the resin.

When they forced the resin out, a small amount of water forced its way past a stuck-open check valve and found its way into an instrument air line. This would eventually cause the feedwater pumps, condensate booster pumps, and condensate pumps to turn off around 4:00 a.m., which would, in turn, cause a turbine trip.

We now know that confusing instrument readings delayed operator response.. and because of that radioactive gas was released into the atmosphere, and a hydrogen bubble inside the reactor sparked fears that there was going to be an all-out explosion.

At 6:56 a.m. a plant supervisor declared a site area emergency, and less than 30 minutes later station manager Gary Miller announced a general emergency

Then Governor Dick Thornburgh advised pregnant women and young children within 5 miles to evacuate immediately..

What developed from that point was a multi-day crisis of epic proportions ..

A collection of news reports from that date and the aftermath..

President Jimmy Carter–who actually knew a lot about this topic–also visited..

Since we didn’t all perish in a giant explosion of nuclear radiation, SNL was able to poke fun at the near calamity for the East Coast shortly after the radiation crisis..