March 28 will be the 26th anniversary of the partial meltdown of Reactor # 2 at TMI - Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. The accident started about 4 in the morning. I remember in 1972 when they "brought TMI online." I see its cooling towers in the not-far distance each time I drive over the hill going home. When the thing - the accident - started, no one - like the power plant owners or U.S. government - told anyone in the area or nationally or internationally what was going on. Sounds like things today. The morning of 28/3/79 my father (an electrical engineer) took his usual route on the back road right past TMI on his way to teach at Penn State Capitol Campus. He told me that at the time he thought the presence of dozens of extra cars parked along both sides of the road was an anti-nuclear demonstration. Meanwhile when this thing happened I was not very far away in Washington proofreading a text on nuclear power plant cooling systems. More on this in a couple of days. I need some time with those TMI memories. The sadness, panic, desperation, and an enormous helplessness were much like a precursor to the same feelings on 11 Sept. 2001.
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