It was late March, 45 years ago.

Residents of Middletown, Pennsylvania went to bed on a normal spring night...

and woke up to a nuclear disaster.

 

Pennsylvania's state government has had to intervene in its fair share of emergencies in recent years-- COVID, the East Palestine train derailment to name a few.

Today's responses to emergency situations traces back to the Accident at Three Mile Island.

Three Mile Island was one of five nuclear plants in Pennsylvania at the time. On March 28th, 1979, a water pump shut down, flooding one of the reactors.

Taylor Mason, Outreach Archivist with the Pennsylvania House Archives described the time line after that.

“Radioactive gas was leaking, and a hydrogen bubble was building," said Mason.

It took workers hours to turn the system off, and by then the hydrogen bubble was large enough to cause panic and confusion for the next week.

“When you hear radioactive you think automatically ‘its not safe’, but then they were saying it could have been in small amounts," said Mason.

State officials initially called for mass evacuation.

“But once the nuclear people at Three mile island and the federal government said it was okay, they said certain people should evacuate within a certain mile radius, like pregnant women and school aged kids," said Mason. 

Representative Tina Pickett (R-107) shared how she was in the restaurant and hotel industry in Bradford County at the time. She remembers how all the rooms were booked as people fled north to wait the nuclear incident out.

The crisis was over by April 2nd, which is how long it took to release the gas little by little.

The panic died down, but frustrations remained. On April 5th, House Resolution 48 passed and created a special committee. They examined how the emergency was handled and suggested improved protocols for the future.

“People were just not sure what was going on... [they] were just frustrated with is it safe or not, because then they were hearing mixed messaging," said Mason. "And basically what was government doing? Who was being informed and who wasn’t?”

The Accident at Three Mile Island forced state government to better understand their role in emergencies.

“It definitely played into a lot of members minds like what else can happen?" said Mason. "And if we don't know, we need to form a system to get informed and tell our constituents what to do best."

Pickett, as a current elected official looking back, commented on how much communication has changed since then. Legislators navigating the Three Mile Island incident didn't have cellphones. Now officials and the public have ready access to the internet and other ways to get alerts.

Some direct traces to the nuclear incident remain. Reviews of Three Mile Island led to the state's own emergency signals to be broadcasted on radio and TV... systems that are tested and used to this day.