Carter Was Calm During TMI Crisis Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading about former President Jimmy Carter's trip to central Pennsylvania in the wake of the most serious accident at a commercial nuclear plant in U.S. history.  Carter died this past Sunday after starting hospice care in February 2023.  He was 100 years old.  Carter visited the region April 1, 1979 - four days after the partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant's Unit 2 reactor.  I can still remember that day.  Local officials at the time said Carter's visit helped to quell panic in people living near the plant and gave a needed morale boost.  "My primary concern in coming here this afternoon has been to learn as much as I possibly can as President about the problems at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant and to assure the people of this region that everything possible is being done and will be done to cope with these problems," Carter said that day.  One of my sons was celebrating his birthday that particular day and had his friends to our house in nearby Lancaster for a birthday party.  I can remember a call to the local hospital I made to find out about what should be done about our party.  We were told to stay indoors instead of allowing the children to be outside...just in case.  Carter said the levels of radiation coming from the plant were safe and promised an investigation into the incident.  It was later determined that a combination of human error and technical error caused the reactor to lose cooling water, exposing the core and putting the plant at risk of a meltdown.  Carter trained as a nuclear engineer.  TMI was not his first brush with a nuclear crisis.  In 1952, Carter led a Navy crew that helped safely dismantle the damaged Chalk River reactor in Ontario, Canada.  Mechanical problems and human error at that experimental reactor led to overheating fuel rods and significant damage to the reactor core.  Carter supported nuclear power as "an energy source of last resort" to help lessen reliance on foreign oil.  The incident at TMI sparked a backlash that significantly slowed the industry's growth in the U.S. according to the Energy Information Administration.  Plans for 67 nuclear power plants were canceled between 1979 and 1988.  Many plants that had started the lengthy permit process in the 1970s continued to come online through the early 1990s.  Only two new plants have come online in the U.S. in the past years.  TMI-2 never reopened after the accident.  A subsidiary of Utah-based EnergySolutions is now cleaning up at the site.  TMI's Unit 1 reactor, owned by Exelond, generated power until Sept. 20, 2019.  It shut down because it was not economically competitive with other energy sources such as natural gas.  This year the plant announced plans to reopen, fueled by a deal to provide emission-free electricity to Microsoft.  PS - I guess that since Carter made it to 100....the nuclear accident during my son's birthday party didn't cause any problems for the children that were attending the party!