Thirty years ago, then-Pennsylvania Gov. Dick Thornburgh received word during a morning… Thirty years ago, then-Pennsylvania Gov. Dick Thornburgh received word during a morning budget meeting that an incident at the nuclear facility near Middletown, in central Pennsylvania, demanded his attention.

He learned that since 4 a.m., operators and engineers had been frantically trying to interpret the screaming instrumentation, a bright cacophony of lights and alarms telling them something was terribly wrong.

Fuel was damaged, causing part of the reactor core to melt. Though the event ultimately presented no physical danger to the public, the incident caused the community to panic. The situation was volatile, and Thornburgh was at the helm.

‘We were dealing with something that had never happened on the face of the earth before,’ said Thornburgh, ‘and I was no expert. I had only been in office for 72 days as governor.’

Two weekends ago marked the 30th anniversary of the incident. Thornburgh’s collection of materials concerning the Three Mile Island incident is currently on display in the Thornburgh Room of the Hillman Library. The array of Associated Press news bulletins, memos, reports and news clippings — often annotated by Thornburgh in red pen — reveals the governor’s effort to ensure the accuracy of the investigation into the incident and to assure a panicked public of its safety.

Nancy Watson, a longtime friend of Thornburgh’s and curator of the collection, called Thornburgh a ‘saver from the start.’ Throughout his career in public life, he saved anything of relevance, and there were 73 cartons of Three Mile Island-related materials alone.

Thornburgh is glad they are still around to be of some use.

‘I think the world’s made up of savers and non-savers,’ he said. ‘I’m a saver.’

Later-emerging details revealed the precise causes of the accident at Three Mile Island: Initially, a coolant valve was stuck open and a misreading of instrumentation prevented workers from being able to identify the problem. The core overheated and a potentially explosive hydrogen bubble formed in the dome of the container that held the reactor core.

Days of uncertainty followed. Watson recalled that the initial fear was great.

‘All you have to say is the nearby nuclear plant has an accident with bells and whistles going off and that’s enough — nevermind anything else — to scare,’ she said.

Thornburgh faced what he called ‘a lot of self-appointed experts,’ giving conflicting reports about the safety or danger of the situation ‘to no help.’

‘People were interested in telling us more than they knew or less than they knew,’ he said. ‘There were zealots on both sides of the issue … they felt they were trying to help.’

Thornburgh, a Pitt School of Law alumnus, was a federal prosecutor before he was governor and later U.S. attorney general.

Watson said she thought Pennsylvania was lucky the governor had this attitude because it was absolutely necessary to know what was going on.

‘It was fortunate because he had that sort of mind,’ she said. ‘He didn’t just listen to the person who spoke the loudest … but dealt strictly with the facts of the matter.’

One of the most vexing problems was whether to evacuate the surrounding population. Thornburgh said that he was not going to evacuate 250,000 people unless he was ‘absolutely certain’ that it was necessary.

The costs of evacuation — hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, etc. — would be enormous. More frightening still was the prospect of real danger if they didn’t evacuate.

Which is why, for Thornburgh, Nuclear Regulatory Commission official Harold Denton was the ‘real hero of the incident.’ Thornburgh remembers him as very plainspoken, with an uncanny ability to explain the situation in plain English. Denton arrived on Friday to assess the situation, and by Sunday, he was able to discern that it was safe enough for President Jimmy Carter to join the two men in walking the site.

Watson pointed to a picture, on display in the Thornburgh Room, of the three men walking on Three Mile Island.

‘They wore those funny yellow boots [for protection],’ she said. ‘Some of the folks in Washington were in cars racing up here trying to stop the president.’

The president and governor walking the site was calming, and soon most were sure that no physical danger manifested. But one of the 10 lessons learned from Three Mile Island outlined in Thornburgh’s autobiography, ‘Where the Evidence Leads,’ was ‘it ain’t over ’til it’s over.’

The accident at Three Mile Island required nearly $1 billion and 13 years to clean up. Thornburgh worked with local, state-wide and national officials to oversee the clean-up, everyone from environmental groups to government agencies.

‘That become a responsibility that you won’t read about in the constitution in Pennsylvania,’ said Watson. ‘In the absence of anyone else to take the lead, he did.’

The exhibit will remain on display in the Thornburgh Room for at least one month — a picture of Carter, Thornburgh and Denton in their funny yellow boots included.