Q: By the end of Wednesday, have you indicated on the air what's
happening?
MP: The accident occurred at four a.m. in the morning, and by Wednesday
evening we were kind of feeling, wow, that was pretty exciting, but things seem
to be under control and everything's going to be all right. And that's
essentially how we felt. We thought that, in fact, that afternoon we were
rolling some tapes on our newscasts, thinking, ooh, maybe we can win some
awards for our coverage. And that continued into Thursday morning, we went to
a news conference that was in Hershey. The Metropolitan Edison company held a
news conference there, and old Jack Herbein was there. And I remember asking
Jack Herbein in a very -- I was very angry. There were a huge number of
reporters in this room, more reporters than I've ever seen in my life, and all
the microphones, and here's Jack. The Metropolitan Edison people looked kind
of surprised that there were so many people there. I remember saying to
Herbein, you almost melted that thing down. I don't know why I asked that
question, but I did. And he just kind of looked at me, and I don't even
remember what his answer was, but I think it was a, no, we didn't really do
anything of the sort, kind of an answer. But I just remember staring at him,
and saying, you almost melted that thing, didn't you?
Q: So, people are saying things are under control. Are you breathing more
easily?
MP: I am breathing more easily on Thursday, because things seemed to be under
control. But they still have these, I guess, off-site radiation readings I
think, is how they termed it. I forget the time frame on this, but some time
during the day Thursday, as I recall, a Doctor Ernest Sternglass from the
University of Pittsburgh blows into town and holds a news conference, which we
attended. He makes the statement that he believes that pregnant women and
pre-school children should leave the area, or something to that effect. We
were the only radio station to put that on the air. It caused a near-panic, at
least as far as we could tell. One of our disc jockeys, trying to play off our
newscast , trying to be his own newsman, starting talking about it as if there
was an actual evacuation order. Now, you can imagine, the phones started
ringing off the hook. The Governor's office called me, and says, "What the
hell are you doing?" So, I got control of the situation by telling the disc
jockey to keep quiet and stop talking about this. But at that moment, I was
starting to, you know, kind of shudder at what was going on here, because
people were nearing a panic situation, I think, because they were afraid.
back to Interview Transcripts | next
|
PBS Terms of Use Privacy Policy
Pledge Your Support
Stories to Go