The Three Mile Island Accident: The History and Legacy of America's Worst Nuclear Meltdown

By: Charles River Editors

Narrated by: Dennis E. Morris

"On Wednesday, March 28, 1979, 36 seconds after the hour of 4:00 a.m., several water pumps stopped working in the unit 2 nuclear power plant on Three Mile Island, 10 miles southeast of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Thus began the accident at Three Mile Island. In the minutes, hours, and days that followed, a series of events - compounded by equipment failures, inappropriate procedures, and human errors and ignorance - escalated into the worst crisis yet experienced by the nation's nuclear power industry. The accident focused national and international attention on the nuclear facility at Three Mile Island and raised it to a place of prominence in the minds of hundreds of millions. For the people living in such communities as Royalton, Goldsboro, Middletown, Hummelstown, Hershey, and Harrisburg, the rumors, conflicting official statements, a lack of knowledge about radiation releases, the continuing possibility of mass evacuation, and the fear that a hydrogen bubble trapped inside a nuclear reactor might explode were real and immediate. ...The reality of the accident, the realization that such an accident could actually occur, renewed and deepened the national debate over nuclear safety and the national policy of using nuclear reactors to generate electricity." - Findings in a report by the Presidential Commission established to investigate the accident.

©2012 Charles River Editors (P)2015 Charles River Editors

A possible disaster

I've only really heard about three mile Island. This is an eye opener to listen to and see how close we came to a disaster

Good testimony

Interesting story about the disaster but lacks of more context and detail about what happened and what is its impact nowadays.

Very unscientific

I happen to know a lot about this subject. This book contain many technical errors and is lacking in any real scientific analysis of the event and its impact. This is a book of amateur anecdotes and over sensationalization.

Unsubstanciated anti-nuclear propaganda

The only release of radioactive material from TMI was from venting hydrogen gas in the days after the meltdown, the book describes people experiencing effects that only come from fatal levels of radiation exposure. It is impossible for distant persons to experence the physical effects this book attributes to radiation from TMI without death, radiation intense enough to cause physical paint is almost always fatal, yet I am supposed to believe residents miles away could feel the effects of radiation instantly while others behind the walls of a house were somehow shielded from radiation that came from within a concrete containment miles away? I would not doubt that people claimed to have this happen to them much the way some claim to have been abducted by aliens. to write a book that makes such an extrodinary claim would require extrodinary evidence yet the author has a poor grasp on the details of TMI and how radiation works.

Don’t waste your time

After listening to a great audible book about the Chernobyl accident, I thought I might learn more about the Three Mile Island accident. This audible book was like someone was just reading from the newspaper articles at that time. Nothing new, nothing to see here, just move along. Don’t waste your time.