3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gripping Account Of A Near-Catastrophic Event, October 17, 2003
This review is from: The American Experience: Meltdown at Three Mile Island [VHS] (VHS Tape)
This PBS Home Video presentation is riveting. It really puts you back in time to early 1979, when the Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant in Pennsylvania survived the worst accident of its kind in U.S. history.
The behind-the-scenes footage within the plant itself (and in surrounding neighborhoods) is as good as having a time machine, with its settings focused on March 1979. We watch the near-tragedy unfold, step-by-step and day-by-day, including plentiful footage of Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh as he deals with the crisis at hand.
It's chilling and frightening (even today) to think of what MIGHT have occurred had the runaway nuclear reactor not been brought under control. And this video is the best way you could ever possibly re-live those numbing events.
Highly recommended.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the Best, Most accurate, October 15, 2006
This review is from: The American Experience: Meltdown at Three Mile Island [VHS] (VHS Tape)
I will always remember being a 15-year old living through this tragedy. This documentary conveys the facts as well as the fear that gripped Pennsylvania (and later the nation).
Many of the people who were there in 1979 are interviewed. Experts tell what happened, and why.
If you want to know what happened at Three Mile Island, this program is an excellent place to start.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An extremely instructive look at the infamous Three Mile Island accident of 1979, February 15, 2009
This review is from: The American Experience: Meltdown at Three Mile Island [VHS] (VHS Tape)
The American Experience: Meltdown at Three Mile Island delivers an incredibly informative look at the events surrounding the Three Mile Island accident that took place in March 1979. I remember hearing about the incident and knowing it was pretty serious, but I was just a kid at the time, and Pennsylvania was a good distance away from my home in North Carolina. In my memory, it was just a close call, here and gone rather quickly. As I grew older, I got a better sense of just how potentially catastrophic the situation was at the time, but I can't say I ever learned very much about the details of the accident - until now. This 1999 documentary was, in a word, eye-opening, detailing the circumstances that led to the accident, the decisions that exacerbated the problem, and the alarmingly unprepared reaction of all concerned parties to what we now know was indeed a partial meltdown of a nuclear core. Behind-the-scenes footage from the time really conveys the chaos that defined the Three Mile Island accident - and it is almost as frightening as the accident itself.
This accident was actually a five-day ordeal that was and is disturbing on many levels, mainly because no one seemed to know what the hell they were doing - and communication between plant representatives and government agencies on all levels was, to put it quite lightly, exceedingly poor. This documentary takes you through the series of events characterizing these days - in both a technical and a public relations sense. You'll learn how a simple valve malfunction and plant engineers' misinterpretation of data from the #2 reactor almost resulted in a nuclear disaster; how obfuscation and contradictory statements by plant spokesmen sewed distrust among city and state officials (not to mention the public); how little authority the Nuclear Regulatory Commission actually had at that time in the construction and operation of nuclear plants; and how difficult it was for Pennsylvania governor Dick Thornburgh to get the information he needed in order to know whether or not to evacuate the surrounding areas (and how problematic such an evacuation protocol would have been). The control room at TMI had only two phones, which made it all but impossible for NRC officials and the men who designed the plant to reach anyone on-site directly. In the governor's office, Dick Thornburgh h had communication problems of his own. NRC officials were difficult to reach, and it took President Carter himself a good hour to get through to his office. Complicating matters for Thornburgh was the fact that expert opinion varied significantly, so much so that he ended up trusting the word of those there on the ground over the opinions of Washington experts. I can understand how Thornburgh struggled mightily over the question of evacuating the area (which included the state capital of Harrisburg) based on incomplete and contradictory information, but I have to question his slowness to act - by the fifth day of the crisis, some experts argued that the plant could actually explode at any moment, the effects of which would have been catastrophic. Clearly, the whole subject remains highly debatable today.
I know I have a much better understanding of the Three Mile Island accident after watching this fascinating documentary. It really does an amazing job covering all of the angles of the crisis, in human as well as technical terms. This was an event that never should have taken place, and one can easily see that catastrophe was narrowly averted despite a series of human failures and mistakes. Plant engineers misinterpreted a comparatively simple problem and brought about the crisis by a series of decisions that did much more harm than good. At the same time, the NRC and the federal government proved to be wholly unprepared and often completely stymied in terms of their reaction to the situation.
It's rare that one event can intricately involve so many different aspects of modern life - and even more rare that a one-hour documentary can touch upon so many of them in such a meaningful and instructive way. It's a pity this 1999 PBS video isn't available on DVD, especially since the issues addressed herein are no less important now than they were at the time of production.
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