GOLDSBORO, PA. -- Bill Whittock was among the first to suspect there was a problem. Alone in his house on the west side of the Susquehanna River, he was awakened in the predawn hours by a roar that sounded "like a big jet airplane."
Whittock looked out the window, toward the river and the light-spangled towers of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant.
"I saw this big plume of steam going up in the air," he said. "It blew for about 10 minutes, then it stopped, and then it roared again. Then it stopped and everything got quiet."
It was shortly after 4 a.m. Wednesday, March 28, 1979.
Unknown to Whittock, the newer of Three Mile Island's two nuclear units had suffered the worst accident in the history of the U.S. civilian nuclear industry.
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