Rethinking Three Mile Island

(Fortune) — Ralph DeSantis was home in bed before dawn on March 28, 1979 when his phone rang. It was his shift supervisor at Three Mile Island (TMI), calling from the plant. “‘We have an emergency at Unit II and it’s serious,’” is the first thing DeSantis remembers hearing. Then he heard the alarms going off.

Twenty-eight years after the worst accident in the history of the US nuclear power industry, the alarms are still going off, and the consequences are still being felt. That’s why I made TMI one of my first stops on a two-week, 7,000-mile road trip through the past, present and future of nuclear power in America.


DeSantis showed me around. He still works at TMI, although his job has changed. He used to be a security guard. Now he’s a flack, a function which – and this is hard to believe – did not exist at Three Mile Island before the accident.

Somebody had to manage the crush of reporters, DeSantis stepped in, and that’s what he’s been doing ever since. So there’s one small consequence of TMI: a new career for DeSantis, not to mention greatly expanded job opportunities for flacks throughout the industry.

Fortune