ML19308B916
| ML19308B916 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/10/1979 |
| From: | Jason Wright PENNSYLVANIA, COMMONWEALTH OF |
| To: | |
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| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 8001170624 | |
| Download: ML19308B916 (84) | |
Text
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA C
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES E
HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE - THREE MILE ISLAND Verbatim record of hearing held in the Majority Caucus Room, Main Capitol Building, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on
- Thursday, May lo, 1979 1:00 P.M.
HON JAMES L. WRIGHT, JR., Chairman Hon. Bernard F. O'Brien, Vice Chairman Hon. Nicholas B. Moehlmann, Vice Chairman Hon. Eugene Geesey, Secretary MEMEERS HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE - THREE MILE ISLAND Hon. James.D. Barber Hon. Ivan Itkin Hon. Reid L. Sennett Hon. Stanford I. Lehr Hon. Kenneth E. Brandt Hon. Joseph C. Manmiller Hon. Mark Cohen Hon. Marvin E. Miller, Jr.
Hon. Kenneth J. Cole Hon. Harold F. Mowery, Jr.
Hon. Ronald R. Cowell Hon. Jeffrey E. Piccola Hon. William DeWeese Hon. Samuel Rappaport Hon. Rudolph Dininni Hon. Stephen R. Reed Hon. Donald W. Dorr Hon. John E. Scheaffer Hon. A. Carville Foster, Jr.
Hon. C. L. Schmitt Hon. Stephen F. Freind Hon. Ted Stuban Hon. Joseph M. Hoeffel, III Hon. Noah W. Wenger Hon. William K. Klingaman, Sr.
Hon. Paul J. Yahner l
Reported by:
Joyce Rae Schwarz OO D-th M. Mane R.ei t. J Prof...ional R. port.
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0 Wumm.i to.n, p.nnsylvania 1705% 00.1 17 D-
2 (h-ALSO PRESENT:
k-Marshall Rock Robert Hollis
_I _N _D _E _X Colonel Henderson 4p Robert Hollis
. 11 Rep. Schmitt.
. 16 Rep. O'Brien.
. 20 Marshall Rock
. 27 Chairman Wright
. 28 Rep. Geesey 31 Rep. Moehlmann.
35 Rep. Scheaffer.
38 Rep. Reed
. 41 Rep. Cole
. 49 Rep. Choen.
52 Rep. Miller 56 Rep. Stuban 59 Rep. Hoeffel.
. 62 Rep. Cowell
. 64 Rep. Itkin.
. 70 Rep. DeWeece.
77' Robert Hollis
. 79 Rep. Bennett.
. 81
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3 CHAIRMAN WRICdT:
May we call the afternoon session of the Select Committee to order.
You will notice sitting on the podium with us are two Staff Members, Marshall Rock and Bob Hollis, who do the research work for the Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs, who have expertise in thearea that we will be discussing for the next couple of days With the permission of the Committee, although it 's not spelled out in the rules, I would like to grant these two individuals the same privilege of raising questions this afternoon as the Committee Members.Is there any objection from the Committee Members?
(No response.)
O our w1enees chie ef ternoon -- 1 don e 11ke the w witness -
co-author or co-discussee of our problems regarding TMI and particularly Pennsylvania's responsibility in regard s
to reacting to planning for and carrying out procedures wh en we hava an emergency such as the nuclear emergency.We have with us Colonel Henderson who is the Director of the Pennsylvar la Emergency Management Agency. We would appreciate whatever t.tatement you wish to make and then, of course, the Committee would like to raise some questions.
At 2:145 I am going to break this up sharp and then we are going to adjourn across the street to our Underground Command Center and we will continue the discussion
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performed the job to us at that point.
Okay?
COLONEL HENDERSON:
Yes.
Thank you very much, sir.
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, I appreciate this opportunity to be before you this afternoon.
As the Chairman commented, we are planning to meet over at my facility at 3:00 this afternoon when we are going to discuss the organiza-tion and function of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.
Though I am going to try here in a few minutes to relate to you some of the particulars of the Three Mile Island incident without getting into organization and function of, which would be somewhat redundant.
Let me start with the mornins of tiic 28th of March,
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if I may.
Under our operational scheme, we work fros 8: 00 until 4:00 and then have a Watch Officer on duty during these non-duty hours.
Now, the Watch Officer rerimins at home.
However, all of the telephone systems tie into our switchboard and by a diverter system, this number is automatically redialed to our Watch Officer's home.
So at 7: 02 A.M. in the morning on the 28th of March, my Watch Officer, Mr. Deller, received the call from Three Mile Island that there was a Code 2 condition.
At all of our three power stations that are presently servicing the Commen-wealth of Pennsylvania, the Peach Bottom, Beaver County and Three Mile Island, we have a standard code system.
Code 1 means an incident occurring on the site that has no off-site
5 repercussions.
This could be a fire in a wastepaper basket.
The Code 2 condition is still an on-site event.
However, because of its nature, it may have outside implications as far as the press or news media or become a public relations matter.
The third, Code 3, is a condition of sufficient severity that there is a possibility or high potential of release from the site.
Well, this 7: 02 A.M. call was a Code 2, which meant a condition on site.
Now, my duty officer has instructions in his booklet that he carries exactly who he should notify.
The first person that we notify is the Bureau of Radiation h
Protection Office of the Department of Environmental Resources.
We have a listing of five telephone numbers of the key people in the order in which the Bureau Head wishes those people to be notified.
A Mr. Dornsife, Bill Dornsife from the Bureau of Radiation Protection was the first person's name on that list.
Within two minutes, he had received the notification that there was a Code 2, Class 2 condition.
Following that, the duty officer then called in this case the three counties involved, Dauphin County, Lancaster County and York County EmerEency Operation Centers to inform them of the condition.
He then notifica the people in the PEMA staff, starting with my Operations Officer, my Deputy and myself and
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6 others, depending on the instructions that he receives.
Then he turns to the federal government to the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency, who then assumes responsibilit; for notifying the other states in the region.
At the same time,
my duty officer did notify Maryland, since they are somewhat close to us.
In the notification procedures, everything worked according to this plan, except that I was already in the office and when our diverter is on the switchboard, there is no way of dialing through to our office; but my Operations Officer was immediately notified and he came into the office at approximately 7:25 A.M.
He notified me in the office of this occurrence.
At the same time, we put the switchboard back on to full operation and the Watch Officer then was free to report into the office.
He was no longer on watch.
At approximately 7:35 hours that morning, we received another call from Three Mile Island.
The Staff Supervisor or the Shift Supervisor informed us that there was now a Code 3 condition, a general emergency.
We went back through the same notification procedures that we had earlier gone through upgrading the condition from a Code 2 to a Code 3.
At the same time, I attempted.to call the Lieutenant Governor at his quarters at Fort Indiantown Gap and he had b
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just departed for the office and the guard informed me that at the first chance he would telephone the Pennsylvania State Police and he would be in the office in approximately 30 minutes.
I consequently called the Governor direct at the Mansion at approximately 7:45 hours to notify him of this particular condition.
Now, at this time there were no plans for any evacuation or any protec tive measures beyond a five mile area.
This is true of the Peach fottom plant and it is equally true i
of the Beaver County plant, except that plant provides for an evacuation of 3.6 miles, based on an evaluation of that site by the NRC.
g During the next two days, we received a considerable amount of information and I believe the Lieutenant Governor and the Governor have indicated this, that it was of a very contradictory nature.
However, during this period as far as the Emergency Management Agency was concerned, we immediately went on 24-hour operations keeping a small staff there on off-duty hours at our Underground Facility.
Friday morning at approximately 8:40 hours, we received another call from Three Mile Island indicating a more serious Code 3 condition.
At this time, we were informed by the Supervisor that he was preparing to evacuate Three Mile Island, that there was a heavy emission coming out of the stack, a reading of some 1200 MR's.
He did nct recommend we
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evacuate, but he merely stated that, "we on the Inland >are preparing to evacuate and we recommend that you also be p repa red. "
This information wan related by me to the Lieutenant Governor.
At aonroximately 9:15 hours I received a teleph call from the Emergency Operationn Center of NRC stati one they had received a report from Three' Mile Inl ng that and and that.
they recommended that we conduct a ten mile ev acuation.
I informed Dr. Collinn that we had no such plans for a ten mile f evacuation, that we would give consideration to a five mile evacuation and then determine whether wo could n
s out to the ten mile range.
b We notified the Bureau of Radiation Protect C) this recommendation from MRC.
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A few moments later I received a call f rom GoverT.or ThronburGh acking me, one, what kind of reliance and how well did I know Doc Collinn I told him that I knew Doc Collins only by reputation, that he e j n oyed a fairly good reputation within our organization.
The Governor then asked me if I wan recommending an evacuation.
I informed the Governor that in view of no other informatior. exccot the information from Thre e
Inland and the Bu eau of Radiation Protection had n o
yet contacted me, tha-I had no choice at that particular moment but to recommend an evacuation.An you know, then the Governo" did recommend to all ocoole living within the t
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'I that they stay indoors until noon and then subsequently that morning recommended -
advised pregnant women and pre-school aged children to evacuate the area.
We immediately saw the necessity, based on the advice from NRC, to start refining our five mile plan to make it a ten mile area.
We continued alerting all of our counties to the need to expand their five mile plan cut to this ten mile plan.
At the same time, I requested that the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency provide to us eight additional personnel to go to each of the four effected counties to assist them in developing and refining their plans.
Ttsse people arrived Friday afternoon and Friday evening.
At the same time, I gg assigned -- and let me go off from here a minute before I jump into that one.
Later that evening in a meeting in the Governor's Office, when Mr. Denton arrived on the scene for the first time, Mr. Denton began talking about the prudence of our planning out to a 20 mile evacuation scheme.
This was approximately 9:00 P.M., 9:30 P.M. in the evening.
I telephoned back to the office and notified my Deputy to notify in turn the counties to start enlarging their plan out to the 20 mile area.
At the same time, my Deputy and I made a decision that we would provide one of our staff members down to each now six effected counties, Perry and Iebanon now falling in
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line as a result of the 20 mile evacuation scheme.
These people from my staff started recorting immediately and some of them came from Indiana, which renuired until the following morning until they could be on the site.
As a consequence at the time of the incident and throughout the incident we were prepared to conduct a five mile evacuation.' Some time 1&te Friday, we'could have conductea and managed a ten mile evacuation.
By Saturday night, we could have conducted a 20 mile evacuation and have managed that evacuation.
The only issue I take with the statement of the Governor that there would be panic by an evacuation is that from all the research that I have been able to garnish during the past two or three years that I have been
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the Director of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and the State Council of Civil Defense previously, there is no authoritative basis that a well-informed Dublic with the proper leadershio and guidance will result in any canic.
Now, there will be frustrations.
There will be some people who will not follow the directions and guidance, but as far as mass hysteria or mnse nanic. this does not seem to be a proven type of a condition.
Throughout the next several days. we continued to refine and reduce nor.t of our planning to writing.
With that, sir, I would like to open it to questions.
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Thank you, Colonel.
Mr. Hollis.
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BY MR. HOLLIS:
Q In retrospect, we have had the Commonwealth assess their operation plan for a couple of years.
There has been a few changes in the plan itself, but what is your personal assessment of th3 overall plan?
A We have a Good basic plan, but a plan is just exactly that.
It's a plan and it needs to be reviewed.
It needs to be updated constantly.
We actually have been delaying any major update of the plan because of the re-organization of the Federal Emergency Management A cncy, which the President signed 5
into law effective one April of this year.
At the present time we still do not have the guidance from this federal agency.
h_s Q
It was pointed out by the Governor and Lieutenant Governor that there was a continuous monitoring of the Emergency Management Agency during the recent disaster.
Can you tell the Members of the Committee who was doing this continuous monitoring and what was really the basis of what they were looking into?
It seemed like they were a super agency put upon.
Who was a member of this committee and what
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was their function?
A At the requent of the Governor, the President sent in addition to Mr. Denton, he sent Mr. Adamcheck and Mr.
Mc Connell.
Mr. Adamcheck is the Regional Director of the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration in Philadelphia
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and Mr. John McConnell is the Opem tions Officer of the Defense V}
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Civil Preparedness Agency in the Pentagon.
John McConnell and Bob Adamcheck both arrived about sometime prior to midnight on Friday night.
Mr. McConnell visited two or three of our counties to look into their plans and they had been soecifically sent in here by the White House to give the Commonwealth assistance in their plan.
Q But over and above that, were there individuals froc the Executive Branch monitoring it also?
A From the Governor's Office?
Q From the Governov's Office.
A Not at the county level that I am aware of.
Q Well, particalarly what was Secretary Wilburn's role?
There seemed to be an awful lot of staff meetings conducted in Secretary Wilburn's office.
What was the basis of that?
A I attended only two meetings in Secretary Wilburn's office.
I am not even sure it was his office, but which he was involved in.
During Saturday and Sunday, which would have been the 29th and 30th, I guess of the month -- 30th and 31st of the month.
These were meetin$s that were also attended by Bob Adamcheck and John McConnell.
The meetings orimarily centered around the kind of annistance and nuocort that the federal government would be prepared to orovide.
Now, in addition to this, I met every morning at 11:00, either I or a member of my staff, with Bob Adamcheck and some 15 federal I
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13 agency representatives who were in here representing the various departments and agencies of the federal government to discuss activities that were going on.
Q There was a comment or a question was asked of the Lieutenant Governor this morning to one of the members as to why the Commonwealth did not declare an emergency in accordance i
with the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statute.
He at that time said that he didn't have the authority and then he said he did, but it appears that many counties on their own did declare an emergency.
They felt that they had to in order to clear up their system, which the system calls fcr emergencies and disasters to bring people on the scene and get the volunteer g
fire departments and everybody working.
The state never did and the local governments seemed to be quite perturbed as to why they had to keep on calling meetings and finding out whether you were going to do it or whether you were not going to do it.
It didn't seem to affect the public relations men from the local government that the county governments in many cases Dauphin County, Cumberland County and I guess York Countf d id, in fact, declare a disaster within the county.
Is this not true?
A The only advantages of having declared a disaster would primarily have been the authorities given the Governor under such an emergency proclamation.
By our law, Act 323, for the first time this law, contrary to our old State Council
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and Civil Defense Act, authorizes and permits political sub-divisions to declare their own disasters.
Q But they, in fact, did do it?
A Yes.
Q Did you find that and we have heard comments that local government officials felt that they were responding to questions that came up at present conferences conducted by the NRC and other officials and they felt that they should have been, at least, briefed on what was going to be said particularly about evacuations.
They had never been told that there may be a potential of evacuation.
A I think that we have learned and relearned a lesson r
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and probably we will always relearn this lesson that this problem of public information is a very serious problem and one that is basic to we, Civil Defense, Emergency ManaEement.
It's basic to our curvival that a well-informed public and a well-informed political leadership in the counties and in the communities is an absolute necessity.
I am somewhat frustrated as to how to answer you here, Bob, because with the kind of information that we were getting during those first few critical days, it would really have put us on the spot of deciding what is factual and what is proper to disseminate.
I, personally, was relieved when the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor chose to be the spokesmen for this kind of
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I wouldn't have known how, really, to have Q)
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sif ted out some of the masses of information that we were receiving.
As far as the Civil Defense community was concerned, I feel that throughout, we had adequate information and adequate guidance upon which we could plan for our five, ten and 20 mile evacuation or any of the protective measures that we needed to take.
The other information,'the information of what was going on at Three Mile Island and so forth would have been nice to know, but it wasrot an absolute need on our part.
Q I will just ask one more question.
Now, I have in front of me the luminous planrthat are now post-TMI and the pre-TMI -- it's like night and day -- that were prepared by the counties.
Do you feel that the potential existed to effect an evacuation similar at Peach Bottom and Beaver Valley?
- Now, we're talking ten, 20 miles and the potential at Limerick when it goes on line and Susquehanna, if and when they go on line.
We are talking masses of people then.
Do you think that -- socing Denton and people in Washington when they started with five and then they were talking ten, but there was people in Washington talking about 20.
If we go to a 20 mile evacuation plan, what is the potential for primarily the Beaver Valley site and the Limerick site when we get into high density population aress?
A I think that the NRC, perhaps not formally but informally, has agreed that it misspoke itself when it ever (y~')
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called for a 20 mile evacuation.
The 00A came out on the 30th of March which arrived in our office about one April on Monday with their assessment of the currency of state plans and they strongly urged that the state be required to plan out to ten miles.
The NRC is retracting back to within that ten miles.
'Our curre'nt plans for Beaver and for Peach Bottom will be for a five and tcn mile evacuation and a 50 mile down range agricultural protection type guide.
I met earlier this week with the County Commissioners of Beaver and with the Civil Defence organization at Beaver and although they presently have a 3.6 mile evacuation and they are comfortable that they could execute this evacuation, O
(c within a 30 day period I think they will have a well written plan for both the five and ten mile evacuation.
Peach Bottom at the present time, the York County Civil Defense Director, I am not fully confident with the plan that he has for Peach Bottom, but it is managable and I think it could be executed.
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
I missed Representative Schmitt.
You may as well Go.
BY REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT:
Q The Eentleman before me just asked a question that I was going to ask on the five, ten and 20 mile radiuses.
I'm going to repeat it because I think there was a little bit m
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that I didn't understand.
I think I understood you to say in your testimony that your emergency plans are set up for a five mile radiun.
Is that correct?
A Prior to this incident, yen.
Q And that Mr. Denton, was it, that came in and recommended a ten mile radius evacuation?
A Actually. the ten mile evacuation came up at 8:40 heurs Friday morning from Doc Collins, who is the head of their onevationn, the HRC Oce"ations Center in Bethenda, Maryland.
O The nuention then that I would like to ask, is there any ntatintics to tell un for using the local clant
'.s the cove, for example, an to how many peonle this involves in each of the radj unes, the five. ten and 20 mile radiuses, how many O
ocople it involven and what the cost might be?
A I have nothing to show you what the costa might be.
I do have figures on the five, ten and 20 mile radiuces over in my office.
When we go over this afternoon, I will be happy to nhow that to you. sir.
Q Just one final nuestion.
Thin is not directly reinted to what I have.just asked you, but in your mind and nerhaon you tentified to this before I came in.
In your mind in there a oractical method of training necole how to face an evacuation without alarming them?
In other wordn, *I was an ai* rald warden during the World War II and we had our training nessions where we showed pecole how and when to move, which --
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and eliminated the panic.
We made some actual test runs, although we wouldn't in this case evacuate a 20 mile radius or even a five mile radius; but if you could, even within a mile radius or theoretically with a computer, would there be some way that pecple could be trained so that they don't follow a Jim Jones into a watery grave so to speak?
It is conceivable that if you get a mass of humanity thinking along th3 same lines, anythinE can happen.
I think that Reverend Jim Jones illustrated that point very forcefully to me, at least.
'Je don't want to get people into a mass psychology.
I think that's the trouble.
We want them to be rational.
The question is, is there anything we can do to train people to prepare for that eventuality?
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Yes, sir, public education.
Years ago, the Common-wealth had in the public school system for ninth, tenth and eleventh grades, a course of 16 hours1.851852e-4 days <br />0.00444 hours <br />2.645503e-5 weeks <br />6.088e-6 months <br /> called Your Chance to Live.
We ran out of funds and other cQrr'icular that the schools wished to get in there other than the Your Chance to Live series pushed it by the wayside.
About six months ago, I started meeting with all of the school districts and I have been very encouraged by their reaction and their response for the re-introduction of this course into the school system.
At the same time, approximately three years ago we came cut with a book 16t on what you should 'know about rr31atiori.
(~h We draf ted ' this with the intent of dicceminating it to all of he
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19 the people living around five miles to nuclear power pl ants.
We were accused by both State officials and certainly b y the industry of picking upon nuclear power as unsafe and so f orth.
We could get no concurrence to publish this.
We pulled this document out a few days ago and sif ted it off I would only, change one word in that report, that booklet,,The booklet started out by saying that a nuclear incident is highly remote I think that is the only change that I would make to that report.
We are in the process at the present time of asking the federal government, our next higher headquarters, Defense Civil Preparedness Agency,
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to advance us falO,000 so that we fl can print through the PennDot Printing Plant an adequate numbe r
of copien to make nuch a distribution.
a He have been in touch with the PUC, although they do not have the authority to legislate to the industries that they would put this out in their mailings.
They feel that now the industry is willing to make'such a mailing.
So, your answer is yes, we need a continuing public education program, not one that we turn on immediately prior to a disaster or immediately after a disaster It should be a continuing thing.
Certainly the opportunity for children in high school is the best opportunity in the world because this information sticks with them.
Q k
And if conceivable, O
such a plan should be drawn up
20 and introduced in the schools presently while this incident is fresh in the minds of the public.
This event that we have on the Island certainly hac permeated the thoughts and minds of everybody in Pennsylvania as well as other states, but we are concerned with Pennsylvania.
I think while it's fresh in people's minds if we could devise a method of training for that aEe group perhaps that you mentioned without causing panic, I would like to have that proposal if comeone has it.
I would Itke to have it and I would be very glad to help on such a program.
A Thank you very much, sir.
REPRESENTATIVE SCID1I'IT:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Representattve O'Brien.
BY REPRESENTATIVE O'BRIEN:
Q Colonel, earlier in your testimony you made a statement saying that you had directions from people you felt were very versed in it or knew what they were talking about.
Then later on you made the statement saying that the reports i
would come in and they were so mixed up that you were glad the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor took over to try to take the lead.
I don't know whether you heard me this morning, but I am really concerned.
You at the head of Civil Defense, the Lieutenant Governor coming in new and the Governor and you working and they were cupposed to be working with knowledge-
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able people.
Who were those knowledgeable people in the
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beginning that had the knowledge, the technology or whatever ycu call it that would say:
we feel that people should have been evacuated?
A By law, I am also the principle advisor to the Chairman of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.
As the principle advisor for Emergency Management Agency matters, consequently I was with the Lieutenant Governor and was advising Lieutenant Governor on Emergency Management areas.
What I was speaking about that I was glad that the Governor took over was the public information jor uhich was disseminating the information to the public which certainly saved me many hours of standing before the TV cameras and explaining what we were
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doing.
I could pass this on to the Lieutenant Governor or to the Governor direct or through the Lieutenant Governor and they carried the ball from there which relieved me basically of that chore, tiow, the people that I was depending upon in part to give me th= advice as to whether an evacuation should be necessary or not is the Bureau of Radiation Protection, that one agency.
That's who I depend upon --
Q In the state?
A In the state, yes, sir.
Q And do you feel that state, if they are both qualified to make such a decision on a nuclear plant when the top experts in the country admitted that they didn't know?
A Well, they are certainly better prepared than I am.
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They do have the technical knowledge.
They do have an engineer there who is qualified on this particular plant.
I feel and still feel that they knew as much as did the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after they arrived on the scene.
Q You ctate that you were -
your job is to advise the Lieutenant Governor.
Yet, the Lieutenant Governor purposely lef t you out of a meeting and do you know what happened at that meeting or why the public could not be told what happened at that meeting that was so important that you could not attend it?
A I am not certain what meeting you are talking about.
Q The meeting that Bill DeWeese and you were kept out A
No, sir, I was not kept out of a meeting.
I was called by Martin Ellis of the Lieutenant Governor's Office, advising me that there were two members of the NRC staff meeting with the Lieutenant Governor.
At that time the Lleutenant Governor wanted me there.
I brought my Deputy, Craig Williamson, and the two of us went to the meetin6 and went right into the meeting in the Lieutenant Governor's Office and Mr. DeWeece followed me in.
I only understood later, I believe, that Mr. DeVeese had not been permitted --
Q What was so important that those two people from NRC told the Governor?
Will you let this Committee know?
('N Were you in or were you 20 minutes late for the meeting?
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I was 20 minutes late.
They had already gotten there and the meeting had started before I arrived.
Q Can you tell this Committee if you were informed what went on during the 20 minutes that you missed?
What was so important for a hurry-up meeting with state employees?
After all, you are head of Civil Defense.
I would like to have the Committee know if you were properly informed what was so important that went on?
A I don't know that there was anything so particularly important about that meeting.
We went from that meeting to a press conference and I was on the --
Q Why was it not open to the press?
Why was it so secret a meeting?
Bill DeWeese was told not to go into the meeting and the Lieutenant Governor apologised.
Now, he made it very clear.
Now, if we are going to have hearings.we want to get the facts on the table.
No matter where it goes.
I don't care where it lies, but I don't think that people should stand by and be penalised because somebody is playing some kind of games.
We want to know -- this Committee wants to knov what went on and what was so secret in the meeting that you people were kept out of?
You were 20 minutes late.
You were not 20 minutes late.
You were outside for 20 minutes when the meeting was going on.
A No, sir.
No, sir --
BEPRESEllTATIVE DeWEESE:
Mr. Chairman, if I may --
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4 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Your time will come, Mr. DeWeese.
REPRESENTATIVE DeWEESE:
I just wanted to clarify, Mr. Chairman.
I just think thin thing is getting out of hand.
BY REPRESENTATIVE O'BRIEN:
Q I don',t want to put you on the spot.
A No, I am not being put on the spot.
Q I want to know and I think this Committee is entitled to know if there was something important whether an jmportant decision had to be made, in their opinion those two people say:
we think they should be evacuated.
I am really upset.
I am upset and I want to know who Met Ed or anybody else that could advise you -- I am not satisfied and I have a lot of respect
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for our two people in the state, but I don't think they have the knowledge of when somebody should evacuate a plant.
That's my opinion.
A Yes, sir, if I could clarify what happened in the Lieutenant Governor's Office, when I walked into the Lieutenant Governor's Office, the first person I saw was Representative DeWeese sitting over to the lef t-hand side.
Knowing Mr.
DeWeese is a member of our Council, I immediately went over and started talking to him.
At about -- and I don't think we had gotten over half a dozen words out before someone, and I am not sure who, said, " Colonel, the Lieutenant Governor is waiting for you."
I went right into the Lieutenant Governor's Ed
25 O
Office.
Sir, I did not stand outside for any 20 minutes that I am aware of.
It seemed to me that it was less than a minute, perhaps 30 seconds that I may have been outside.
As far as I am concerned, what happened in that meeting, the two people from NRC from Region 3 of NRC were briefing the Lieutenant Governor.
They had just come from the plant and they were briefing the Lieutenant Governor on what was going on down at the plant.
The only thing that I can recall from that particular meeting at this stage of the game is that they were very supportive of the TMI people doing the job; that they were professionals; that they were cool; they were calm; they were collected; they knew what they were doing; that as far as they
(
were concerned, this problem would be resolved.
Q Colonel, in your own log you say that the Lieutenant Governor called you up and told you to stand by the phone in emergency.
You spent the whole night trying to get him.
In the morning you got a hold of him and he wanted to arrange a meeting.
Then in the morning, you state to the Lieutenant Governor that you think he forgot about the meeting.
With something so important as that and when you arrange an important meeting, how could the Lieutenant Governor or anybod;r else forget about a meeting to be held?
A I had a hotline in my office directly to the Governor's Office.
The Lieutenant Governor was frequently in the Governor's Office and would call me on thi.s hotline w
s-]
26 O
and would ask me for advice and information which I would render to him.
On one evening, and I do not recall which evening it was, af ter I had given him this advice, he said,
" fine, stand by."
Now, to me, an old military man, stand by means standing naar that telephone.
It was
.,a unusual for i
me to work all' night.' I worked all night on several nights during this exercise.
Now, since the Lieutenanc Covernor did i
j tell me to stand by, on a couple of occasions later that evening -- I forget, this was around 8: 00, I think in the evening --
Q March 30 at 9: 00 in th2 evening.
A Nine in the evening?
At around midnight or so, I recall calling back over to that office to determine whether the Lieutenant Governor still wanted me to stand by.
I believo that I determined that the Lieutenant Governor had gone hcme, but I was not just standing by waiting for that telephono.. I was doing the government's business.
I was doing the things that needed to be done and it was my own choice.
The next morning, I did call the Lieutenant Governor to see if we had clocod the loop on the conversation that we had had carlier.
I think my comment came in there due to his reac tion, that was, wait a minuto, what conversation was that?
I belicyc I put down a rather innocuous remark that apparently the Lieutenant Governor had forgotten.
r~
Q I have other questions but I will let other members l
l L... _
27 O
ask.
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Mr. Rock has cune questions.
BY MR. ROCK:
Q Colonel Henderson, prior to Three Mile Island has there been coordination between NRC and PEMA relative to evacuation plans?
A I know that my Deputy, Mr. Williamson, and the NRC in Dauphin County had attended hearings on the licensing process.
I had never personally sat in on a meeting with NRC.
DER, the Bureau of Radiation Protection, was our basic contacts for NRC.
Now, we had many contacts with the Bureau of Radiation Protection prior to this.
Q But not on evacuation?
A Well, evacuation and protective measures were discussed, but I am not certain that I can recall off hand any of the details that we may have gone into.
Q Was PEMA aware that NRC reported some time ago that TMI was less adequately trained and supervision was deluded when they started Reactor 2 down there?
A No, we were not.
Q NRC Harold Collins said that Pennsylvania was inadequately prepared.
If NRC now makes a national evacuation plan for Reactors, do you think it should be voluntary or should some Legislative bcdy make sure that there is strict O
(~)
)
28 CJ
'T compliance to it?
A I missed the first point.
You said if HRC now --
Q If they chould make a national plan, should it be vcluntary or --
A No, I think there should be a national plan.
I think that the NRC is responsible for developing a national plan en which the ntates can base their plans.
MR. ROCK:
That'c all I have.
BY CHAIRMAN WRIGifT:
Q I understand there is direct telephone radio communications between TMI and your command center?
A Yes, sir.
}
Q Does the name type of communication exist between Beaver Valley and your center and Peach Bottom and your center?
A No, it does not.
We are trying to encourage the other power plants to set up the same type of what we call a Watts line.
It's a line off of the National Warning System.
The Peach Bottom or Beaver Valley plan would cost about $200 a month to the industry to put such a line in.
I think the one at Peach Bottom is a little more expensive, about $400 a month.
We were trying to encourage those two industries to give us that kind of a line.
Q You have to encourage, rather than demand?
A Yes.
Now, however, for the Beaver Valley plan, they
(~%
(,/
have both a direct telephone line and a direct radio circuit m.~.-
29
[
zkJ into the Beaver County Emergency Operation Center.
Q That's not a goed substitute, though, is it?
A It's not a good substitute as far as getting the information into us.
However, it is a good plan for particularly Beaver County since the plant is located in Beaver County.
They are the first that need, to know about any incident that might occur there.
Q I think uhoever is keeping notes for me ought to put down that we seriously want to even legislate directions between Peach Bottom and Beaver Valley in like aituations uith the Colonel's command center.
Earlier in your discussion,'
you noted times that certain things happened, you know, times when people communicated with you and you communicated with them.
I assume this uas from a log that you kept in your command center?
A Yes, sir.
Q I also understand that a log has been kept at TMI by Metropolitan ikitson in regard to their reaction to emergency plan.
A I do not know about Three Mlle Island, sir.
O Uhile we were down there the other day, they did read from a log.
I don't recall at this point what prompted the log.
I guess you have answered my question, because I was going to ask you if you compared these logs for accuracy.
A No, I haven't.
I will admit that the log entries in
30
, s-JA (j
my own log which I have provided you of a copy of the first three days, could be off.
Those personally pertaining to me could be off five minutes one way or another.
I lost my notes on Saturday morning from my own personal log, which later on Sunday, as I recall, reconstituted from memory.
I verified as closely as I could those times and indicated in a log that the had in there.
Normally, I don't lose my log, but something happened to --
i Q
You prompted me to ask another question.
Isn't there a formal log sitting on the desk in the command center?
A Yaq but most of -- what we do is this.
Every desk within the Emergency Management Agency has messa~e forms and every time a telephone message comes in, this message is reduced to writing.
It is then given to the Operations Office r who then determines if the necessary action has been or needs to be taken.
As soon as that has been taken, it goes to the Journal Clerk who types it into this Journal, extracting only significant items from that -- from the actual message.
However, when I am away from my office, when I am with the Lieutenant Governor or Governor or elsewhere, I keep my log elsewhere on a plein sheet of paper.
Q Are your telephone conversations recorded in your office?
A They are not.
We have a request in to the Legislature.
Apparently, there was an error or an omission, you might say,
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in the logs.
It authorizes County EmerEency Cperation Centers to log emergency calls.
It was the determination of our Attorney General that since it specified counties, that although the intent appeared that it was for us, too, that we could get the law changed to give us that authority.
So, Senator Bell and Representative DeWeese are introducing le6 slation now 1
to have that omission corrected.
We do have the capability.
CHAIRMAN URIGl!T:
Representative Geescy.
BY REPRESENPATIVE GEESEY:
Q Ken, should the state, particularly your office, have the power to veto a county evacuation plan?
A Should my office have the authorization or power to veto a county evacuation plan?
Q That you feel is not workable?
You do not now have that authority.
Is that correct?
A The way the law reads at the presen t time, the present law -- now, we did not have any authorities as far as plans were concerned under the State Council Civil Defense Act of 1951.
Under the present law, it gives us the authoriza-tion to review municipal plans and to compel changes.
So, we have that authority.
However, I think Dhat I should bring something out here.
Yau know, the County Civil Defense Director works for the County Commissioners.
He is hired by them.
He is paid by them.
Our arrangement and our relationship is on O
e ceeveree1ve de=1e.
32 Q
Have you compelled any changes in any county plans?
A Ue have encourager: changes in county plans.
O Dut you do have the authority to compel changes?
A Ye s, sir.
Q And you have not compelled changes?
A Well, we haven't had to compel.
We have not had to compel.
- !here we have had some confitets in some of the early planning between particularly Dauphin County and Cumberland County, we were abic to get the tuo together and uork out the difficulties and, therefore, encouraged the changes rather than coming out with a directive and saying, "you will chan6e this."
g(_f Q
Ken, that's one of my concerna because uhen you are involved in a multi-county operaticn, it is possible that one county will evacuate into the path of another county's evacuation, which could present a lot of problems.
That's why I
as interected in whether or not you have made changes or have compelled changes or would like the veto authority.
I do, hauever, have problems with other evacuation plans, as you undoubtedly Icnow because you have seen copies of our corres-pondence.
We have a situation in some counties where the evacuation plan calls fcr evacuating on two-lane secondary highways that simply cannot handle the traffic.
Have you considered compelling those counties to change those plans, especially when there are four-lane major interstate highways
33 available for use?
A At the time of this incident, we were interested in gettin7 uorkabic, manageabli plans from each one of the counties Some of the counties made the determination that they wanted to evacuate cnd remain within the county.
That is, they did not want to go outside the county.
Now, I don't think we should fault the ideal of such a plan.
Wh2n this thing finally winds down, we will go back and review all of these plans to make certain that we have ttken maximum advantage of all the good roads, t.t the time we 4 tarted planning for a ten and 20 mile evacuation, we very quickly came up with a general scheme for each county and sent g
the Department of Transportation Traffic Control people and the Penney 1vania State Police copies cf our scheme so that there wou?dn't be crisscrossing between counties to each of the counties to give them our proposed course of action here; and to urge the counties to make their plans based on what we gave them.
In most caces, the counties followed the guidance that we gave them.
There were some counties that felt that they had a better solution.
In the final review, asfhr as looking down en that plan and getting the assurances from our Pennsylvania State Police and our Traffic Control experts in PennDot, they said it would work if they could get that many cars on the line.
We accepted the plan at that time, but I g
a4W"'""
34 agree with you that now we need further refinement and we continue to need refinement.
Q All right, I would like to take incue with one ccament,,cu made and that was specifically with your disagree-nunt of the Governor's position concerning public panic.
You indicated that if the public were informed, etc., that you didn't think panic uould necessarily sit in.
This wan a different situation, because radiation is not something that is susceptible to the censes and nobody really knows where it is.
That generates panic in and of itself by its very nature.
Uc had situations, at least in York County, where areas that were 20 miles away from TMI closed schools for two days.
We
()
have had situatiens where the runs on the banks occurred
- hrcuchout tha county.
Go, panic does set in.
It set in when tha radiation cccurred.
So, for that reason, I think we have to take a very long hard look at the evacuation plans, because if a five mile evacuation is ordered, let ne assure you that the bulk of that county will evacuate and they are going to evacuate right into the path of those people within the five alle area that are trying to get out of that area and it does present a very serious problem.
My final question, is it the policy of your agency to not have the public informed of an l
evacuation plan prior to the actual call for an evacuation?
A No, this is not our policy.
1 We have had situations acain where we were ordered i
m r
35 b
not to advise the public of the plan.
Wa were told that the public should only know if the evacuation were actually ordered, which then would aCain centribute to the overall panic and
~
confusion that would have existed.
I think we have some hard questions that have to be asked.
I think the answers have to be determined and the task ahead for your agency is not going to be an easy one.
I would like to assict you in any way that I could and specifically, I would appreciate any changes in legislation that you care to recommend becauce changes have to be made.
Thank you very much, Ken.
A Thank you.
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Representative Mochimann.
O BY REPRESENTATIVE MOEHLMANN:
Q Colonel Henderson, you said -- or I think you said and that's why I want to go over it with you, earlier that it was your estimation that an svacuation of a five mile radius could have been made on March 28th when this incident occurred with thoroughness and with reasonable speed and safety.
Is that your belief?
A Yes, sir.
Q I understand you are also of the belief that the following day or two days later, the 30th, this could have been done in a ten mile redius?
A By Friday night,yes, sir, (m)
Q And you feel that Saturday night you could have l
l
.w
36 O
evacuated 20 miles and you could do that now with reasonable speed, safaty and with thorouchness?
A Yes, sir.
G That's ama~ing.
It really does surprise me.
I am glad that you feel ycu are prepared.
A Not back on the same time hours that I was giving j
at the time.
f.t the time on Saturday and Sunday when all of the schools were closed and the school buses were immediately standing by and all of the Civil Defence fcrces were standing at the docr, we cave an estimate of three hours for the five miles, seven hours for the ten miles and --
Q Three hours to do what?
()
A For the evacustion of the five mile --
Q To begin?
A No, to complete it.
From the time that first car --
new, this is based on automobile traffic only.
We took an estimate based on the best advice from the Pennsylvania Department of Transpcrtation of the number of automobiles that were in each of the centers and the amount of time it uould have taken from the time the first automobile crossed the five mile outer ring until the last automobile on the numbar of routes that we had given uould have been approximately three hours.
This did not take into consideration the special handling of patients in hospitals, nursing homes and so forth.
We would have needed some additional lead time.
However, in 3i v
_MO.A,'a-'
= G4sv w
37 O
the five. mile area we had only one nurcing home.
However, when we got out to the ten miles and 20 miles, the problems with special handling became quite heavier, i
Q Eid you feel that ycu had the ccmmunications capabilities to get everybody in that area moving within that t ime ? ' '
A Yec, cir.
Q The other question I have, going back to what Fopresentative Geecey said, there were schools outside of the 20 mile radius c1cced for two days in my county, Lcbanon County,
Monday and Tuesday, whatever those days were following this incident.
Did your office give any advice whatever to those outlying counties with regard to closing the schools?
Did 1
you advice them to or not to close the schools or were they strictly on their oun?
A
'!c did not give them advice en the closing of the schools.
The Department of Education, as I recall, was advising the Governor that the schcolo cheuld be cloced.
We were a party to thic recommandation.
Houever, we were waiting for the Governor to make that announcement end we thought the Governor was goin6 to make that announcement Sunday eveninE.
I do not believe he did co.
I would have to check.
Q What was the reasoning?. Uhat were the reasons that -
A The reacons that we wanted the schools closed was r-for the utilizaticn cf the school buses and for the utilization
(>)
38 O
and to have the children at home so that when the evacuation started, we didn't have to do one of two things; either take the school children from the school
,o a mass scare facility j
or return them to their homes and then move with the evacuatior,.
We felt under the present conditions and at this time our guidance from Mr. Denton was that we would have 'two tx> cight hours advance notification for any possible precautionary i
evacuation that might be necessary.
Q By precautionary evacuation, you mean an evacuation that was not a reaction to an unplanned event?
A That 's correc t.
So, under these guidelines of two to eight hours, we felt it important that we have all of the
()
resources that we needed standing,by to do the job that we felt might have to be done.
O So, at that time it was your belief that those schools should have boon closed.
Is that correct?
A My personal belief, yes.
REPRESENTf.TIVE MCEHLMANH:
I have no other questions.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN '.TRIGHT:
Depresentr tive Scheaffer.
1 l
BY REPRESENTATIVE SCHEAFFER:
Q Colonel Henderson, I want to get back to Representa-tive Geesey on plans.
Do all counties in the Commonwealth have a plan and do all counties in the Commonwealth have a
, g.a... pay *.
e.--
.m g ewp? 'hw*w
39 O
coordinator?
A All counties have a cocrdinator.
Approximately one-third of these acordinators, say 20 of these coordinators are volunteers.
Another group of them are part-time and. maybe a third of them are full-time coordinators.
Fif ty-two of our counties at the present time have an emergency plan that meets our preliminary requiremants.
L't have 15 counties that their plans do not meet minimum requirements.
!!au, this is not for evacuation.
This is a general overall plan for any kind of an emergency.
You see, one of the things and I don't think you chould be mislead by perhaps some of tha plans that Mr. Hollic has that we sent to him.
The evacuation plans tic into other standard operating procedures and planc that the counties have, quite frequently their evacuation plans or the Three Mile Island plan is a take-off from uhat already e::ista ac their standard operating precedures.
Q These coordinators in these counties that are volunteerc, are they paid in any way of any kind?
A Generally not.
They may be reimbursed for certain travel expences anywhere from $200 a year to a $1,000 a year.
Q 37 the county?
A Dy the county, yec, sir.
Q You~ don't have any financial input into the payment
/~
of any of theaa coordinato'rc in any of the countics?
k-)s
7 ho V
A Ue do not.
However, we are part of the -- many of thene ccunties are participanta in the federal PMA program, Perconnel Administration Program, that is monitored under the 3
Defence Civil Preparedness Agency and gain eligibility for i
participation up to 50 percent.
The name as my agency is reimbursed 50 percent cf all of these expennen by the Defense Civil PreparedneGG Agency.
Our counties who meet the q'nlificctions and one of the b1CCont qualifications is that i
all county employce: cf EmarEency Management perconnel would be under the merit system.
Frankly, many cf the counties still resist that and, concequently, they have not gotten into the program.
()
The federal government pute tpproximately $772,000 a year into our countiec for the paynent and administrative costs acsociated with the Civil Dafonce organization.
They put approximately 133,000 total into the 67 countiec for those that arc into the progren, 52 of them.
For other harduare
' onta, they put approximately anyuhere frca a half a million to n nillion and a half dollarc c "ent into the Civil Defense prc~ran in the way of couipment loanc nuch as vehicles.
Lact year, for example, we cot cycr a 150 vehicles for our counties i
and municipalition throughcut the Civil Defense program, i
Q Are they in the countiec now?
t A
.Ye s, sir, fcur wheel drive vehic1c3 used by fire departmenta and used by the Civil Defence organization, sir.
i
(,
+
41 r
O Q
One more question.
That coordina tor, Civil Defence Coordinotor ic appointed by the County Commincionarc in the countinc?
A "ecomm2nied, o
Recomm2ncied tc uho?
A Recommended to me, concurred in to me and appointed by the Gcverner.
1 All right, now,.than the political climate chanEeS in those counticc, do the County Coordinatort change?
A Rather infrequently, Lact fear we had a 28 percent turnover in Civil Defence Directorc, 23 percent of the 67 Only two of those uere fer political reasons.
A couple of
/'~'
- ;)
them uere fcr ha 11th rc70c nc, but th: majority cf them were w
dicenchanted with their reimburcement.
On an average, I nunpect that our Ceunty Civil Defence Directorc make an average cf $8,000 a year.
Q Full time?
Full timo-thic ir not very enccuraging for a young m'n who
".s ctartinr c family.
Sc, the minute he comes in, he 'c icok.inc cr anothar Job.
REPRESE!TP/.TIW SCHEAFFER:
Thank ycu.
I don't have anything elce.
CHAIRMAN PRIGHT:
Reprocentative Reed.
BY REPRESEliTATIVE REED:
(
Q Colonel, you indicated that Dr. Collins from the NRC
42 Emergency Operatienc Center called you at sorae point in the early dayo cf th2 criain indicating that he roccamended a ten mile evacuation.
~.' hat day of tha week.was thit?
A That :2c l'riday nornin; at 9: 15 hours1.736111e-4 days <br />0.00417 hours <br />2.480159e-5 weeks <br />5.7075e-6 months <br />.
Q You had ind ica te<1 that you had no choice but to concur uith that recommendation that an evacuaticn of' ten mileo vac nececcar:f, baced on th. data that you had raccived from Dr. ' ollinc and th2 data that you had from Thrao.'lile Island.
Yca alto m'ntioned the fact that the 3ureau of Endiological liaalth had not ;;otten back to you v;1th any information inlicating to the contrary.
That'n ccrrect.
In one item tht t ' do omit there, I alce received before I made thc. recommendation to the Covernor ano'?.or telephone call back from "sr. Collins of NRC to maha no aware that thic nr not juct hic and the staff's re com.rendat ion, that thic rocc~en6aticn fer evact:ation was concurred in by the Chairman of the NRC, r
Did tha 'ereau of Had irlocical Health at:d DER get back to you late > nn Friday, ikirch 30th, tith data?
?.
They did n.,t.
The Jureet cf Eadiation Protection uac called to the Co cernor'c Office, cur Tcm Corusky was called tc the Coynrnor's Office.
I later was called to the Governor's Office and that was the first time that I learned that thin incident *nc perhapc not as ceriouc es we had been l'? d to believe.
a
.,y.
=
_ _ _ _ =.
43
()
Q Colonel, on Monday April 2nd, Lieut?nant Governor Scranton announacd in the front paso of the Philadelphia 3u11ctin and a number of other media across the state that it would take "cevaral hours" to conduct a 20 mile evacuation from Three Mile Icland, 20 mile radius evacuation which is variously-estimated to include somewhere betwaen 600 and f850,000 pacplc.
'las that an accurato statement on Ibnday, April 2nd?
I am not asking you to vortify that ha said it.
I know that i
he cald it.
Is that a factual statocent, that it would have ta!can as he caid "ceveral hours"?
l A
We vere catimating ten hours, assuming that we were i
in a ready posture.
Now, some of our ready pasture had been reduced Monday m:rning vhen some of the schocla wont back in s
1 c 2 0 c ie n.
So, we would have had a further -- we would not have i
been bouni to that -- I would not have been bound, I feel, to.
that ton houro.
However, at the ?ame timo, Representative Reed, we had received fairly reltable information from York i
County that had con 3ucted 2 surv2y of the number of people i
i uho had avacuatc3 within the rive mile area.
One-half of thos e parsonnel had evacuated and up to one-third of the people within the ten mila area, includin? the total ten mile i
area had evacuated.
So, as far as numbers were concerned, the voluntary evacuations varo reducing cur problem.
Also, ycu will recall during this time pocple were being -- doctors were
,,s releasing peoplo from the hospital, thoca who were in for
! s) l
_ -.. - =. -.
.j 1
h4 i
i elective curgery or those who had been given paGacs to home i'
and to forth.
Sc, I am nct sayin; that one offsets the other l
or that thic condition here offcots the othar, but it would have been a ten hour plus an F.on hy.
Q
' 'a ll, cin:o thic is a fact finding hearing, I would li!ce to trake mentien of the fac t that I cerve as a volunteer 1
uith a 1cc21 ambulance provider.
That uculd be the primary i
i cervico provider in th2 city of Ihrr13 burg in the event that i
1 a genaral evacuation uould have been ordered.
Approximately i
l h:11f of the city cf Harrichurg falla within the ten mile radius.
It's divided by 'Jalnut Street.
The other half, of cource, i
vould be con.?!dered within the 15 or 20 mile radiuc area.
l l
Sotween 'dednaeda,; March 28th to Monday evening t,pril 2nd, I can tell you that there aan abcolutely nero contact between the county or city Civil Defence uith the primary ambulance service provider in the city of !hrr13 burg; uhich meanc very j
simply, Colonel, that in the event an evacuation ucro ordered, tharc *:a0 absclutely no advincry information, no preparatory 1
I informatien, not even a question uith regard to raadiness or i
i i
preparodnecc botueen the primary cervice deliverer for.non-ambulatory peoplo in the city of Harrisburg and the Civil Defanne network.
I think that, to ec, tc11a me comething i
about hon prepared we may have been or not been at least in the Harrisburg area.
I.am, therefore, cuCCenting that the communication linec need to be core apacifically drawn out for 3
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the future 30 that the informatica you roccive as to how many hourc it woull take ':0 de t.v a m '. l o c, ten niloc or 20 miles t ceficct input f'fom :11 ':c wc e :;.
I make that corencnt with no particular..:e to
~c tnd except '; hat I happen to know it to h3 factual.
I think
't hac a teoring on our preparedness.
I h?.v3 cne 1.id itional question.
I have listened tc 1 hat you h a 2 had tc 3ay uith ce;pri to ycur opinion with rc~.rd to avicuation and.vhether or not it chould have been
. lone o'c not.
I nota part tuularly you r cc:xnont that an
- vacuacien could have been carrlad out without panicking, without hyntaria for the public, if they were a well-informed piblic ani.cra orovided.2dequatu lendarchip.
I happen to f
i Q
think that
'h'tt fru atM in that connect!on in 100 percent ac, tra t 2
- c t :I tr r i r'.; t e m in c i c1r. be r, I am confronted by a nn.bar of cituttionc.
0'avioncl/ tho quection of whether an cvaru t ion in noco a.'.ir;r la nou acadente.
I think most of us soaid conclu12 11 t'n f '.n u l inalycla, that it probably 'vann ' t; b>'; durin-thit pr':tcul.tr ;im, rany of un ;ere not se cure.
', h:"a a n onr
- c o f '.nfor."a t ie n, uhtch I b?llove to be ruutual.
I ::all 1 * ':- t :> ind ic it 2 a ocuple of thone major f ac to contrihuting to the daciclan fer an evacuatton -- if I ani :ny anything that you wish.
ar- -rcnc, pl?nce cccrect no The very ftrat ir that W if.n'::h 'Nlth accident itcelf occurred without mrn'.nr an1 obv5.cuc]y ind ic a ted that what we had been g
previencly tc1:1 nca't pancible, in fact, was poccible.
It m
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<t vas unschaduled.
It shouad that obviously a nuclear accident
- ni the un20ntc 113d role ace of "adicac tivity a a, indo2d, a pctothillt:r m! t.: ' t
'.t c^ui? c :ar in un macheduled manner.
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tha ??ry bocin 11nz :cnflicting infer:r.a tion frc ~
1r t.c, :. ma'c a c, all of ';.u.a c~.21 ming to be e::p3r t o.
Co, it :ac difficult to determine with any degree of ;ccu?a:
^ven :ha t the 'nian ica '.cv01:'
t'a, not to mention come other fict1; high mann ' ;c :' '
de211ne ith a situation s
of onf1cien ani ~n t: rlic t '.c n, diah m hos it J".fficult for
?"alic p:112:7 th3r" s.ch e the Cor:rcor or ~2cutanant Governor to min 2 loc ' ~i;n S ned upon comple tely accurato and factual information, fg
'T n'S e - t'1re e,
le had a cituation of a co-called "vol o. t lle h d r - ~'n 'r t')Sl#, uhi a '-'
o no
'. carn mn: not have icon so "ol"t!'a.
it thIt hima, it nc believed to have had e:<plcliv' m ten t bl.
Ihd that, of cc'IrIe, been '30 and explon".on ccaur.ced, it rould hava Peen conathing that was
.r uP-st19 rn w.th'.:-
- h'.c:. c a ? r" hwe r13':1",ed in a
4.
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- h-3 2:- fr"c,
- c ho! : acc ' vc d no d!cc'.ccure of how mu c '1 r a '! in :20 ' * ? ' '; - S9
'm an c:9 'ted frem "'hree 'Ille 1cland on
' a:!no u la
- nd "'h :r a !a',
",re b "S tP n1 3th.
'c!c ntill don' t
!m ou, becu ce Met h a.' no ", tol.1
-a fo" reatenc unknown to
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y.
"e aln-
- da tt ien,11y !v ' Sl'a t
'.c. r leveln of radiaticn I
a wl
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47 O
were being omitted, some ccheduled and como unscheduled during the beginnin: cn Friday ?brch 30th and the effecta of low icvel radiation are the subject of trent debate.
Beyond that, the
. final point in that wa had no tected evacuation plan beyond the five mile limit.
Te cay the leach, it would take hours and hours to irnlement one.
I believe Harold Denton, as you' 4
indicated, was 01 vin-that et the moment you would have a two to night hour advanco notice for a precautionary evacuation.
Now, thnt's not an auful lot of time.
That gives
- rou difficulty mobilicing the resourcen, let alone cetting thinrp into motion bevond the five or ten mile radiuc; which means that if an emorqcncy evacuation were neconcary, you uculd have really had problonc tryin,e to get one.
All of thone fac torn in my mini lead up tc the conclusion that a pracautionary evacuation in the early stage of the March 28th ace ident was, i.n fact, 'rarran ted.
Do '/ou have a comment on that?
^
Of cource lookinF at it 'crith 20/00 hindsight, I could nay that you are absolutelytreng.
I wouldn't dictate htt I --
Q Colonel, let me interrupt.
Let's ro back.
Obviously,
we know now 'rith all of the informatica that it may not have been.
What I have,just said to veu uns exactly where we found ourceives on March 28th, 29th and 30th and obviously didn't have the benefit of what uo have accumulated now in six gh k
tsa vde=-6 Weh h w9weAs me e sweeem. M = = = m %me,-
48 q_/
weeks.
That's the way it was then and if that isn't the way it was, then correct me.
A With the information that I had at hand and I was not in the same position the Governor was in, because I was talking to the White House and was talking in particular to NRC.
In fact, I told my staff and I told most of the County Civil Defense Directors that I felt there was a 90 percent chance that we would be cutting an evacuation during this particular time.
I would comment on one other thing.
I think perhaps the first percon in recorded history to be faced with the opportunity to prevent and prepare for a disaster was probably Noah.
Noah had his information from one source and he didn't have to question the information.
You will recall the incident in Johnstown.
It was not because of the information we had during the early morning hours of the Johnstown incident, it was the lack of information that nade me recommend to Governor Schapp that we declare a disaster.
I cou3dn't get through on the telephone.
We were getting conflicting reports and estimates and the state police were saying, " hey, there must not be nothing wrong.
We are getting no reports. "
We couldn ' t Eet throuEh and we knew that there was heavy rains and it was due to the absence of information that
(~'
we felt there was somet' Sing wrong.
So, this business of
'x'
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r 49
(
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(_)
information is one of my biggest problems.
In any kind of emergency, in the disaster we had in Pittsburgh last night, the emergency in Pittsburgh last night with Duquesne Light Power Company at the explosion, my first report indicated hundreds of casualtics.
Later, it came down to five.
It's very difficult whe,n you are away from the acene -- even if I had been sitting at Three Mile Island, to 1
be perfectly honest with you, I wouldn't have know what was going on.
Information is a problem in this business.
It's something we have to live with.
It's something we have to continue to cope with and try to improve our channels of
(
communication and find out who we have to depend on and who we o
have to question and so on.
V CHAIRMAN WRIGh"r:
Representative Colo.
BY REPRESENTATIVE COLE:
Q Colonel, in your opening remarks you talked about the 1200 milleramps (phonetic) that the NRC notified you about.
Was that on Wednesday or Friday?
A That was on Friday morning, sir.
Q Firday morning.
Do you know where they received this information from, the reading?
Where was that informatior obtained?
A I do not know where the plant received that information.
0 t
.m.__
50 Q
The !!RC notified you?
A No, the plant notified us first.
The plant notified un at 8:40 in the morning that they were receiving emissions measured at 1200 MR's and 600 feet above the stack.
At 9: 15, the NRC advised me that they had the report and had confirmed it and that they were recommending' that we evacuate the five mile area.
Q Then you further stated that you notified the Governo,r that you recommended an evacuation of the area.
Is that correct?
A I notified the Lieutenant Governor and then subse-quently received another call from Doc Collins from NRC telling
()
me that this was not only Doc Collins' recommendation which was also concurred in by the Chairman of the NRC.
Then, the Governor called me on the hotline that I had between my office and his and asked my recommendation.
Q Were the plans put into effect to begin the evacuation?
A No, we alerted -- when we received that call at 8:40 of the seriousness of this incident all of the counties within o
the ten mile area and told them to be prepared for an evacuatien, f
but not to implement it.
O All right, what further developed that day and at what time did you chanEe your recommendation about the evacuation?
fsh
51
(
i I
O A
f La ter that morning I was called to the Governor' Office and :tr. Gerusky from the Eureau of Radiation P s
rotection was there.
Xe was strongly urging against an evacuation
, based upon those re:sdinEs.
Now, I had no way of knowing whether thi reading of -- by this time, too, the emissions had ceased.
It was apparently a one time burst, but when we got the inf i
- ormation, we understood from the plant people that this was a continuin emission.
By g
this time, by the time I had got into the Governor's Office, the emissions had been halted.
O But 'a recommended against the evacuation.
Did he have the infc.~.ation that it was ceasing?
eA Yes, he did.
(
Q He did?
O
^
ree-Q And tnat was his reasoning for --
A I believe that was his reasoning, yes; and also while we were tr.'ere, we were also in contact -- the Governor was in contact.itth NRC.
They, too, had confirmed that the emissions had halted.
Q And wnat time of day was this?
How long --
A Sir, finis was --
Q You tell ma 8:40 in the morning you were going to put the plan ints oft'eet and recommended it to the Lieutenant' Governor?
A This was around 10:30 in the morning, as close as I
(.~.J1 e
3 4.m," 4
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52 O
can guess.
Q So, there was about a two hour time period in there where you changed your mind?
A Yes.
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Representative Cohen.
BY REPRESENTATIVE COHEN:
Q And it's your opinion that you could have -- and you stated several times here -- that we could have had a safe evacuation.
Was this conveyed to the Governor at all?
A Yes, sir.
Q Was it conveyed to the Lieutenant Governor?
A Yes, sir.
{}
Q Covernor Thornburg has repeatedly used the phrase proven ha,zards of the evacuation.
Did he explain to you or anyone in your presence what the proven hazards of an evacuation were?
A No, but I -- you know, an evacuation is not something anybody does lightly.
I am certainly cognizant of that.
I am also cognizant that durin6 tropical storm Agnes that some 12 hundred 50 thousand people were evacuated without incident, that there were in Johnstown some 30 or 40,000 people.
The week before this or the mo'.ith before this ' occurred, we had to evacuate over 1,000 people up in Jefferson on a chemical spill.
We had to evacuate a couple of blocks down in Gettysburg.
(-
Evacuations are not that unusual to us.
Now, this is a little i
L-
53
( )(
different kind of an evacuation, I agree.
Q What's the difference between this evacuation and another kind?
A Well, this is a deliberate evacuation, whereas these others were hasty evacuations, if you will.
Q Can you define what the difference is between a deliberate --
A Well, what I'm saying is that a hasty evacuation is when the water's coming up and people look out the uindows and "oh, oh, I better get the hell out of here."
- say, That's a hasty one.
A deliberate one is one that is planned for and controlled.
f(h Q
Shouldn't at least a deliberate evacuation be safer than a hasty evacuation, if the plan had time to be formulated?
A This is my evaluation, yes.
Q So, you think it would.
Now, you are by and large the top advisor of the Lieutenant Governor.
How many meetings did you have with the Lieutenant Governor, approximate 1r?
A I can't answer the number of meetings.
Telephone calls, coveral times every morning and several times overy evening and every night with he or his staff.
Q Dut there weren't very many meetings in which he called you and other people together to discuss this?
A Well, I think taere was a continuous liaison.
- Now, for the first two or three days I spent quite a_few hours in k_)
_ -, e e -
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s'
~
54 O
the Lieutenant Governor's office with the Lieutenant Governor and the Governor.
The Lieutenant Governor had two of his memb'ars in my staff in my office during the first three or four days.
Really, I had the authorit'y to pass on to them information to get to the Lieutenant Governor or vice versa.
So, it was a= continuous -- I hate to put a number on there, because it was a continuous communication.
Q But there was a -- how should I say it?
There was a fractionisation of the information such as you would convey one thing to the Governor and you weren't all in the same room at the same time.
A Well, this was a decision made by the Governor that f~D
(,j he was going to enforce the technical aspects of this situation from the emergency evacuation aspects of it.
This was his decision.
Now, I am not arguing the rights or wrongs of his decision.
This is a decision that he made and it's workabic and all we had to do then was to accommodate this type of a decision, which I feel we could have done.
Q Were you involved in any contact with insurance companies at all as to what the insurance consequences of the evacuation would be?
A No, sir.
Q Are you familiar with the section of the law of 1978 upgarding the emergency manacement services which says:
if the Governor has declared this to be-a disaster, then,
.~
.,~..
55 i
O those who vere ofrected could claim an additional $5 million in state funds.
Do you think that $5 million would be helpful to the people in the area who would benefit or it be just a drop in the bud et?
E A
If we had conducted the evacuation?
Q If Governor Thornburg had declared a disaster and which would have meant that those who were forced to flee could have claimed the additional $5 million.
A The only way that that can be claimed is under the individual grants procram., which the federal budget puts up 75 percent and the state puts up 25 percent of the money.
- Now, it's true that the 25 percent of the state's share of those I')
monies would come out of that $5 million.
A-s Q
So, if Governor Thornburg had declared a disaster, then the 5 million would have only represented 25 percent and you would have automatically gotten federal money?
A No, this $5 million is for the extraordinary expenses of state government during emergency operations.
It is also, for the individual grant programs.
Now, if there were merely an evacuation and no property damages, individuals would not have been eligible for the federal government's individual grant program.
Therefore, this 25 percent would not have come into play, unless there had been actual advantages and they could chow that they had this amount of uninsured -- when the waters Eo up and they lose all of their furniture, those items
.)
~
56 O
that are uninsured makes them cligible to receive up to $5,000, assuming that they have that much expense, under the federal individual grant program.
The federal government pays 75 percent of that and the state pays 25 percent of it.
Q And transportation costs would not have counted under the state act?
They would have to take the loss?
A No, sir.
Q Okay, thank you.
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
I think the young lady is about out of paper.
We will go off-the-record.
( An off-the-record discussion was held. )
O s-CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Representative Miller.
BY REPRESENTATIVE MILLER:
Q Colonel Henderson, I am just a little bit concerned about the difference between your statement and the conclusions of the Governor regarding,the safety of an evacuation.
I take it that you would not agree with the statement that the public' s
perception of a nuclear disaster is different from the public 's perception of a flood-type disaster.
A No, I believe that a -- I agree with some comments made here that if you don't feel it, you don't see it, you don't touch it.
There is a different perception on the part of the public, but a well articulated and a well-educated public
(
are going to' react.
If the leadership is there that tells them
-w._
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r
57 t-L ))
99 percent of the public, if you tell them, "look, we have got to evacuate this area and we want you to get in your automobiles and drive down Fourth Street and come up on Front and take a right on 281" and if we have got the state police and the national guard and the PennDot personnel with their trucks b1ccking the entrances and exits so that this is the way -that they will Eo, they will follow those instructions.
It's when there is a lack of leadership and believe this, during this operation, I think the Governor did a tremendous job.
I think the Governor demonstr'ated the kind of leadership that it would have taken to have informed the public that he was going to require -- not require, request an evacuation.
So, all I'm
()
saying is that from a management aspect, we could have managed the evacuation in an effective manner.
Q Well, I remind you that you used the figure of 99 percent.
That means, if my calculations are correct, using Mr. Reed 's minimum numbers, that 60,000 people are going to panic and to the wrong way and drive their car into the fire trucks and so forth.
I wonder whether we would have effected a safe evacuation in those circumstances.
My further question is whether or not 99 percent of the people are coing to proceed that they should drive up Front Street and turn r1 ht on Fourth and so forth.
I have my doubts E
about this.
A I tried this out last week on a professor from the L.3)
++
e w-w m
-e#,-en e ' w es., ps
58 i
O University of rittsburgh who has spent his life making surveys and public attitude surveys and who has studied for some 25 or 30 years, everything from the evacuation in England during World War II to the floods down in Mississippi to Florida and Louisiana.
He told me that there is no authoritative evidence that people will panic when the people are told what to do during emergency situations.
Q Well, you are much more of an authority on that, obviously, than I am.
I wonder since I have so many questions and did at that time in my own mind about what would happen in that circumstance.
I just wonder about the general public having a similar perception.
()
Just one further detailed question.
I believe ycu indicated that you felt it would be useful for there to be a hotlina of some sort between any nuclear plant and your office, any nuclear plant in Pennsylvania and your office.
Is there any reason in your mind why there should be a similar hotline between such nuclear plants and the NRC and your office and the NRC and the White House?
In other words, how involved should those hotline linkups be and how far should they go?
A Well, we have a hotline with the National Warning System Center out in Colorado and down in Olean, Maryland, which in turn has a hotline to the White House.
So, through my office, although I have nobody to whom I can speak to in the White House, that facility is there and it is capable of O
e s s
v-
69 I) being exercised.
We need a better system between the Emergency Operation Center of the NRC in Bethesda, Maryland.
- However, I heard the Governor this morning stating that Mr. Denton was going to propose that in cabsequent operations, that they have a SWAT team of scme sort, who immediately rushes to the scene.
So, I am not certain what part that operation center in Bethasda, Maryland is going to play in subsequent emergencies.
So, I am a little reluctant to say how valuable that kind cf a relationship is going to be.
Maybe for the first two hours before that team of professionals can get on the scene, it might be the difference.
I am just thinking off the top of my head, I would say yes, this is a necessity.
It's a good (c'
point.
CHAIRMAN URIGHT:
Representative Stuban.
BY REPRESENTATIVE STUBAN:
Q One of the questions that I would like to ask is, Colonel, you made reference to a book that you said you had on information all about radiation and that you tried to make this known to the public and have it published or printed and passed out to the schools.
Who suppressed you or stopped you from doing this?
A Sir, we sent this last -- September was the last time we tried it on for size.
I will verify this date when 1
we get back over to my office, shortly.
Around to the members O(al of the state, then state council of Civil Defense, and to. tne
60
,s-,
Bureau of the Radiation Protection.
The Bureau of Radiation Protection then went out to its members who are called -- it's a commission that they get their advice from.
No one took exception to any of the words, but they felt that we were trying to single out the nuclear industry for special treatment.
They proposed that whether.just putting this booklet out on what you should know about radiation that we should really put out a book about what ycu should know about disasters and publish it in that kind of a form.
So, it was based on this lack of getting the Bureau of Radiation Protection concurrence that we did not proceed at that particular time.
("')
Q Well, do you think that if that booklet was put out and you said you would like to put it out in schools and cchool kids brought it home, that there would have been more know-ledgeable people as to what the effec ts of radiation would have been and the intervention possibly of licensing some of these plants?
A Well, I didn't get the last point on licensing?
Q The licensing of a nuclear plant, that there would be more knowledgeable people out there, that they would have a little more knowledge of the effects of what could happen?
A Yes, sir.
Q Another question I would like to ask and I guess j
possibly we should have said to the Governor or Lieutenant
w 6-O C Governor today, there is a lot of discussion about plans and everything else.
Has Civil Defense or your office or the Lieutenant Governor's Office or any office intervened into the licensing of the nuclear plant and had any input on to the disaster plans, to the emergency plans?
,,g A
As.part of the public hearings which'are part of the licensinE process?
Q Right.
A My office in the past has attended those hearings and have been uitnesses during those public hearings on the disaster plans.
Q You have been witnesses, but nobody represented to
{ } (,
you -
you know, you just agree to a plan that the utility has adopted?
A No, this was the only one -- two years ago in April and !!ay of '77, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had published hearings here in Harrisburg regarding the licensing of this particular facility.
At that time, my Deputy, Mr. Craig Williamson appeared on behalf of the Agency and Kevin Maloy, en behalf of Dauphin County to answer questions as part of the licensing process on our ability to take those protective action measures, if necessary, in the event of an incident.
Q Well, are you going to either recommend to your staff or possibly to the Lieutenant Governor to intervene possibly with better plans that you have now and more stringent (v~'
l
r-62 m~)
er.forcement into the licensing of the nuclear plants that are I
o'.) line now?
A At the precent time, one of the big factors in any kind of a planning is the basis for your planning.
We are trying to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for giving us a hazard analysis for each of the pouer plants in<the-Comraonwealth of Pennsylvania, which takes'into consideration the kind of situations and the probability of those situations t
and takes into consideration the weather and the terrain data.
So, we can see in black and white why we need to figure on a five mile, a three mile or a ten mile or a hundred mile evacuation.
This is something we have never had before.
It's something that it appears the NRC is not very well equipped to provide, but it's something that we are insisting that they do provide.
Q Okay, one last question.
Is it possible to get a copy of that booklet concerning radiation?
A Yes, sir.
Q Do you have a copy over there that we could get?-
A I can mimcograph one while we are over there, sir.
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Representative Hoeffel.
BY REPRESENTATIVE HOEFFEL:
Q Colonel, concerning the pamphlet that we have been discussing just now, did the Bureau. of Radiation Protection
()
consult any utilities as to whether or not they should be O
'8
- a -M 4, %. 4 e +
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63 b
distributed to the schools?
A There are utilitics represented on the Concoission so, yes.
Q Uhat Commission advises the Radiation Bureau?
What's J
the name of that Commission?
A I do not recall the name, but when we get to the office, I will find out the name.
I have got all the documents there.
Q Fine, and I would like to know which specific utilities are represented on that Commission.
I would like to know that, too.
A Okay.
Q Colonel, I have never heard a satisfactory explanatic n
for the mysterious sirens that kept sounding in Harrisburg.
Can you give us some quick explanation of what was going on there?
A The one that sounded on Friday was the Harrisburg Fire Department.
We could not find either who he was or why he set the siren off.
Now, the two that sounded on the Capitol Complex, there is only one switch and that is a pure Civil Defense siren, an attention siren.
The only switch is. maintained down in the office by the snack bar by the Capitol State Police.
Two policemen in_ the office at the time, both swear r'
that they were on the opposite side of the room from where the Q)g 4
. +
a
64 O
switch was.
However, there were electricians working on the wiring in this building and they believe that this was set off by them.
I requasted the office of General Services to conduct, an immediate investigation and to frankly have the siren dis-connected after it went off that second time.
I have not yet gotten that investigation back.
Well, I asked them to have it submitted to the Lieutenant Governor.
Q The second occurrence was a week later on Wednesday, the 24th of April?
I happened to hear that one myself.
A Yes, sir.
REPRESENTATIVE HOEFFEL:
Thank you.
(~)
(_/
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Representative Cowell.
BY REPRESENfATIVE COWELL:
Q Sir, first of all, has your office had an official or unofficial estimate of the number of people that voluntarily lef t the area in the days shortly follcWing the incident?
A dell, we are basing this on an almost door-to-door survey that was conducted by York County and extrapolating that into the othar regions and also supported by studies from Elizabethtown College and elsewhere.
Approximately 50 percent of those people livinG within the five mile area evacuated and approximately one-third of the people living within the ten mile area voluntarily evacuated.
,-(,)
Q Do.you have rough numbers for that?
(..
/
-65 b~Tl Somewhere between 150 and 200,000 people.
n Q
A couple of questions about emergencies in general.
First of all, let me say, I have got a couple of impressions.
Maybe they are wrong, I don't know.
The first impression is that the kind of emergencies that people in your business have got to plan to deal with in the future are always changing, Generally being added to, I guess.
The second impression is that based on some of the testimon'; that we have heard today and what we have read in the paper, there was a reluctance, continued to be some reluctance to declare an emergency because of the disaster implications of that.
O(,/
The third impression is. from your own testimony, you tend to use the words emergency and disaster interchangably.
What I am asking, as you see the need to make plans in the future and as other people in ycur business see the need to make plans in the future, is there some practical way of -
distinguishing between the so-called precautionary type emergency declaration where you want to evacuate because something might happen, but you don't want.to leave the impression of great physical damage, etc., etc. and the traditional energency where the flood has swept everything away or the bomb has knocked the building doun?
A The last administration attempted to get such an identification.
Something lecs than a major disaster declaration, fs 6
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4
-M e.e4
-==
66 O
but would still provide the kind of services.
They, frankly, were unsuccessful in arriving at anything that could do any-thing less than the present emergency disaster declaration to be made by the Governor.
I don't know whether it would facilitate my cperations or uhether it would add anything to it to have a lesser kind of disaster declaration... I think that people get in the habit and certainly we in Pennsylvania who have been faced with so many floods and everything, that you expect when you have a disaster of any magnitude, whether it be the very small one where you get your feet wet up to where you get swept out of your house, you expect the federal Government and the state government to come in with certain
(~)~
(,
resources.
So, regardless of what kind of disaster you declare I think the expectation on the part of the public are that, this is a major disaster and therefore I an entitled and I expect to receive all of the -- reap all of the benefits.
So, I have this kind of a problem with trying to come up with a scheme where we might be able to identify anything less than a full blown disaster.
Q But am I correct in understanding that of the reluctance to declare this an emergency, this incident, a lot of people and businessmen who were dislocated and did suffer some kind of an economic impac t, negative impact, have-not been able to get certain federal benefits because we don't have a federal emergency; have not been able to get state 7s
(_.)
b[
O benefits. that Representative Cohen was discussing because we have not declared it a state emergency.
Is that a correct understanding?
A ITot re 311y.
There are no -- under Federal Law 93288, which is the only basis for declaring a major disaster declaration and going to the President for him, in turn, to declare a disaster, there are not provisions in that law for the resupply of monies to people who have been hurt, basically, financially.
The law is designed as a supplemental assistance and I mean supplemental to what the stata can provide and what local government can provide and what the insurance companies can provide.
There is nothing in 93288 that'would have taken care of the economic dislocation tht may have occurred during the Three Mile Island incident, as we know it now.
Q In there anything in any e;isting federal law which uculd provide any kind of assistance to people in this region if that were declared an emergency?
A The declaring of this -- of an emergency has no impact on -- and I am not that familiar with other federal laws.
I can speak only of 93288, which is the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration'Act of 1974.
There are no provisions in that Act for the reimbursement of businesses for any losses that they incur.
Q Then, to come extent -- I don't expect you to answer 73 this right now.
I wonder why we are going through this Y
68
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continuing debate about whether even today it ought to be declared a disaster or emergency.
Q It's beyond me, also.
The only think it would have garnished for us is that the federal agencies coming in providing their technical assistance, which they are doing anyway.
So, actually, the declaration now of the disaster area as far as monetary reward to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from my viewpoint, is absolutely zero.
Q The last couple questions, can you briefly outline the kind of disasters or emergencies that your office today is prepared to cope with?
A Well, I hope we are prepared to cope with all of them to some degree or another.
Basically, three kinds of di-sacters:
man-made, such as this one; natural disasters, which would be wind, tornadoes, floods, forest fires and so on.
The man-made instances in addition to the nuclear power plant could be power outages.
It would be a chemical spill on the hi hways or roads.
It could be a major aircraft 8
accident.
It could be fire caused by arson.
It could be the consequences of an act of terriorism.
The third one is nuclear war.
So, we have the three.
Our conventional attack, i
man-made and n:_tural disasters.
To the degree that we are prepared to cope with any one of them, we are prepared to manage and coordinate Civil Defense forces to the extent that
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we have the capacity.
Now, we are not technicians.
We are generally generalists in our business.
We have scheduled for the middle of April, which we have now postponed to the first week in June, a hazardous substance workshop for all of our County Civil Defense Directors.
That's now scheduled for the 6th and 7th of June, because this is becoming more and more a hazard to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
We want to make our County Civil Defence Directors -- not make them experts in what the make ups of the chemicals are, but to give them certain basics on how to treat with these kinds of incidents.
Q You said you were prepared to cope with these things to the extent that we have the capacity.
In your opinion, is that capacity adequate for all of those possibilities?
A We have the framework.
Now, we rely more heavily on volunteers than does any other agency of which I am aware,.
Volunteerism, it appears to be over the last two or three years is beginning to disappear from the American scene.
I am finding more and more of our volunteers who are now without any spare time on their hands.
They want to be down working.
We still have a lot of good volunteers.
Don't misunderstand me, In snows, we rely on the four-wheel mobile trucks for moving heating fuel into people who may be out of fuel.
We rely on the skimobile associations.
We rely on the amateur radio operators, to man communication systems so that we can p
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talk from my EOC out to counties.
We rely on the e:cisting volunteer fire departments.
We rely on the police departments.
h'e rely cn the national guard.
So, actual fcrces, Civil Defense forces, we don't 4
have any.
We lean on these other agencies to, in time of emergency, to provide us'the means for doing the job that we
.i knou needs to be done.
So, ours is a managing and coordinatinE 1
effort.
Q I take your remark about the decline of volunteerism and ycur heavy dependency on volunteericm to mean that you think that your capacity is inadequate or is becoming less adequate.
Am I misinterpreting what you're saying?
A Nc, you are not misinterpreting it.
It just means that we have Got to de a better job of managing what we have to manage with increasing fawer resources.
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Representative Itkin.
6 BY REPRESENTATIVE ITXIN:
Q Colonel, I would like to go back to the morning of the 30th.
You said earlier today that you recommended to the Governor to evacuate the public within the perimeter surrounding Three Mile Ialand.
Could you again tell this Committee what time you advised the Governor to do this and what was the basis I
of that determination?
A Yes, af ter receiving the report from Three Mile
. g)
Island that morning at 8:40 hours, that there was this major
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emission, that they themselves were preparing to evacuate.
The individual who made the telephone call :tas -- we knew him.
Fields, I think his name was.
He was very highly emotional and e:ccited.
The individual on my member of my staff took the telephone call gained this immediate impression that this is a really bad situation.
This was followed at'9: 15 from a telephone call frcm the NRC, recommending that we evacuate people within a ten mile area.
This was followed about ten minutes later with a telephone call from the same person, re-informing me that this was not only his recommendation but that this had the concurrence of the Chairman of the NRC.
Now, by this time, I did not have yet back from the
(
Bureau of Radiaticn Protection, its recommendation to me.
So, when the Governor called me at about 9:35, 9:40 and asked me at that time, "what is your recommendation?"
I told the Governor based cn the facts that I had at hand and the information that I had at hand, that I would ' recommend a five mile evacuation.
Now, it ans only af ter this when I appeared over at the Governor's Office and Tom Gerunky from the Bureau of Radiation Protection was there that I learned that the emission had halted and that perhaps it was not as serious as we had been led to believe.
f Q
What led you to believe that the emission was a 1
serious and custaining one?
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l A
When it was reported to us from the plant site that we had this emission, it was ny understanding that this was a continuing. emission, that we have a release Eoing on at the present time and that it was my understanding that this was a continuing release.
'O Did you ask any questions as to why the emission was
~
not centained or stopped?
A 1 did not.
We have an arrangenent with the plant that te get only the basic factual information.
We do not have the expertise in my office to ask the right questions and we, in turn, then have the Department of Environmental Resources, Dureau of Radiation Protection be the go-between with th'e O
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plant to discuss the technical terms and information and relate it to us in layman's terms as far as the course of action that we should take.
Q Did you subsequently learn after the consultation with the Bureau of Environmental ~ Protection about the nature md d36rce of the instances of this so-called " uncontrolled release" and a subsequent ability to contain it?
A Subsequent ability to --
0 To contain the release.
i A
Yes, I d id, in the Governor's Office.
O I find this to be a serious gap in information.
The information that I have is that the release was caused on the morning of Monday, the 30th, that's due to the attempts to-
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pump back radioactive water which had collected on the floor of auxiliary building and it was being pumped back into the containment building to protect the general public.
- Now, under those circumstances, there can be and probably would have been some venting in the auxiliary building.
The first question that I would have had, had I been involved, is to ask whether or not the pump could be stopped so that the operation of providing this return of the water from the auxiliary building back into containment be stopped, therefore, to eliminate the emission.
The second thing would be to find out whether or not there was an ability to close the vehtilation stack, which,
)
I assume there is, to contain whatever exists in the auxiliary building and at least keep the radiation emissions to a minimum.
Was this ever discussed in any conversations that you had during this entire incident regarding this specific occurrence?
A No, it was not.
Q Were you in consultation with the Governor and in his presence when he discussed this matter with the Chairman of the NRC?
A I was in the Governor's presence twice when he talked to the Chairman of the NRC and at the present time, I cannot relate whether this was a conversation that he was relating to the Chairman of the NRC.
I was present at one time i
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in which the Chairman apologized and said that the information that he -- or the recommendation that he had provided to the Governor was, I believe he used the word, hasty.
I believe this was the one that that relates to.
Q Who used the word hasty?
A The Chairman of the NRC apologized to the Governor for the recommendation for the evacuation.
This is to the best of my knowledge and time.
I was present when this conversation took place and I am confident that it relates to this particular incident that you are asking about.
The Chairman of the NRC, as I recall, apologized to the Governor and said to the Governor, "our recommendation for the evacuaticn was overly hasty."
Q Colonel, it would seem to me that this would not have been a major incident, not from my knowledge, that this j
type of emission could have been contained, that it was done in order to take radioactive water which had existed on the floor of the auxiliary building and the attempt was made to pump it back into contlinment.
Now, the closing off, stopping of the pumps or putting the building back on the vacuum or monostatic could have prevented this emission to have continuec I still don't ur.derstand what went on, except -- and this is something I wanted to ask the Governor this morning, but he was so short we didn't get an opportunity to question him,
(-}
At 12:30, he had e.'ews conference and he said based on the J
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advice of the Chairman of the NRC, he talked about issuing an advisory and planning for a general evacuation.
Now, I would like to know what the advice of the NRC was that morning that triggered his news conference that morning?
Do you have any knowledge of that?
A I am sorry, sir, I can't answer that one.
Q It's also interesting, Colonel, that during this entire period we had a lot of information which occurred on the date of Wednesday, May 28th.
The next really substantial amount of information we have af ter this emission occurred was on Friday, the 30th.
Now, during this time, obviously a lot of things had been going on in the plant.
The plant was not 3) acting well.
Did you know at that time or have you had any knowledge or did anyone in the state have any knowledge that it would appear between March 28th and March 30th that there were problems in the plant?
A I did not.
At noon on Wednesday and Wednesday night, I lef t the Lieutenant Governor and the NRC' Representatives, relatively assured that things were under control.
ThrauE out h
- Thursday, I still'had this general feeling that the things at the plant were going along according to schedule.
I think
]
somewhere in the logs, late Thursday night or early Friday morning that it was supposed to be shut down in 30 minutes.
Then, we got a call back that we had a little snag and it would be a little longer.
There was a -- I had the general
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feeling of Wednesday after we had met with the NRC people and all day Thursday, that there was no -- that this incident was not going to amount to anything.
Q It seems, however, that the Governor did at that time recommend that the NRC sent someone here to Harrisburg who was sufficiently competent to assass the situation and i
take necessary control of the regular operations.
That was Mr. Harold Denton.
A Sir, that was Friday morning.
Q That was Friday morning?
A Yes, sir.
Q Now, 10:00 on Friday, 10:00 P.M. on Friday, there
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was a hastily called news conference at which time the Governor announces the presence of Mr. Harold Denton, and it is told to the press and the public that a huge hydrogen bubble of some 800 cubic feet has developed, you know, in the reactor system.
Now, obviously, this type of tubble did not occur overnight and it was arrogressive process that occurred since the first accident when the accident first started on Wednesday.
It's hard for me to believe that two days had passed and that on Friday afternoon, late afternoon, suddenly this huge cavity was discovered in the reactor or plant.
- Now, I am not -- do you have any knowledEe that the Governor was informed of the buildup of this particular problem when he had that press conference at noon on Friday, when it was j
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indicated, the advisory for evacuation?
A I have no knowledge whether the Governor knew it or not.
I heard it for the first time -- I believe, Mr. Denton, that Friday evening before the press conference.
REPRESENTATIVE ITKIN:
I have no further questions of Colonel Henderson at this time.
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Representative DeWeese.
BY REPRESENTATIVE DeWEESE:
Q One technical question refers to the siren.
What exactly is the mission of the siren and how many sirens do we have and could you give us a little more amplification on uhat they are going to do if we ever have another problem
(~)N w.
like this or if the Russians attack or anything else.
A They have been rehooked up, the sirens here.
Q A lot of people in this building, when that siren went off, became very apprehensive, to say the least.
Accordir g to the Civil Defense, what will be the position or what will be the case if we do have an emergency in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh or Eric in Elk County?
Will sirens be generalised?
The general public doesn't have any knowledge of what it means when these sirens are activated.
A I know the public does not.
All those, once a month this announcement is made ov9r the public television and over the radio as a public service telling people that, here is the tw.)
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alert siren.
In the case of an emergency, in the case of an enemy attack, this is the tone that you would be hearing.
This steady tone over a three to five minute period.
You would then turn to your local radio station or your local TV station or to this station for instructions.
Even with that kind of exposure, I agree with you, that the public is not more familiar with it.
Q One last thing, Representative Scheaffer indicated his disappointment that there was a possibility of political 4
plans in the counties affecting the Civil Defense work or that this possibility could occur and in a rare case, it may occur, as you indicated.
Would you please discuss briefly your i
relctionships with the new Thornburgh/Scranton administration prior to THI, during TMI and uhat you expect in the future as far as your relationship personally and professionally, as a representative of the agency with tne new administration compared with the last cdministration.
A Well, I hate to compare it with the last one, because I think that most of the members know that I was rola-tively close to Lieutenant Governor Kline.
Our children a re married.
That's no secret.
I am a professional and I'm going to do my job for whoever my boss 13.
Now, I have a good working relationship with Lieutenant Governor Scrantan.
Governor Thornburgh. calls me Ken.
Now, whether that has rny meaning, I am not drawing any conclusions from it.
I do not w/
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appear --
Q He calls me Bill, too.
A Then to explain that relationship, it's pretty difficult for me.
I am the adviso:, by law, to the Lieutenant Governor as Chairman of the Council and as long as I can effectively discharge my duties, I plan to stay here and discharge them and give it everything I have got.
I have no p roblems.
Q In working with you over the past three years, I think you are a professional and I would like to add that for the record.
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
One final question from Bob Hollis,
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MR. HOLLIS:
I have two.
L BY MR. HOLLIS:
Q There has been many comments made about the NRC and their operation center and the bit of they're in the licensing, but should they be in ths emergency management aspect, particularly for the coordination and everything on emergency evacuation plans; we are talking about for the off-site plant.
In your professional opinion, should the role of the defolop-ment and the supervision and the exercise of off-site evacuatior, plans run in the vicinity of a nuclear site be the responsibil-ity of the new PEMA agency, rather then NRC7 A
I am pretty sure it will be, Bob.
The responsibility gg is under the Federal Preparedness Administration to discharge (m)
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their responsibilities by assigning it to the NRC sone years ago.
Now, under the new PEMA organization with the Federal Preparedness Agency, itself, becomes part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
There has been considerable talk right now that they will withdraw that charge to the NRC and re-assume that obligation.
I favor this, yes.
Q My last question is, do you -- this was a definite i
disaster, but again in your professional opinion, could state government and your agency in general have reacted as quickly and had the manpower and the resources available to supervise the emergency operation, if this had happened, let's say at Beaver Valley, Limerick or Susquehanna if they went on line?
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A Until we can get this problem of an integrated Commonwealth communication system, radio communication system, we are going to continue to have problems.
We found it i
necessary in this instance to borrow the radios and the operators from the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency to assign six of them -- seven of them, one in each of the counties and our headquarters so that we would have instantaneous radio communications.
It took about14 to 16 hours1.851852e-4 days <br />0.00444 hours <br />2.645503e-5 weeks <br />6.088e-6 months <br /> to get that radio communication in.
We found it also necessary to have a dedicated wire line directly to each of these counties.
It took us approximately four hours Friday morning to get that wire line in.
In this business that I am in, we can't afford that luxury of time.
I think we have got to be able to reach
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81 for the microphone and talk to whoever in the hell we have to talk to to do our business without calling up Ma Bell and say -- compliment the Bell Telephone Company.
They gave us top priority and real assistance in getting these lines in, but we need the instantaneous kind of communications if we are going to do the job that I think the Commonwealth wants us to do.
M BY CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Q Do you need legislation to do this or just need money?
A Well, we need two things.
We need comebody to plan
(~ x, it and the money to put it into effect.
QJ Q
But you have legal authorization to do it now?
A The law says that we will have it.
We will have an integrated emergency communications capability, but right now we have not been able to break loose from the tele-commun-ications and the engineering effort to design the system, nor have we been able to break through from the previous adminis-tration the monies to initiate the communications system that we need.
BY REPRESENTATIVE BENNETT:
Q Colonel, you said that you need someone to plan this, in response to the Chairman's question?
A Yes, sir.
82 A
Q Well, does not PEMA now have a planning section?
A We have a two-man planning office, yes, but we are not radio communications.
We are not the technician as far as this kind of thing.
What I'm talking about is that I don't think that we should set up an independent separate emergency communications means.
I think that the Commonwealth should integrate its total communications capability into a singic system that we can hang our dishpans on the same tower that the state police or the DER or the Fish Commission or the Gane Commission or somebody else is and get the same kind of results so that all of us are paying less,than us trying to spend millions of dollars to give ourselves an individual
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communications system.
It merely.needs an engineer to design the system and give the directions to it.
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Will you Elve us directions on how to get into the building and we will adjourn over there in ten minutes.
I think we can probably excuse the public stenocrapher for the rest of the afternoon.
(The hecring closed at 3:25 P.M.)
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I hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence taken by me before the House Select Committee - Three Mile Island are fully and accurately indicated in my notes and that this is a true and correct transcript of sama.
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Joyce Rae Schwarz, Reporter o
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