ML19322A458
| ML19322A458 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/07/1979 |
| From: | Henderson O PENNSYLVANIA, COMMONWEALTH OF |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 7910310281 | |
| Download: ML19322A458 (83) | |
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COMMONWEAt.7H OF PCNNSYLVANIA e
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- 3 05 EMO 3,7 7, 1979 suanc74 AGENDA' - Select Committee-TMI To:
Honorable Charles Mehus Chief Clerk FQOM:
lionorable James L.
Wright, Jr.
Yh Chairman, Select Committee - TMI W
The following are scheduled to a ear and testify before the Select Committee - TML on May 10th and May lith in the Majority C.tucus Room, f
M URSDAY, MAY 10th l
Covernor Dick Thornburgh 10:00 A.M.
Lt. Governor William Scranton, III 11:00 A.M.
Monel Oran Henderson Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency 2:00 P.M.
FRIDAY, MAY lith Dr. Robert Wilburn 10:00 A.M.
Secretary of Budget & Administration 5 kW / O C A fr 1~U L 8Q*
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' COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
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HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE - THREE MILE ISLAND Verbatim record of hearing held in the Majority Caucus Room, Main Capitol Building, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on
- Thursday, May 10, 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 MEMBERS HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE - THREE MILE ISLAND k
Hon. James.D. Barber Hon. Ivan Itkin Hon. Reid L. Bennett 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 Reported by:
Joyce Rae Schwarz L
D - A M. M o6n.
Roset..J P.J.. tonal R.r-i.e 155 S. Landi, $tre.t f-I v m m.letown, Penn dania U036
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ALSO PRESENT:
Marshall Rock Robert Hollis
.I..N.D.E.X Colonel Henderson 4
Robert Hollis
............... 11 Rep. Senmitt.
16 Rep. O'Brien.....
20 Marshall Rock
............... 27 Chairnan Wright 28 Rep. Geesey Rep, Mo'ehlmann.....
31 35 Rer. Scheafter.
s 38 Rup. Reed 41 Rep. Cole 49 Rep. Choen.
................ 52 Rep. Miller 56 Rep. Stuban 59
";ep Hoeffel................
62 Rep. Cowell 64
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Rep. Itkin.
................ 70 Rep. DeWeesc...
.............. 77' Robert Hollis
............... 79 Rep. Bennett.
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CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
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 the area 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?
7 (No response.)
Our witness this afternoon -- I don't like the word witness -- co-author or co-discussee of cur problems regarding TMI and particularly Pennsylvania's responsibility in regards to reacting to planning for and carrying out procedures when we have an emergency such as the nuclear emergency.
We have with us Colonel Henderson who is the Director of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.
We would appreciate whatever statement you wish to make and then, of course, the Committee would like to raise some questions.
l At 2:45 I am going to break this ty) sharp and then we are going to adjourn across the street to our Underground Command Center and we will continue the discussion of how you 1
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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 morning of the 28th of March, f
if I may.~-
Under our operational scheme, we work from 8:00 until 4:00 and then have a Watch Officer on duty during these non-duty hours.
Now, the Watch Officer remains 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 Common-wealth of Pennsylvania, the. Peach Bottom, Beaver County and Three Mile Island, we have a standard code system.
Ccde 1 l
means an incident occurring on the site that has no off-site k
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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 frcm the site.
Well, this 7: 02 A.M. call was a Ccde 2, which meant i 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 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 5merEency Operation Centers to inform them of the condition.
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He then notifies the people in the PEMA staff, 8
starting with my Operations Officer, my Deputy and myself and
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others, depending on the instructions that he receives.
Then he turns to the federal government to the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency, who then assumes responsibility 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 f
occurrende.
l 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 Coce 3
At the same time, I attempted to call the Lieutenant Governor at his quarters at Fort Indiantown Gap and he had f
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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 tha 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 protective measures beyond a five mile area.
This is true of the Peach Bottom plant and it is equally true of the Beaver County plant, except that plant provides for an evacuation of 3.6 miles, based en an evaluation of that site by the NRC.
\\m 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 pericd 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 not recommend we W6 4 e NPMe4N MWe@@
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evacuate, but he merely stated that. "we on the Inland are oroparing to evacuate and we recommend that you also be prepared."
Thic information wan related by me to the Lieutenant Governor.
At aoproximately 9:15 hours I received a telechone call from the Emergency Operationn Center of NRC stating that they had received a *ecort from Three Mile Inland and that they recommended that we conduct a ten mile evacuation.
I informed Dr. Colline that we had no such clann for a ten mile evacuation, that we would nive consideration to a five mile evacuation and then determine whether we could extend thic out to the ten mile range.
1 We notified the Bureau of Radiation Protection of k
this recommendation from MRC.
A few mo$ents later I received i
a call f rom Governor Thronburgh asking me, one, what kind of reliance and how well did I know Doc Collins.
I told him that I knew Doc Collinc only by reputation, that he enjoyed a f airly good recutation within our organization.
The Governor then asked me if I wan recommending an evacuation.
I informed the Governor that in view of no other information exccot the information from Three Mile Island and the Bureau of Radiation Protection had not yet contacted me, that I had no choice at that carticular moment but to recommend an erscuation.
As you know, then the Governo" did recommend to all peoole living within the ten mile area- -
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that they stay indoors until noon and then subsequently that morning recommended -- advised pregnant women and pre-school aged children to evacuate the area.
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'de immediately saw the necessity, based on the advice frem NRC, to start refining our five mi:e plan to make it a ten r.ile area.
'le continued alerting all of our counties to the need to expand their five mile plan out to this ten mile plan.
At the same time, I requested that the Defense Civil Preparedness A ency provide to us eight additional personnel E
to go to each of the four effected counties to assist them in developing and refining their plans.
These people arrived Friday af.ternoon and Friday evening.
At the same time, I
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assi5ned -- and let me go off from here,a minute before I jump into that one.
Iater that evening in a meeting in the Governor's l
Office, when Mr. Denton arrived on the scqne 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 i
that we would provide one of our staff members down to each now six effected counties, Perry and Lebanon now falling in k
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line an a "esult of the 20 mile evacuation scheme.
These oecole from my staff started *coorting immediately and some of them came from Indiana. which recuired until the following morning until they could be on the site.
An a consecuence, at the time of the incident and throur.hout the incident, we were orepared to conduct a five mile evacuation.' Some time 1ste Friday, we could have
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conducted and managed a ten mile evacuation.
By Saturday nicht, we could have conducted a 20 mile evacuation and have managed that evacuation.
The only incue 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 cant two or three years that I have been the Director of the Pennnylvania Emer.gency Management Agency and the Statn Council of Civil Defenne oreviously, there is no autho-itative basis that a well-informed oublic with the croper lesdorrhio and guidance will renult in any onnic.
Now, there vill be f untrations. "There will be' some neocle who will not follow the directionn and guidance, but an far as mass hynteria or manc nanic, thic does not seem to be a proven type of a condition.
Throughout the next several days, we continued to refine and reduce most of our planning to writing.
With that, r
sir. I would like to open it to cuestions.
l 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 the 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 ccnstantly.
We actually have been delaying any major update of the plan because of the re-organization of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which the President signed into law effective one April of this year.
At the present time we still do not have the guidance from this federal agency.
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Q It was pointed out by the Governor and Lieutenant Governor that there was a continuous monitoring of the Emergency Management A ency during the recent disaster.
Can E
you tell the Members of the Committee who was doin6 this
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continuous monitoring and what 'was really the basis of what they were locking into?
It seemed like they were a super agency put upon.
Who was a member of this committee and what was their function?
A At the request of the Governor, the President sent in addition to Mr. Denton, he sent Mr. Adamcheck and Mr.
Mc Connell.
Mb. Adamcheck is the Regional Direc tor of the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration in Philadelphia'_
and Mr. John McConnell is the Opera tiens Officer of the Defense
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Civil Prepa edness 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 from the Executive Branch monitoring it also?
A From the Governor's Office?
Q From the Governo*'n Office.
A Not at the county level that I am aware of.
Q Well. particularly what was Secretary Wilburn's role?
There seemed to be an awful lot of staff meetings conducted in Secretary Wilburn's office.- Fuat 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 1n.
During Saturday and Sunday wh'ich would have
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been the 29th and 30th. I guess of the conth -- 30th and 31st of the month.
These were meetings that were also attended by Bob Adamcheck and John McConnell.
The meetings primarily cente ed around the kind of assistance and support that the federal government would be orepared to orovide.
Now, in addition t5 this. I met eve y morning at 11:00. either I or a membe of my.7 aff. with Bob Adamcheck and some 15 federal t
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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 l
c=ergency.
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
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fire departments and everybody working.
The ; tate 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 a.ffect the public relations men'
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from the 1ccal government that the county governments in many cases Dauphin County, Cumberland County and I guess York County did, 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.
Dy cur law, Act 323, for the first time this law, centrary to our old State Ccuncil
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and Civil Defense Act, authorizes and permits political sub-divisions to declare their own disasters.
Q Eut 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 respo'nding 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 evacuaticns.
They had never been told that there may be a potential of evacuation.
A I think that we have learned and relearned a lesson k.
and probably we will always relearn this. lesson that this problem of public information is a very sericus problem and cne that is basic to we, Civil Defense, Emergency ManaEement.
It's basic to our survival that a well-informed public and a 1
well-informed political leadership in the counties and in the i
communities is an absolute necessity.
I am somewhat frustrated as to how to answer you here, Bob, because with the kind of 1
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 an emergency.
I uouldn't have known how, really, to have
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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 infermation, the information of what was scing on at Three Mile Island and so forth would have been nice to know, but it waa rot 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
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the counties.
Do you feel that the potential existed to effect an evacuation similar at Peach 3ottom 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 -- seeing Denton and people in Washington uhen 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 3eaver Valley site and the Limerick site when we get into high density population areas?
A I think that the NRC, perhaps not formally but informally, has agreed that it misspoke itself when it ever s
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called for a 20 mile evacuation.
The GOA came out cn the 30th of March which arrived in cur office about one April cn 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 KRC is retracting back to within that ten miles.
Our current plans for Beaver and for Peach Bottom'will be for a five and ten mile evacuation and a 50 mile down range agricultural protection type Euide.
I met earlier this week with the County Commissioners of 3eaver and with the Civil Defense organiaation at Beaver and althcugh they presently have a 3.6 mile evacuation and they are.corfortable that they could execute this evacuation, k
within a 30 day period I think they will have a well written plan for both the five and ten mile evacuction.
Peach Bottom at the present time, the York County l
Civil Defense Director, I am not fully confident uith the plan that he has for Peach Bottom, but it is managable and'I think
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it could be e:tecuted.
CHAIRMAN '.GIGHT:
I missed Representative Schlitt.
You may as well go.
BY REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT:
Q The gentleman before me just asked a questien 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 i
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that I didn't understand.
I think I understood you to say in your testimony that your emergency plans are act up for a five mile radiun.
Is that cor'ect?
r A
Prive uo this incident, yes.
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 heu s Friday morning from Doc Collins, who is the head of their oce-ationn. the NRC One ations Center in Betherda, Maryland.
Q The euention then that I would like to ask, is there any ntatistics to tell ur for using the local clant as the co c. for example, as to how many peccle this involves in each of the ra'diuses, the five. ten and 20 mile radiuses, how many L
neople it involves and what the cost might be?
A I have nothing to show you what the costs might be.
I do have ffgures on the five, ten and 90 mile radiuses over in ny office.
When we go over this afternoon I will be happy to nhow that to yo1, sir.
Q Just one final cuestion.
This is not directly related to what I have,just asked you, but in your mind and nerhaos you testified 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 othe* wo-dn. I was an air raid warden during the World War II and we had ou* training sessionc where we showed oeoole how and when to move, which --
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[s and eliminated the panic.
We made some actual test runs, although we wouldn't in this case evacuate a 20 mile radius cr even a five mile radius; but if ycu could, even within a mila radius or theoretically with a computer, wculd there be some way that pecple could be trained so that tney don't follow a Jim Joites into a watery grave so to speak?
It is ccnceivable that if you get a mass of humanity thinking along the same linas, anything 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 psycholoEY.
I think that's the trouble.
We want them to be rational.
The questien is, is there anything we can do to train people ke to prepare fcr that eventuality?
A
'la s, sir, public education.
Years ago, the Common-wealth had in the public school system for ninth, tenth and elever.th trades, 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 othar corricular that the schec1s wished to ;ct in there other than the Your Chance to Live series pushed it by the wayside.
About six months ago, I started meeting with all cf the schecl districts and I have i
been very encouraged by their reaction and their response for the re-intrcduction of this course into the school system.
At the same time, approximately three years ago we
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came cut with a book 1st en what you should know about radiation.
We drafted this with the intent of disseminating it to all of
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the people living around five miles to nuclear power plants.
We were accused by both state officials and certainly by the industry of picking upon nuclear power as unsafe and so forth.
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, to advance us $10,000 so that we I
can print' through the PennDot Printing Plant an adequate number of copies to make such a distribution.
We have been in touch with the PUC, although they do not have the authority to l
icgislate 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 prograu, not one that we turn on immediately prior to a disaster or immedi'ately 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.
0 And if conceivable, such a plan should be drawn up-
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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 has permeated the though 3 and minds of everybody in Pennsylvania as well as other states, but we are concerned with Pennsylvania.
I think while it's fresh in pe'oples minds'if we could devise a method of t' raining for' that age group perhaps that you mentioned without causing panic, I would like to have that proposal if someone has it.
I would like to have it and I would be very glad to help on such a program.
A Thank you very much, sir.
REPRESENTATIVE SCH'4ITT:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
k CHAIRMAN 'dRIGHT:
Representattve O'Brien.
BY REPRESENTATIVE 0'BRIEN:
Q Colonel, earlier in your testimony you made a statement sayin6 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 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
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you working and they were suppcsed to be working with knowledge-
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able people.
Who were those knowledgeabic people in the f
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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, ccnsequently I was with the Lieutenant Governor and was advisinlg WhatIwasl Lieutenant Governor on Emergency ManaEement areas.
j speaking about that I was glad that 'he Governor tcok over was l
the public information 'ob, which was disseminating the j
information to the public which certainly saved me many hcurs of standing before the TV cameras and explaining what we were k,
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.
Now, the people that I was depending upon in part te give me the 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?.
Wel1[theyarecertainlybetterpreparedthanIam.~
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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 : tate that you were -- your "ob is to advise the Lieutenant Governcr.
Yet, the Lieutenant Governor purposely Icf t ycu cut of a meeting and dc you know what happened at that meeting or why the public could not be told what happened at that meeting that waa so important that you could not attend l
it?
A I am not certain what meeting you are talking about.
Q The meetin3 that 3111 DeWeese and you were kept out km of.
A No, sir, I was not kept cut of a meeting.
I was called by Martin Ellis of the Lieutenant Governor's Office, advising me that there. Nere two mer.bers of the NRC staff meeting with the' ' Lieutenant G' verncr.
~At that time the o
Lieutenant Governor wanted me there.
I brought my Deputy, Craig 'elilliamscn, and the two of us went to the meeting and Nent right into the meeting in the Lieutenant Governor's Office and Mr. DeWeese followed me in.
I only understood later, I believe, that Mr. DeWeese had not been permitted --
Q
~Khat was so important that those two people from NEO told the Governor?
Will you let this Ccmmittee know?
Were ycu in or uere you 20 minutes late for the meeting?
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A 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 Ccamittee knew if ycu were prcperly infcrced what was so important that went on?
A I don't know that there was anything so particularly important about that meeting.
We went frcm that meeting to a press ccnference and I was on the --
0 Why ias it not open to the press?
Why was it so
- s cecret a meeting?
Bill DeWeese was told,not to go into the teeting and the Lieutenant Governor apologized.
Now, he made it very clear.
No w, if we are going te have hearings,we want to get the f ac ts on the table.
No F.atter where it goes.
I don't care where it lies, but I dcn't think that people should
~
stand by and be penalized because somebcdy is playing some kind of games.
ble want to know -- this Committee wants to know 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 cutside for 20 minutes when the meeting was going on.
A No, sir.
No, sir --
g SEPRESE!1TATIVE DeWEESE:
Mr. 'hairman, if I may --
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CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Your time will come, Mr. DeWeese.
REFEESENTATIVE De'.lEESE :
I just wanted to clarify, Mr. Chairman.
I just think this 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 important 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 l
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
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Offic e.
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, As far au I perhaps 30 seconds that I may have been outside.
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 l
t supportive of the TMI people doing the job; that they were l
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 I
eT.ergency.
You spent the whole night trying to get him.
In the morning you got a hold of him and he wanted to arrange a
-eeting.
Then in the morning, you state to the Lieutenant Governor that you think he forgot about the meeting.
'dith something so important as that and when you arrange an important meeting, how could the Lieutenant Governor or anybody 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 hovernor~'s Office and would call me on this hotline -
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and would ask me for advice and information which I would render to him.
On on2 evening, and I do not recall which 2vening it was, after I had given him this advice, he said,
" fine, stand by."
Now, to me, an cid military man, stand by means standing near that telephona.
It was not unusual for m? to work all night.
I worked all night on several nights during this exarcise.
Now, since the Lieutenant Governor did tall me to stand by, on a couple of occasions latar that I
avening -- I forget, this was around 8: 00, I think in the i
evening --
i Q
March 30 at 9: 00 in the evening.
i A
Nine in the evening?
At arcund midniE t er so, I h
k.
recall calling back over to that office.to determine whether the Lieutenant OcVerncr still wanted me to stand by.
I believe that I determined that the Lieutenant Governor had gone home, I
but I was nct just standing by waiting for that telephone.
I was doing the government's business.
I was doing the things that needed to be donc and it was ny own choice.
The next morning, I did call the Lieutenant Governcr to see if we had cloced the loop on the conversation that we had had earlier.
I think my comment came in there due to his reac tion, that was, wait a minute, what conversation was that?
I believe I put down a rather innceucus remark that apparently the Lieutenant Gcvernor had forgotten.
Q I have other questions but I uill let other members k
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ask.
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Mr. Rock has some questions.
BY XR. 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.I l
DER, the Bureau of Radiation Protection, was our basic contactd I
for NRC.
Now, we had many contacts with the Bureau of Radiation Protectio'n prior to this.
k Q
But not on evacuaticn?
A
' dell, evacuation and protective measures were discussed, but I am not certain t!ut 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 OMI 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 shculd.'oce Legislative bcdy make sure that there is strict k
5 28
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cocpliance to it?
A I missed the first point.
You said if NRC now --
Q If they chould make a naticnal plan, cheuld it be vcluntary cr --
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 states can base their plans.
MR. ROOK:
That's all I have.
EY CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Q I understand there is direct telephone radio communications between TMI and your command center?
A Yes, sir.
Q Dces the same type cf 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 c.f 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 jut such a line in.
I think the one at Peach Bottom is a little more expensive, about $400 a mo nth.
We were trying to encouraEe those two industries to give us that kind of a line.
Q Ycu have to encourage, rather than demand?
-A Ye s. - New, hcwever, for the Beaver Valley plan, they have both a direct telephone line and a direct radio circuit _
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29 into the Beaver Ccunty Emergency Operaticn Center.
Q That 's not a gcod 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 1ccated in Beaver County.
They are the first that need to know about any incident that might occur there.
Q I think whoever is keeping notes for me ought to put down that we seriously want to evan legislate directicns between Peach Bottom and 3eaver Valley in like situations uith the Colonel's command center.
Earlier in your discussion, you noted times that certain things happened, ycu know, times
(.
when people communicated with you and ycu communicated with them.
I assume thic was from a los that you kept in your command center?
1 i
A Yes, sir.
j Q
I also understand that a log has been kept at TMI by Metropolitan Edison in regard to their reac tion to emer5ency plan.
4 I do not know about Three Mile 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 j
the Icg. -I guess you have answered my question, because I was coing to ask you if you compared these logs for accuracy.
,l A
No, I haven't.
I will admit that the log entries in
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=y own Icg which I have provided you of a copy cf the first three days, cculd 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 nemory.
I verified as closely as I could those times and. indicated in a log that they had in there.
Normally, I don't lese my log, but something happened to --
Q You prompted me to ask another question.
Isn't there a formal log sitting on the desk in the command center?
A Ye5 but most of -- what we do is this.
Every desk within the Emergency Management Agency has message forms and every tide a telephone message comes in, this message is reduced to writing.
It is then given to the Operations Officer 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 inte this Journal, extracting only significant items from that -- from the actual message.
However, when I am away from my effice, when I am with the Lieutenant Governor or Governor or elsewhere, I keep my log elsewhere on a plain sheet of paper.
Q Are your telephone conversations recorded in your j
offico?
A They are not.
We have a request in to the Legislature.
Apparently, there was an error or an omission,'~you might say,
" ! O M emp 4 *S MM E mN 6 4 L@g M$
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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 chanced to give us that authcrity.
So, Senator Bell and Representative DeWeese are introducing ' legislation now to have that omission corrected.
We do have the capability.
CHAIRMAN URIGHT:
Representative Geesey.
BY REPRESENTATIVE 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?
Ycu 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 ccncerned 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 that I should bring something out here.
You know, the Ccunty Civil Defense Director works for the County Commissioners.
He is hired by them.
He is paid by them.
Gur arrangement and our relationship is on
(,
a cooperative basis.
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Q Have you compelled any changes in any county plans?
A Ue ha"e encouraged changes in county plans.
O But you do have the authcrity to compel changes?
A Yes, sir.
Q And ycu have not compelled changes?
A Well, we haven't had to compel.
We have not had to ccmpel.
- !here ue have had some conf 1". cts in some of the early planning bet feen particularly Dauphin County and Cumberland I
Ccunty, we were abla to get the tuo together and work cut the difficulties and, therefore, encouraged the changes rather than ccming out with a directive and saying, "you will change this."
1(
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Ken, that's one of my ccncerns because when you are invc1ved in a multi-ccunty cperaticn, it is possible that one county will evacuate into the path cf another county's evacuation, which could present a lot of problems.
That's,why 1 tas interested in whether or not ycu have made changes or have Ocmpelled chances or would like the veto authority.
I de, however, have problems with cther evncuation plans, as you undcubtedly know because you have seen copies of our corres-pondence.
Ue have a situaticn in acce counties where the evacuation plan calls fcr evacuating on two-lane cecondary highways that simply cannot handle the traffic.
Have you cencidered compelling those counties to change those plans, especially when there are four-lane major interstate h1 hways E
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available for use?
A At the time of this incident, we were interested in getting ucrkable, manageablaplans from each one of the counties.
Some cf the ccunties made the determination that they wanted to evacuate cnd remain within the county.
That is, they did not want to go cutside the county.
+
Now, I dcn't think we shculd fault the ideal of such a plan.
'tihan this thing finally winds dcun, we will go back and review all of these plans te make certain that we have taken maximum a3 vantage cf all the goed reads.
At the time we started plcnning for a ten and 20 mile evacuation, we very i
quickly came up with a ceneral scheme for each county and sent l I
(
the Depart. ment cf Transportation Traffic Ocntrol people and the!
F2nnsylvania State Pclice copies cf our scheme se that there wculdn't be crisscrossing between counties to each of the ccuntics to give th2m cur proposed course cf action here; and to urce the counties to make their plans based on what we gave them.
In most cases, the ccunties followed the guidance that we gave them.
There were some counties that felt that they had a better scluticn.
In the final review, asfhr as locking dcwn cn that plan and cetting the assurances frc= our Pennsylvania State Police and our Traffic Control experts in PennDet, they said it would work if they could get that many cars on the line.
'de accepted the plan at that time, but I t
%1 $
%MtW g-44 9
9 9
34 r
d agree with you that now we need further refinement and we continue to need rafinement.
Q All right, I uculd like tc take issue with one ccament you made and that uas specifically with your disagree-cent cf the Governcr's position ccncerning public panic.
You indicated that if the public were informed, etc., that you didn't think panic uculd necessarily sit in.
This was a different situation, because radiation is not something that is susceptible tc the uences and ncbcdy really knows where it is.
That generates panic in and cf itself by its very nature.
We had situations, at least in Ycrk Ccunty, where areas that were 20 miles auay f: ca TMI closed achools fcr two days.
We have had 'situatiens where the runs on the banks occurred thrcuchaut the county.
So, panic rices set in.
It set in when th2 radiaticn cccurred.
Sc, for that reascn, I think we have tc take a very lon; hard Icok at the evacuation plans, because if a-five mile evacuation is ordered, let me assure you tha't t." 2 culk cf that county will evacuate and they are going to evacuate right intc the path of those people within the five cile arc; that arc brying $o get cut of that area and it does present a very serious problem.
My final questien, is it the policy of your agency to not have the public informed of an evacuati n plan pricr to the actual call for an evacuation?
A Io, this is not our policy.
t 0
We have had situaticns aEain where we were ordered
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not to advise the public of the plan.
- de were told that the public should only know if the evacuation were actually ordered,,
which then uould again centribute to the overall panic and confusion that would have existed.
I think we have scme hard qu?stions that have to be asked.
I think the answers have to be determined and the tank ahead for your agency is not going to be an easy one.
I uculd like tc 23310t you in any way that l
I aculd and specifically, I would appreciato any changes in leciclation that you care to reccamand becauce changes have to bc made.
Thank you very much, Ken.
A Thank you.
, CHAIR *11 N **!RIGHT:
Representative F*cehlmann.
(
BY REPRESENTATIVE MOEliLMANN:
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 evacuation of a five mile radius l
could have been made on March 28th when this incident occurred j
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 l
following day or two days later, the 30th, this could have been done in a ten mile radius?
- A By Friday night,yes, sir.
(_
Q And you feel that Saturday night you could have eye < h h-
-e.g-F -
- men aw u
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- Fp s
,y-g a
36
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evacuated 20 miles and you could do that new with reasonable speed, safety and with thercuchness?
A Yes, sir.
C.
That's acazing.
It really dces surprise me.
I am glad that you feel ycu are prepared.
A Nct back on the same time hours that I was giving at the time,
f.t the time en Saturday and Eunday when all of the schecls were cloced and the schcci buses were immediately standing by and c11 cf the Civil refense fcrees were standing at the decr, we save an estimate of three hours for the five miles, seven hours for the ten miles and --
C Thr3e hours tc do what?
k, A
Fcr the evacuation of the five mile --
C Tc begin?
A E0, to ecmpleta it.
From the time that first car --
new, this is based en automobile traffic only.
'le took an ectimate based on the best advice frem the Fennsylvania Ee?artment of Transportation cf the number cf autcmobiles that were in each cf the centers and the amount of time it uould have taken from the time the first automobile cr{3 sed I
the five mile outer ring until the last automobile en the l
number of rcutes that we had given would have been approximately three hcurs.
This did net take into consideraticn the special handling of patients in hcspitals, nursing homes and so fcrth...
We would have needed some additicnal lead time.
Mcwever, in k
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37
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the five mile area we had only one nursing home.
However, when we got cut to the tan miles and 20 miles, the prcblems with special handling becate quite heavier.
Q Eid you feel that ycu had the Ocamunications ccpabilities to gat everybcdy in that area =cving within that t ine ? ' '
A Yec, cir.
Q The cther question I hcVe, scing back to what i
Eepresentative Geacey caid, there vare cchools cutside of the 20 cile rtdius 01cced for tuc dayc in my county, Lebanon Ccunty, "onday and Tuesday, whatever those days were fcllowing this incident.. Did ycur effice give any advice whatever to those k.
cutlying counties :ith regard to cicsing.the cchcols?
Did ycu advice then tc cr not tc c1cco the c:hecis or were they strictly cn their c n?
'ie did nct give them advice en the closing cf the cchocic.
The Ocpcrtment cf Education, as I recall, was advising P,ha Ocvarnor that the schec13 chculd to cloced.
We were a party tc thic rc:cmcandaticn.
Ecuever, we were waiting for the Ocvorner te nkc that anncuncement and we thcusht the Coverner was going to make that announcement Sunday evening.
I do not believe he did co.
I wer13 have tc check.
0
'What'was the reascning?
'! hat were the reascns that -
A The reatens that us wanted the schools c1csed was E
for the utilicaticn cf the cchec1 bucec and for the utilisation i
t s
t
38
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and to have the children at home so that when the evacuation started, we didn't have to do ens of GNo things; either take the s:hcol children from the school to a mass scare facility er return them to their hcces and then mcVe with the evacuatior,.
'de felt under th? present conditicns and at this time our guidance from Mr. Denton uns that Ne would have twoto eight hcurs advance notification for any possible precautionary ev2cuation that mi ht be necessary.
O.
By precautionary evacuation, you mean an evacuaticn t' tat was not a reaction to an unplanned event?
A That 's correc t.
So, under these guidelines of two to eight hours, ue felt it inportant that we have all of the q
resources that we needed standing by to.dc the jcb that we felt might have to be dcne.
Q So, at that time it was ycur belief that those 1
c:hcols should have been closed.
Is that correct?
A My percenal beliaf; yes.
' ~
REPRESENT?.TIVE MC2HL'iWI:
I hrsa no other questions.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIEMAN YRICTf:
Represente.tive Scheaffer.
BY REPRESENTATIVE SCHEAFFER:
Q Colonel Henderson, I want to get~back to Representa-tive Geesey on plans.
Do all counties in the Commenwealth have a plan and do all counties in the Commonwealth have a
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coordinutcr?
A All countics have a eccrdinator.
Approximately one-third of the e acordinatcrs, say 2C of these coordinatcrs are voluntocrc.
Anothar 3rcup of them are part-time and maybe a
- hird of ; hem are full-tim? cccrdinatcrs.
Fifty-two of our counties at the present time have an emergency' plan that meets cur preliminary requiraman s.
' e have 15 countiec that their plans do ne t.nea t minimum requirements.
Ib.7, this 10 not for ava;uation.
This is a Eeneral ovarall p11n fcr any kind of cn emergency.
You see, one of the thinga and I don't think you chculd be nislead by perhaps acme of th2 pland that :1r. Hollic has that we cent to him.
1 The evacuatica plans tia into other standard operating precedures and plans that the counties have, quito frequently their evuuatian planc er the Three Mila Icland plan is a taka-cff frcm.: hat alrsady e::icts ac thair standcrd operatin5 prccedurac.
~^ ~
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' ~ ~ ~ '
TheJe :ccrdinators in these counties that are
~
vel.nteers, ar? th2y paid in any tay of any kind?
a Generally nct.
Th;y may 57 reimbursed for certain travel e::penece any':here frca 4200 a year to a $1,000 a year.
37 the acuntj?
A 3y the county, jes, air.
~
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7:u len't hava 2ny financial input into the payment
^
cf any of th-aa accrdinct;r in an7 cf the countica?
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.1 Uc do not.
However, we are part of the -- many of these ccunties are participants in the federal PMA program, Personnel I.iministration Progran, that is monitcred under the refense Civil Preparedn2ss Agency and 2ain eligibility for particip;tien up to 50 percent.
The same as my agency is reimbursed 50 percent cf all of these expenses by the Defense Civil ?repareincas 3 ency.
Cur ccenties *:he meet the q nlifications and one of the biccest qualificaticns is that all ccunty empic:co cf Zmarcency :tnagement percennel would be under the merit systam.
Frankly, many cf the counties still resist that and, con cquently, they have not getten into the prczram.
(
'The federal reverncent put: c.pproximately $772,000 a year into our ccuntica for the paynent and administrative cochs asscciated rith the Civil Dafonce cr:anization.
They l
put apprcximately 138,C00 total into the 6' ccunties for these th't are into the precrem, 52 cf them.
Fcr cther hardware -
cat 1, they pet appro:.:inately anywhere frca a h'.lf a million to a million and a hair dellars a year into the Civil Defense pre?ran in the wa3 f equipment loans such as vehicles.
Last year, for enstple, wo rot cver a 150 vehicles fer our ccunties and municipalitian throuchcut the Civil Deranse program.
0 Are they in the counties now?
A Ye s, sir, fcur nheel drive v?hicles used by fire-departments ?nd used by the Civil Defense crianication, sir.
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One scre questicn.
That ccordinator, Civil Defense Ccordin0 tor is
?poltted by the County Cctmissioners in the counti?s?
.T T.ecommen13d.
l 32 commanded tc uhc?
A Recommended to me, concurred in to me and appointed by th? Gcverner.
1 All right, non, whan th? political climate chanEes in thoce counties, do the Ccunty Jccrdinators ch^nge?
A 32ther infrequently, Last : ear we had a 28 percent turnover in Civil Defense Directerc, 23 percent of the 67 Only t'.co of those uere for political reaccns.
A couple of them were fcr health re7sens, but th: mcfority cf them were disenchanted uith their reimburcement.
On cn average, I suspect that cur Ccunty Civil Defance Direc tors make an average!
cf $6,000 a year.
~
O Full time?
?
Full time; this in not very encerrnginr; fcr a young man who is starting a family.
- 30. the minute he comes in, he 's l
Icckinc for another job.
REPRESE!Trt.TIVE SCPEAFFER:
Thank ycu.
I dcn' t have anything else.
-CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Representative Reed.
H' PRESENTATIVE REED:
Q Colonel, you indicated that Dr. Collins from the NRC q,
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Emergency Operations Center called you at come point in the early days cf the crisis indicating that ha raccmmended a ten mile evacuat'on.
- " hat da, Of the week was tha t?
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'1cu had '.ndicatoi that you had nc chcice but to concur.ith that r1cctmendation that cn evacuation of ten miles
':2 2 na:e: ;r;.,
'. cad cn th. data th:.t you had received frcm n,.
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Haalth had not rotten bach Sc ycu with any infernation inlica tia.; to the 0 0ntrar'/.
Th :'3 ccrr1ct.
In ene itam ':htt I do omit there,
(
I alec received before : mude the raccc-andation to the Cavern:r anc".er telephcne call back from Dr. Collins of NRC tc caha ::c a.::.re that thic wac not just his 2nd the staff's recommendation, th.t thic reec=enf aticn fcr avacration was C C. ', t.."." '. d ' "..
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was called to ' he Governor's Office, cur Tem Garusky was c
ca.::d t: the Ccrorner's Cffice.
I later was called to the Governcr's Cffice 2nd that ',;2s the first time that I learned that thic *.ncident :'c parhaps nct as caricus 02.:e had been
,.3. d u.,.,,4,..,,,,
(
o 43
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Q Colonel, on Monday April 2nd, Lieutenant Governor
. cranten ann;uncad in the fren': pac;2 of the Philadelphia lulletin and a num':et c' cther media acrcss the state that it
-..cu '.d ta':2 "cavar2'. hours" to c:nduct c. 20 mile evacuation fr:m hree..112 Island, 20 mile radius avacuaticn which is v2rioucl; ectimated to in: 1udd semethere betfaen 500 2nd B50,0co
~
330ple.
12 3 that ;n ac:urata stat 222nt on.'bnday, April 2nd?
I 2:a tot as'.:in ; yc1 tc vartify th.It h3 said it.
I know that 4
he said it Is that 2 factual state:ent, that it would have l
4' taken an h2 said "0ev3r21 hours"?
A We..ere estimatin; tan heurs, assumin; tha t we were i
in a re2dy posture.
'Iow, some of our ready posture had been re d u c 2 d.b.2d r/ T.c rn in ; de n s.:2 cf tha nch0013 went back in 33031cn.
30,
.,e rcull have had a furth2r -
ere wculd not have 52 in boun! to th2t -- I.fcull not have been ':cund, I feel, to that ton he ar 3.
H.ever, at the same tim, 7.opresentative
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pecpla ?:1 thin the ton T.113 arc 2, including the total ten mile arca h.,d evacuated.
So, as f2r as numbers were.cncerned, the voluntary evacuctionc were redu:'.n. cur problem.
Also, ycu
- i'.1 r? call durin,; this time pecpl3 were beinz -- dcctors were
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elective sur ; cry or these who had been 31ven passes to home and cc forth.
Sc, I am nct.:cy*.n that one Offacts the other
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. o lik? to Take renticn of the 'fac t that I cerve ac a volunteer u....,,..,
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v.i car rica provider in ':'u cit. cf 51rrieur; in the event that a,enar:1 evace2ti,n
- Ould Y re been crd arad.
'spproximately i
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ha'.f cf the cit / cf Harria ;ur; falls 11 thin the ten mile radius.
It'3 divided by *.lalnut Street.
Tha other half, of course,
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can t?ll yct th2-there.ran 2bsolutely aer: contact bet. teen the Oc mt.* cr city Civil Defence tith the primary ambulance
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inf:rmatica, not c~ n 2 - taation tt':h roccrd tc raadiness or
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2nbulatory people in tha city of Harrisburg and the Civil Defana? na t c:crh.
I think that, tc ce, talla me something abcut hoa prepared we may have been or not '.*een at least in u.g., s.t e..,
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C the future co that the information you receive as to how many hours it wculd ':11c3 to de fiv2
'.le s, ten niles er 20 miles
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no particular :..:c3 tc crind e:< ept that I happen to know it to b3 factual.
I think '.t has a bearin; cn Our preparedness.
I have cne additi6nal'cuesti~on.
I have ' listened
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r? 2rd to evicu2tirn and theD3r er n t 1" chould have been Icne c not.
I nata particuirly Jcur cc=mont that an 3vacuation could have been c2rriad cut tithout panicking, without hysteria for the public, if the were a well-informed p'. ilic and cro prcvidad adeT:ata lendarship.
I happen to think that.> hat you said in that connact.*cn is 100 percent accurate.
is a 2rric':urz Lccisister, I am confrented by a nunbar of citintienc.
C'aviously the questien of !hether an I
ovacuatice is necessar.
is now 10.idelic.
I th'.nk most of us 2cn:1ula in t':3 f'.nal anal;si7, that it^probably wasn't;
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. a f :ts Ocntri']utia.g to the deciclon fer tn evacuati.on -- if I 2r rcnc, p1 rce ccrrect r.e an2 aay anything that you wish.
he very first is that the t' arch 28th accident itself occurred Nithout :2rnin avi ebvicus17 indicated that uhat we had been 3
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was uns:heduled.
It chewad that obvicusly a. nuclear accident
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I pt. blic 7 -l'.::~a k 3 c ' ?.c h the C:'ze cncr er Lieutanant Governc21 t: 92!c3 2 lec ' 'cn based u?on ccmpletal-f accurate and factual n.c
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1 e'np'.o n'.c n c 0c u r: e ", it 'erotild htv.' heen ecnething that was 1
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..o know, because -Met iM hac not told us for rea enn unkncun to
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i "e aln"* crit'it i.cnnily km e ' h ' ', It " 1.weln of radiaticn
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47 (x
were being omitted, scme scheditled and sc=e unscheduled during th? becinning en ?riday 'br0h 30th and t*.u affec ta of lou level r2c'intien ar? the at'bj2ct of r?at c'ehate.
3eycnd that, the final ?cint is th2", 1? had
.c t?ctr' ovacuaticn plan beyond the fiva mila limit.
"c say the lenct, ' t
>c 21d take hcurs and hours to im71e' ant one.
I believe Marc 1d Denten, as you 4 n. d 4.c i ta..r.',
.ra a
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.a. *uo to aicht ho"r ni"7nce netice for a proc 2uticnary evacuation.
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c rou difficult" mchilicin7 the r?30 n cca, I?t alone cetting things into mction :~e-rend the five er ten. mile radius; which means that if an e'or-enc ~ evacuaticn.'ere nececciry, ycu i
'1culd have rea11~ had n. r:bbns tr *.n-te et cne.
All cf l
s thcae f u ters
'.n 9.n ' le ad un t: 'he cca.:'.usion that a 4
proca2tioner" ev'7u7 tier in the ear'.
ct: t of the March 28th r
2 0 0 t i e n t '4a r,
'.n fact.
tarrinted.
N 'c; h.ve ' ccccent en th,t?
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c back.
Obvicusly, I
i
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- '. t F. h. ~.1 1 e_'
" u.n.. '. m.. e.. ~ v. ~. ~.. ~.. '. e.. n. "'--.."., *.~, ~. ~'r nc have
..o been.
Nhat I have
'u s t 's,id to "c"
c'as ractly where we fetmd ourselves on " arch "8th
?cth and ?Oth and cbvicusly l
didn ' t have the benaf".t of ' hat "e hat'7 nceur.ulated now in six l
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48
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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, 1
t in the same positten the Governor was in, because I was talking' to the Whita House and was talking in particular to NRC.
In fact, I told my staff and I told mest of the County Civil Defense Directcra that I felt there was a 90 percent chance that we would be custing an evacuation during this particular time.
I would cc= ment en one other thing.
I think perhaps the first person in recorded history to be faced with the opportunity to prevent and prepare for a disaster was probably k,
Noah.
Noah had his informaticn from one source and he didn't have te questien the informaticn.
Ycu will recall the incident, I
in Johnctcwn.
It was not because of the informaticn we had i
during the early morning hcurs of the Johnstcwn incident, it was the lack of infcrmation that made me recommend to Governor i
Schapp that we declare a disaster.
l I couldn't get thrcugh on the telephcne.
We were Setting conflicting. reports and estimates and the state police were saying, " hey, there must not be nothing wrong.
We are getting no reports. "
We cculdn't Eet through and we knew that there was heavy rains and it was due tc the absence of information that I
we felt there was something wrong.
So, this business of
(
49
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information is one cf my biggest problems.
In any kind of l
emergency, in the disaster we had in Pittsburgh last night, the emergency in Pittsburgh last night with Duquesne Light i
Power Ccmpany at the explosion, my first report indicated hundreds of casualties.
Later, it came dcwn to five.
It's very difficult when you'are away from the scene -- even if I had been sitting at Three Mile Island, to be perfcctly 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 i
centinue to cope with and try to improve our channels of j
communication and find cut who we have to depend en and who we f have to question and so on.
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Representative Cole.
BY REPRESENTATIVE COLE:
Q Cc1cnel, in your opening remarks you talked about the 1200 nilleramps (phonetic) that the NRC nctified you about.
Was that en Wednesday cr Friday?
l i
A That was on Friday morning, sir.
Q Firday morning.
Do you know where they received i
this information from, the reading?
Where was that information obtained?
A I do not know where the plant received that information.
(
50 t
Q The NRC notified you?
A No, the plant notified us first.
The plant notified us 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 ycu notified the Governor 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 Dec Collins from NRC telling me that this was not only Doc Cc111ns' reccmmendation 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 the tan mile area and to.i them to be prepared for an evacuaticn, but not to implement it.
O All right, what further developed that day and at what time did you change ycur recommendation about the evacuaticn?
i
51
(
(
A Later that morning I was called to the Governor's Office and Mr. Gerusky from the Bureau of Radiation Protecticn was there.
He was strcngly urging against an evacuaticn, based-I upon those readings.
Now, I had no way of knowing whether this reading of -- by this time, too, the emissions had ceased.
It was apparently a cne time burst, but when we get the informatiop, we understood from the plant people that this was a centinuing emiscion.
By this time, by the time I had got into the Gcvernor 's Office, the emissions had been halted.
O But he recc= mended against the evacuation.
Did he i
l hava the information that it was ceasing?
l A
Yes, he did.
Q He did?
s A
Yes.
G And that was his reasoning for --
A I believe that was his reasoning, yes; and also i
while we were there, we were also in contact -- the Governor was in contact with lIRC.
They, too, had confirmed that the emissions had halted.
O And what time of day was this?
How long --
A Sir, this was --
Q You tell ma 8:40 in the morning you were going to put the plan ints affect and recommended it to the Lieutenant Governor?
A This was around 10:30 in the morning, as close as I
)
l
52
/(
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.
3Y RE?RESENTATIVE COHEN:
Q And it's your opinion that you could have -- and you stated several times here -- that we could have had a safe evacuacion.
Was this ccnvey2d to the Governor at all?
A Yes, sir.
Q Was it conveyed to the Lieutenant Governor?
A Yes, sir.
s Q
Governor Thornburg has repeatedly used the phrase proven hazards of the evacuation.
Did he explain to you or i
l anyone in ycur presence what the proven hazards of an evacuaticn were?
A No, but I -- you know, an evacuation is nct something i
l anybody does lightly.
I am certainly cognizant of that.
I am also cognizant that during 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 month before this occurred, we had to evacuate over 1,000 people up in Jefferson on a chemical spill.
l We had to evacuate a couple of blocks down in Gettysburg, thisisalittlef
(_
Evacuations are not that unusual to us.
- Now,
53
(
different kind of an evacuation, I agree.
Q What's the difference between this evacuation and another kind?
I A
Well, this is a deliberate evacuation, whereas these '
others were hasty evacuaticns, 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 i
when the water's co.ning up and people look cut the windows and ;
i
- say, "ch, oh, I better cet the hell cut of here."
That's a I
hasty one.
A deliberate one is one that is planned for and j
contro11e.d.
<q 0
Shouldn't at least a deliberate evacuation be safer ;
than a hast/ 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 larEe the tcp advisor of the Lieutenant Governor.
How many meetings did ycu have with the Lieutenant Governcr, approximately?
A I can't answer the number of meetings.
Telephcne calls, coveral timos every morning and several times every evening and every night with he or his staff.
Q But there weren't very many meetings in which he called you and other people together to discuss this?
A Well, I think there was a continucus liaisen.
- Now, for the first two or three days I spent quite a few hours in hw
5.1'__
C the Lieutenant Governor's office with the Lieutenant Governor and the Governor.
The Lieutenant Governor had two of his members in my staff in my office during the first three or fcur days.
Really, I had the authority te 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.
f i
Q But there was a -- how should I say it?
There was a fractionization of the information such as you would convey one thing to the Governor and you waren't all in the same rocm at the same time.
A Well, this was a decision made by the Governor that he was going to enferce 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 workable and all we had to do then was to accommodate this type of a decision, which I feel we could have done.
Q Nere you involved in any contact with insurance ccmpanies at all as to what the insurance consequences of the evacuation would be?
A No, sir.
Q Are.
2 familiar with the section of the law of 1978 upgarding the emergency management services which says:
if the Governor has declared this to be a disaster, then,
(
55
~
(
those who were effected 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 wculd benefit or it be just a drop in the budget?
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 I
could have claimed the additional 25 million.
j A
The only way that that can be claimed is under the I
i individual Erants procram, which the federal budget puts up I
75 percent and the state puts up 25 percent of the money.
Now,l it's true that the 25 percent of the state's share of those
(
monies would come out of that $5 millien.
Q So, if Governor Thornburg had declared a disaster, then the 5 million would have only represented 25 percent and you wculd have automatically gotten federal money?
A No, this $5 million is for the extracrdinary expenses of state Tovernment 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 ecme into play, unless there had been actual advantages and they could show that they had this amount of uninsured -- when the t
waters Eo up and they lose all of their furniture, those items l
(
l
56
(
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 percant of that and the state psys 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.
CHAI3 MAN "RIGHT:
I think the young lady is about cut of paper.
Ne 'till go off-the-record.
( An off-the-record discussion was held. )
CHAIRMAN URIGIC:
Representative Miller.
3Y REPRESElffATIVE MILLIR:
Q Colonel Henderson, I am just a little bit concerned I
about the difference between your statement and the conclusions of the Gov'rnor regarding the safety of an evacuation.
I take it that you would not agree with the statement that the public'js percepticn of a nuclear disaster is different from the public '
perception of a flood-type disaster.
A No, I believe that a -- I agree with some comments made here. that if ycu don' t feel it, you don't see it,. you dcn't touch it.
There is a different perception on the part of the public, but a well articulated and a well-educated publ c If the leadership is there that tells theml --
are gcing to reac t.
s.
57
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99 percent of the public, if you tell them, " lock, Ne have got to evacuate this area and we want you to get in ycur automobiles and drive doun Fourth Street and come up on Front and take a l
right on 231" and if ue have got the state police and the naticnal guard and the PennDct personnel with their trucks blocking the entrances and exits so that this is the way that they will go, they will follow those instructions.
It's when there is a lack of leadership and believe this, durin5 this operation, I think the Governor did a tremendous Jcb.
I think the Gcverner demonstrated the kind of leadership that it wculd have taken to have infcrmed the public that he was going to require -- not require, requese an evacuation.
So, all I'm
(,
saying is that frem a management aspect, we could have managed the evacuation in an effective manner.
O Well, I remind ycu that ycu used the figure of 99 percent.
That means, if my calculations are corrsct, using Mr. Reed 's minimum numbers, that 60,000 people are goinE to panic and,7c the uren; nay end drive their car into the fire trucks and cc forth.
I wonder whether we wculd have effected a cafe evacuaticn in those circumstances.
My further quentien is whether or not 99 percent of the people are coing to prcceed that they should drive up Front Street and turn rtT t on Fourth and so fcrth.
I have my doubts h
about this.
A I tried thic cut last week on a prcfesser frcm the
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University of Pittsburgh 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 durin5 Ucrld War II to the ficcds down in.'11ssissippi to Flcrida and Louisiana.
He told me that there is no authoritative evidence that pecple will panic when the people are told what to do during emergency situacions.
Q Well, you are much more of an authority on that, obviously, than I am.
I wcnder since I have se many questions l l
and did at that time in my own mind about what would happen j
in that circumstance.
I just wondar about the general public having a.similar perception.
N, Juss one furthar detailed questicn.
I believe ycu indicated that you felt it would be useful for there tc be a hotlina of scme sort batween 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 cffice and the NRC and the White House?
In other words, hou involved chculd those hotline linkups be and how far should they go?
4 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 '.shite House.
So, through my office, although I have nobody to whom I can speak to in tha White House, that facility is there and it is capable of
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being exercised.
We need a better system between the EmerEency Operation Center of the IIRC in Bethesda, Maryland.
- However, I heard the Gcvernor this morning stating that Mr. Danten was l
going to propese that in subsequent operations, that they have-a SWAT team of scme sort, who immediately rushes to the scene.
So, I am not certain what part that opera' tion center in Bethesda, Maryland is gcing to play in subsequent emergencies. '
So, I am a little reluctant to say how valuable that kind cf a i
relationship is going to be.
Maybe for tha first two hours i
before that team cf professionals c:In Eet en the scene, it might be the difference.
I am just thinking off the tcp cf
{
my haad, :I would say yes, this is a necessity.
It's a secd
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l point.
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CHAIRMA:I URIGHT:
Representative Stuban.
i 3Y REPRESEllTATIVE STUBAN:
Q Cne of the questions that I would like to ask is, Colonel, you made reference to a bcck that you said you had on information all about radiation and that you tried to make I
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 sise.
I will verify this date when we get back over to my office, shortly.
Around to the members'
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of the state, then state council of Civil Defense, and to the
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Bureau of the Radiation Protection.
The Bureau of Radiation Protection then went out to its members who are called -- it's a ec= mission that they get their advice from.
No one tcok 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 shculd know about disasters and publish it in that kind of a ferm.
So, it was based on this lack of getting the Eureau of Radiation l
Protection concurrence that we did not prcceed at that particular time.
(,
Q
'elell, do you think that if that bcoklot was put out and you said you would li:ce to put it cut in schools and school kids brought it home, that there wculd have been more know-ledgeable people as to what the effects of radiation would have been and the inservention possibly of licensing some of these plants?
A
'!e ll, I didn't set the last point on licensing?
Q The licensin6 of a nuclear plant, that there would bc =cre knowledgeable people out there, that they would have a little more knowledge of the effects of what could happen?
A Yes, str.
Q Another question I would like to ask and I guess possibly we should have said to the Governer or Lieutenant k
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Governor today, there is a lot of discussion about plans and everything else.
Has Civil Defense er your office er 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?
A As part of the public hearings which are part of the licensing process?
Q Right.
j l
A My cffice in the past has attended these hearings i
and have been uitnesses during those public hearings en the disastar plans.
Q Ycu have been witnesses, but nobody represented to i
you -- you know, you just agree to a plan that the utility has adopted?
A No, this was the only one -- two years acc in April l
2nd May of '77, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had published hearings here in Harrisburg regarding the licensing of this i
parti:ular f ac ility.
At that time, my Deputy, Mr. Craie Williamson appaared on behalf of the Agency and Kevin Malcy, on behalf of Dauphin County to answer cuestions 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 Lieutanant Governor to intervene possibly with better plans that you have now and more stringent
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enforcement into the licensing of the nuclear plants that are en line now?
A At the present time, cne of the big factors in any kind of a planning is the basis for your planning.
We are trying to for.ce the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for giving us'a hazard analysis for each of the pouer plants in the Ccmacnwealth of Pennsylvania, which takes into censideration the kind of situations and the probability of those situations and takes inte censideraticn 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 evacuat ion.
This in scmething we have never had before.
It's somethind that it appears the NRC is not very well equipped s
to provide, but it's.seme thing that we are insisting that th?y do provide.
0 Okay, one last question.
Is it possible to get a cc7y of that booklet concerning radiation?
A Yes, sir.
Q Do you have a copy over there that we could get?
A I can mimeograph one while we are over there, sir.
CHAIRMAN URIGHT:
Representative Hoeffel.
BY REPRESENTATI7E HOEFFEL:
Q Colcnel, concerning the pamphlet that we have been discussing just now, did the Eureau of Radiation Protection
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consult any utilities as cc whether or nce they should be i
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distributed to the schocis?
A There are utilities represented on the Commission co, yes.
Q Uhat Ccmuission advises the Radiatien Bureau?
What's the name of that Commission?
A I do not recall the name, but when we get to the effica, I will find cut the name.
I have got all the documents th2re.
1 Fine, and I uculd like te knew 'thich specific utilitics are representad en that Commission.
I would like to know that, tec.
A Okay.
Q Colonel, I have never heard a satisfactory explanatian for the mysterious 31rans that kept counding in Harrisburg.
Can you give ua Jame quick explanaticn of what was going en thera?
A The one that sounded on Friday was the Harrisburg Fire Department.
He cculd nct find either uho he was or why he set tha siren off.
Now, the two that sounded on the Capitol Complex, there is only One switch and that is a pure Civil Defense airen, an attenticn siren.
The cnly switch is maintained down in the effice 'ay the aneck bar by the Capitol State
?clic e.
Txc policeman in the office at the time, both suear t
that they were on the opposite side of the reca from where the
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switch was.
However, there were electricians working on the wiring in this building and they believe that this was set off by tham.
I requ2sted the office of General Services to conduct',
an immadiate investigaticn and to frankly have the siren dis-connected af ter 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.
1 The second occurrence was a ieck later on h*ednesday, the 24th of April?
I happened to hear that one myself.
A
'le s, sir.
REPRESENTATIVE HOEFFEL:
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN 'dRIGHT:
Representative Cowell.
l s
FI REPRESENTATIVE CC' JELL:
Q Sir, firct of all, has your cffice had an official or unofficial escimate of the num' er of people that voluntarily o
lef t the area in the days snortly follcwing the incident?
A dell, we are basing chis on an almost decr-to-door survey that was conducted by York Counsy and extrapolating thac into the othar regions and also supported by studies frota Elizabethtown College and elsewhere.
Approximately 50 percent of those people living within the five mile area evacuated and approx 1,nately One-third of the people living within the ten mile area voluntarily evacuated.
Q Do you have-rough numbers for that?
q
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A Somewhere between 150 and 200,000 people.
Q A couple of questions about emergencies in general.
?trat of all, let me say, I have got a couple of impressicns.
Maybe they are w:eng, I don't know.
The first impression is that the 1:ind of emergancies 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 seccnd impression is that based en some of the testimen/ that 'te have heard today and ahat ua have read in the papar, there was a reluctance, centinued to be some r21uct:nce tc declare an emergency because. cf the disaster implications of that, The third impression is frcm your cwn testimony, s
you tend to u se the Mcrds emergency and disaster interchangably.
What I am asking, ac ycu see the need to makra plans in the futura and as other pocple in reur business see the need to make plans in the future, is there scme practical way cf dictin. uishing be'; ween the sc-called precautionary type emergency dec12 ration where you want to evacuate because cemething might happen, but you den't want to leave the impressicn of great physical damage, etc., etc. and the traditional emergency where tha flecd has swept everything away er the b'cmb has knccked the bui? 2ing doun?
A The last adminiscration attempted to et such an l
iden tificaticn.
Something loca than a ma.Jor disaster declaration,
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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 uhother it would facilitate my cperatienc or whether it would add anything to it to have a lesser kind of disaster declaration.- I think that pecple zet 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 cf any magnitude, whether it be the very small one where you get ycur feet wet up to where you get swept out of ycur 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 schame where we might be able to identify anything less than a full blown disastar.
Q Sut 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 impact, negative impac t, have not been able to get certain federal benefits because we don't have a federal emergency; have not been able to get state t_
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benefits that Representative Cohen was discussing because we have not declared it a state emergency.
Is that a correct understanding?
A IIot really.
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, thers are not provisions in that law fer the resupply cf monies to people who have been hurt, basically,!
financially.
Tha lau is designed 23 a supplemental assistance and I mean supplemental tc what the stata can previde and what i local Eovernment can provide and what the insurance companies can provide.
There is nothing in 93283 that wculd have taken
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care of the economic dislecatien tht may have ccourred during s
the Three Mile Island incident, as we know it now.
C.
Is there anything in any existin.3 federal law which uculd provida any kind of ussistance to people in this region if that *<ere declared an emergenc'f' A
The declaring of this -- of an emergency has no impact en -- cnd I ac. not that fa.n111ar with other federal i
i I can cpeak only of 93288, which is the Federal Disaste laws.
Assistance Administration Act cf 197b.
There are no provisions in that Ac t for the reimbursement of businesses for any losses that they incur.
I Q
Thea, to some ev'ss a -- I don't expect you to answer this right now.
I wonder :iry as are going through this s
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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 so'me degree or another.
Basically, three kinds of di-i' sasters:
man-made, such as this ene; 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 highways or roadr It could be a major aircraft 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, 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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69 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 hazardcus 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 hasard 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 then 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 k
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 an aware.
Voluntecrism, 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 space 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 co=munication systems so that ue can r
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l l
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b talk from my ECC cut tc counties.
We rely on the e:tisting vclunteer fire departments.
We rely en the police departments.
h'e rely en the national guard.
So, accual fcrces, Civil Defense forces, we dcn't aave any.
Te lean en these other agencies to, in time of emerEency, tc provide us the means for doing the-job that we know needs to be dene.
So, curs is a managing and cocrdinating effort.
O I t1ke ycur remar!c abcut the decline of velunteerism and.7 cur heavy dependenc7 cn vclunteerica te mean that ycu think that ycur capacity is inadequ' ate or is becoming less
- adecuate, Am I misinterpreting what ycu're saying?
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A Nc, you are not misinterpreting it.
It just means that te have qc: to de a better Jcb cf managing what we have i
to aanage with increasing f2wer rescurces.
CISIEMIN WRIGHT:
Representative Itkin.
3Y 3EPRESE:ITATIVE IT:CIN:
Q Jclonel, I wou,1d like to go cack to the morning of the 30th.
'fcu Jaid earlier today that you recommended to the Governcr to evacuate the public within the perimeter surroundinE Three :lile IJ1and.
Could you again tell this Committee what time you advised tha Governor to de this and unat was the basis of that determination?
A Yes, af ter receiving the report from Three Mile i
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-Iaiand that corning at 8: 4C hours, that there was this major
71 (s
emission, that thay thr.mselves were preparing to evacuate.
The individual who made the telephone call was -- we knew him.
Fields, I think his nane was.
He was verf highly emotional and c::c ited.
The individual cn my member cf my staff took the talephone call gained this immediate impression that this is a really bad situation.
This was followed at 9: 15 from a talephcne call frcm the U2C, recommending that we evacuate people Nithin a ten mile area.
This was followed about ten ainates later with a talephcne call frcm the same person, r3-inf0rmin? me that this was not only his reccer.endaticn but thas this had the concurrence of the Ch,tirman of the NRC.
Now, by this time, I did not have yet back from the s.
Sureau cf Radiat*.cn ?rctec ticn, 100 racctmondation to me.
Sc, when the Governcr called re 2t about 9:35, 9: 40 and asked me at that time, ".rhat in your reccomendation?"
I told the Governor based cn the facts that I had at hand and the infcrm'ation that I had at hand, that I would recommend a five mile evacuation.
Now, it.:aa only after this when I appeared over at the Gcvernor's Office and Ten Gerucky frca the Bureau cf 11adiation Protection was there that I learned that the emission had halted and that perhaps it nas not 3a serious as we had been led to believe.
G Uhat led you ta believe that the e nission was a t
s?ricus and sustainin.7 one?
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A Uhen it was reported to us frce the plant site that we had this emission, it was my understanding that this was a continuing emission, that we have a release Going on at the present tice and that it was r.:y understanding that this was a continuing release.
G Jid you ask cny questiens as to why the emission was not ccatained er stcpped?
A I did not.
We have an arrangenent with the plant that te get cni-the b;sf.c fcchual infcr.Tation.
Ye do nct have c
tha enperti:n in ry cffice to ask the right questions and we, in turn, then have the DepartT.ent of Environmental Rescurces, Eureau of Radiaticn Protection be the Ic-between with the
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plant to discuss the techni:al terms and information and relate it to us in lay.un's terms as far as the course cf acticn that we shculd take.
?
Did you cubcaquensly learn after the consultaticn with the Bureau of Environmental Protecticn about the nature
- .nd dacree of the 'nctances of this sc-call?d " uncontrolled releace" and 2 cuocequent abilicy to contain it?
Subsequent ability to --
Q To contain t'le release.
A Yes, I d id, in the Governcr's Office.
I find tnic to be a serious Tap in information.
The infernstien that I have is that the releace, ras caused en the i
c.czning cf Monday, tha 30th, that's due to the attempts to.
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pump back radioac tive 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 invc1ved, 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 ventilation stack, which, s
I assume there is, to contain whatever exists in the auxiliary building and at least keep the radiation emissionn 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?
-l A
I was in the Governcr's presence twice when he talked to the Chairman of the NRC and at the present time, I cannot relate whether this was a conversaticn that he was relating to the Chairman of the llRC.
I was present at one time
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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 tnis 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 evacuation 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 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 p*:mps or putting the building back cn the vacuum or monostatic could have prevented this emission to have continued 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 Eet an opportunity to question him.
At 12:30, he had a news conference and he said based on the i
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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 &lso interesting, Colonel, that during this entire period we had a lot of information which occurred on the date of Wednesday, May 28th.
The ne::t really su ostantial 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 acting well.
Did you know at that time or have you had any knowledge or did anyone in the state have any knowledge that 1
it would appear between March 28th and March 30th that there l
were problems in the plant?
A I did not.
At ncon on Wednesday and Wednesday night, I lef t the Lieutenant Governor and the NRC Representatives, j
relatively assured that things were under control.
Thnaughout j
- 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 af ter 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 assess the situation and 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 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 8C0 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 or. Friday afternoon, late afternoon, suddenly this huge cavity was discovered in the reactor or plant.
- Now, I am not -- do you have any knowledge 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 N
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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 what they' are going to do if we ever have another problem like this el if the Russians attack or anything else..
j l
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 !
do have an emerEency in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh or Eric in Elk County?
Will sirens be generalized?
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 over the public television and over the radio as a public service telling people that, here is the
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alert siren.
In the case of an emergency, in the case of an ene=y attack, this is the tone that ycu would be hearing.
This steady tone over a three to five minute period.
You would then turn to ycur local radio station or your local TV station or to this station for instructions.
Even with chat 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 I 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 relationships with the new Thornburgh/Scranton administration
(
prior to THI, during TMI and what you expect in the future as I
far as your relationship personally and professionally, as a representative of the agency with the new administration eccpared with the last administration.
Well, I hate to ecmpa.re it with the last one, A
4 because I think that mest of the members know that I was rela-tively close to Lieutenant Governcr Kline.
Our children are married.
That's no secret.
I am a professional and I'm going to do my job for whoever my boss is.
Now, I have a good working relationship with Lieutenant Governor Scranton.
Governor Thornburgh calls me Ken.
Nou, whether that has any meaning, I am not drawing any conclusions from it.
I do not si
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appear --
Q He calls ne Bill, too.
A Then to explain that relationship, it's pretty difficult for me.
I am the advisor, by law, to the Lieutenant Governor as Chairman of the Council and as long as I can e ffeci,1vely 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.
CHAIPl!.AN GIGHT:
One final question from Bob Hollis, IE. HOLLIS:
I have two.
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BY MR. HOLLIS:
O.
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 the 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 defelop-ment and the supervision and the exercise of off-site evacuation plans run in the vicinity of a nuclear site be the responsibil-ity of the new PEMA agency, rather then NRC?
A I am pretty sure it will be, Bob.
The responsibility f
is under the Federal Preparedness Administration to discharge
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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 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?
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 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 communica tions.
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 dedicat2d 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 i
that luxury of time.
I think we have got to be able to reach i
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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.
7 BY CHAIRMAN WRIGHT:
Q Do you need legislation to do this or just need money?
A Well, we need two things.
We need somebody to plan it and the money to put it into effect.
Q But you have legal authorization to do it now?
A The law says that we will have it.
We will have an inte5 rated emerEency communications capability, but right now we have not been able to break 1oose from the tele-commun-ications and the engineerf g 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 ycu need someone to plan this, in response to the Chairman's question?
A Yes, sir.
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Q Well, does not PEMA now have a planning section?
A
'Je have a two-man planning office, yes, but we are not radio communications.
'To 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 ccmmunications capability inte a single system that we can hang our dishpans on the same tower that the state police or the DER or the Fish Commission or the Gcce Commission or semebody else IL and Eet 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 cccmunications system.
It merely needs an engineer to design
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the system and give the directions to it.
CHAI3 MAN 'iRIGHT:
Will you give us directions en 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 af terncen.
(The hearing 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 same.
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Joyce Rae Schwarz, Reporter a
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