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Thirty years ago today, on March 29, 1979, Sheryll Ewell gave birth to a baby girl at York Hospital while newscasters warned of impending danger from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.
A partial meltdown had occurred the day before in Unit 2 of the plant, which sits in the middle of the Susquehanna River between Dauphin and York counties.
The new parents, David and Sheryll Ewell of Windsor Township, remained focused on their daughter, Lora, despite Three Mile Island dominating the news.
"We were so excited with this perfect, newborn baby," Sheryll Ewell recalled.
But the day after Lora's birth, then-Gov. Dick Thornburgh advised pregnant women and preschool-age children within 5 miles of the plant to leave. Some residents had headed out of town even before the evacuation order was given.
York Hospital is about 15 miles from TMI, but one or two mothers checked out with their infants rather than stay in the area, Ewell recalled. Her mother-in-law
"I had nowhere to go except home in Red Lion," she said.
Ewell asked her doctor, Morton Kousen, if it was safe for Lora to be in the hospital. He assured her that it was.
Kousen, now a retired obstetrician and gynecologist, recalled those tense days. He remembers the pitch in the TV announcers' voices rising and the fear in their faces as they delivered the news. It didn't help to calm people, he said.
In addition to fielding questions from worried patients, doctors didn't know what the emergency plan would be if an evacuation occurred. Would he go to triage and assist with a surgery, for example?
"There really was no emergency plan," he said.
Kousen describes himself as the kind of guy who sees the glass as being half full, so thinking back, his reassurance to Ewell doesn't surprise him.
"I would have told them my family's here, and we're comfortable with the situation," he said, adding that he did feel reassured by the information being given out by authorities. "If I would have been worried, I would have sent my family out of the area."
In the end, everything turned out to be OK, but that's easy to see in hindsight, he said.
Susan Blessing of Hellam Township gave birth to her fourth child on March 28, 1979, at Memorial Osteopathic Hospital. Her son, Harry, was fine, and she didn't leave town.
"We kind of take things as they come," she said of her farm family. "We don't get too excited."
The accident put a damper on some visitors going to the hospital.
Ewell said that her best friend from work wouldn't come to the hospital. The friend worried about bringing contamination to the baby.
Lora Ewell Hersey, who turns 30 today, has enjoyed hearing the story over the years about her birth and how the family handled the emergency.
The one she likes in particular is how a neighbor's house caught fire a short time after the TMI accident, and the Hersey thought the sirens meant that they had to evacuate. Luckily, just a kitchen was damaged.
Hersey, who works as a physical therapy assistant, said people tease her about being born during the accident. Is that what happened to you?, they'll ask.
Lora Hersey is strong and healthy, her mother said.
"If something would have happened (to her), I would have thought that would have been (TMI)," she said.
OTHER STORIES ABOUT TMI
Many people who lived in the counties surrounding the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant remember what they were doing during the 1979 accident.
Here are some stories they had to share:
Goldsboro Fire Chief Clint Leakway was in middle school when the Northeastern School District sent students home.
He recalled riding home toward Goldsboro, traveling closer to the infamous plant that had become the site of an emergency.
"That was a little bit weird for me," he said.
His grandfather, Marvin Brothers, was fire chief in Goldsboro at the time, and Leakway hung out with him for a short time during the crisis. The town was lifeless, as many had left, Leakway said.
His grandfather sent the family to a hunting camp in Union County after being warned by federal authorities.
It never goes away, Leakway said. Something could happen again.
"You just have to keep it in the back of your mind that it's still there," he said.
Tracy Leakway, the chief's wife, was a junior at Red Land High School, and the students were evacuated to Northern Middle School.
Leakway was driving at the time, but she wasn't allowed to go home because the roads were blocked.
The scene at the school was chaos, she said. Students tried to call their parents, but the phone lines were jammed.
"It was probably one of the worst days of my life," she said.
Newlywed Tabitha Shury had just hung out laundry when newscasters told everyone to get inside because of worries about radioactive fallout.
Shury, who lived in Smoketown, eastern Lancaster County, at the time, called the local police department to ask what she needed to do.
The police informed her that she lived outside of the radiation risk zone.
Still, Shury said, she took a shower and rewashed all of the clothes.
Shortly after the accident -- but not because of it --she moved to New Hampshire where crews were building the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant.
Oh, she thought, I can't get away from it. She since has moved to York County.
Shury said she doesn't have a problem with nuclear power. She grew up in Europe where nuclear power has been widely used.
"It's a good form of energy," she said. "Clean, for the most part."
James Kinder of Mount Wolf was practicing a speech, preparing to campaign for vice president of the Pennsylvania Jaycees, when the sirens went off.
He didn't realize what was going on and left for his road trip. His wife and three children stayed behind.
His wife loaded the car when she heard the news but never left their home, Kinder said. He and others who traveled with him kept checking in on their families during the crisis.
It was a scary time for many people.
"We hope it never happens again, that's for sure," said Kinder, who is retiring after serving 24 years as Mount Wolf mayor.
