Product Description
By 6:00 a.m. on the morning of March 28, 1979, the reactor core at Three Mile Island was thirty minutes away from a meltdown, an apocalypse that would render a huge swath of eastern Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable. The control room crew was at a loss. The memo that would have warned them was never sent.

This factual, riveting thriller is based on exclusive interviews with key operating personnel. Mike Gray, author of The China Syndrome, and Ira Rosen, producer for CBS's 60 Minutes, have updated this jackhammer narrative of mechanical failure and human error with an analysis of the current threats to our nuclear power plants. With a new introduction and epilogue for this reissue edition.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 4 reviews)

Incredible read - highly accurate

I read this book 5 times over the course of several months because it combines technical depth with superb and witty writing.

As a former Power Plant engineer for Duke Energy, I'm all too familiar with the design of power plants and this account of the accident is very accurate.
September 21, 2005

Powerful & frightening account about our near-Chernobyl

This story DOES read like a novel - I agree with one of the other reviewers. I was only 9 years old when the accident happened, but not long thereafter I bought this book during its first printing. Adding to my fascination to the accident is the fact that I was born and raised in Pennsylvania, and my father was a long-time employee of Met-Ed. My interest in nuclear plants is alive and well, since I now live within 5 miles of one of the largest nuclear plants (in Megawatt producing power) in the United States.

I read it at least 5 times because I found it so fascinating and I loved the characters that Rosen and Gray bring to life, such as plant superintendent Gary Miller and control room operator Bill Zewe. The technical details are explained in easy-to-understand language that makes reading the book a pleasure, not a pain.

I plan on buying this book again to reread it, as my original copy is long lost. But, I enjoyed it the first 5 times I read it, and I'm buying another copy.

If you want a great overall perspective on the America's "Near-Chernobyl," pick up a copy and enjoy.
January 29, 2004

Surprisingly good mix of technical detail and storytelling

As someone who works at a Nuclear plant, I've had much training on the accident at TMI in much greater detail than provided in this book (although, Gray does do a decent job at explaining how operators responded to that paricular event...he does leave out a lot, however). The best thing about this, for me, was his obvious research with regard to other facilities that had the same problem prior to TMI and the lack of a Nuclear network to help get the word out (we have an extensive network of information sharing now). The character descriptions are excellent and the story does flow like a novel...get this book (if you can find it...it's been out of print for a while) if you want a reasonably close explanation of what occured at TMI, but get it more for the story and the background information.
May 15, 2001

Couldn't put it down

Very intriguing book about the near disaster at Three Mile Island. Very well written, it keeps you spellbound to the very last period. It explains what went wrong with excellent detail. Enough information to keep you spellbound, but not enough to bore you with unnecessary details. A very well written book. A must if you want to learn the true story about Three Mile Island.
July 15, 1999

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