Meltdown: A Race Against Nuclear Disaster at Three Mile Island: A Reporter's Story

This riveting eyewitness report—including dramatic photos—takes readers right to the scene of the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island.

March 28, 1979: It was 4 a.m. at the nuclear power plant on an island in
the middle of the Susquehanna River. Suddenly, an alarm shrieked. Something was wrong inside the plant. Within minutes, human error and technical failure triggered the worst nuclear power accident in the United States, and, within hours, the eyes of the world would be on Three Mile Island. Thirty-four years after the bombing of Hiroshima, the crisis at Three Mile Island re-awoke the world to the dangers of nuclear power, and now, in MELTDOWN, Wilborn Hampton tells the hour-by-hour story of covering the accident as a U.P.I. reporter. His riveting eyewitness account will compel readers to consider one of the most serious questions facing humankind: where can we find affordable, sustainable energy, and at what risk?

Wilborn Hampton was born in Dallas in 1940. As a cub reporter in the Dallas U.P.I. office, he helped to cover the story of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. His account of that day was published as KENNEDY ASSASSINATED! THE WORLD MOURNS: A REPORTER'S STORY. Of his new book, MELTDOWN, he says: "No problem facing the twenty-first century is more urgent than the search for new sources of energy. As future scientists search for a replacement for oil and coal, they must be aware of the inherent dangers of atomic energy." Wilborn Hampton is now an editor at the NEW YORK TIMES and lives in New York City.