False alarms sound at Three Mile Island

From philly.com:

Radiation monitors sounded last night and again this morning inside Three Mile Island's Unit 1 containment building - the site of a small contamination incident just days earlier - but Exelon officials said they were false alarms.

Although tests showed that no abnormal radiation levels existed, Gov. Rendell today again blasted Exelon Corp. for failing to immediately inform state emergency management officials.

Rendell said the company didn't notify the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency until about 9:30 a.m. today - nearly 13 hours after the first alarm.

"What Exelon folks, at least the Exelon folks at TMI are not understanding is that the people of Central Pennsylvania, even though this is 30 years old, understandably are very apprehensive and jumpy about all this and there is no appropriate reason for us not to be notified about this," Rendell told reporters referring to the partial meltdown that occurred in 1979 at the plant's Unit 2.

Rendell said that all TMI officials had to do was pick up a phone, call PEMA and say "hey this is a false alarm . . . and we will get back to you as soon as we know that."

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