These photographs depict scenes from Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Middletown, Dauphin County, and the surrounding region in the days before and after the partial meltdown at the Unit 2 reactor.

After the accident at Three Mile Island, Dickinson College teacher Lonna Malmsheimer interviewed about 400 residents. One thing she noticed was how many people turned to fiction to make sense of the real-world events around them.

“We’re getting conflicting reports too,” Gov. Dick Thornburgh said in response to a reporter’s question at a press conference March 30, 1979.

Plant owner Metropolitan Edison did not have a communications team to address the situation. Instead, Vice President Jack Herbein and President Walter Creitz spoke directly to reporters in Middletown.

Register for a screening of two documentaries — one looking at the partial meltdown, and one looking at the future for TMI and the nuclear industry.