Editing Three Mile Island accident (section)

===Voluntary evacuation===
[[File:Three Mile Island accident sign.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|A sign dedicated in 1999 in [[Middletown, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania|Middletown, Pennsylvania]], near the plant, describing the accident and the evacuation of the area.]]
[[File:Harrisburg Int Airport with Pennsylvania ANG aircraft 1979.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|right|Three Mile Island in background behind [[Harrisburg International Airport]], a few weeks after the accident]]
On Wednesday, March 28, hours after the accident began, Lieutenant Governor Scranton appeared at a news briefing to say that Met Ed had assured the state that "everything is under control".<ref name=mis>{{cite news |title=A Decade Later, TMI's Legacy Is Mistrust |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/tmi/stories/decade032889.htm |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=March 28, 1989 |access-date=September 30, 2018}}</ref> Later that day, Scranton changed his statement, saying that the situation was "more complex than the company first led us to believe".<ref name= mis/> There were conflicting statements about radioactivity releases.<ref name=cooke>{{cite book |last=Cooke |first=Stephanie |title=[[In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age]] |publisher=Black Inc. |date=2009 |page=294}}</ref> Schools were closed, and residents were urged to stay indoors. Farmers were told to keep their animals under cover and on stored feed.<ref name=mis/><ref name=cooke/>

{{blockquote
| text= Based on the advice of the Chairman of the [[Nuclear Regulatory Commission|NRC]] and in the interest of taking every precaution, I am advising those who may be particularly susceptible to the effects of any radiation, that is, pregnant women and pre-school aged children, to leave the area within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility until further notice. We've also ordered the closings of any schools within this area.
|author=[[Dick Thornburgh]]
}}

Governor Thornburgh, on the advice of NRC chairman Joseph Hendrie, advised the evacuation "of pregnant women and pre-school age children...within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility". The evacuation zone was extended to a 20-mile radius on March 30.<ref name="Cutter & Barnes">{{cite journal |title=Evacuation behavior and Three Mile Island |last1=Cutter |first1=Susan |author-link1=Susan Cutter |last2=Barnes |first2=Kent |date=June 1982 |journal=Disasters |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=116–124 |pmid=20958525 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-7717.1982.tb00765.x|bibcode=1982Disas...6..116C }}</ref> Within days, 140,000 people had left the area.<ref name="FactSheet"/><ref name=mis/><ref name="People & Events: Dick Thornburgh">{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/three/peopleevents/pandeAMEX97.html |title=People & Events: Dick Thornburgh |publisher=[[PBS]] |access-date=March 6, 2018}}</ref> More than half of the {{FORMATNUM:663500}} population within the 20-mile radius remained in that area.<ref name="Cutter & Barnes"/> According to a survey conducted in April 1979, 98% of the evacuees had returned to their homes within three weeks.<ref name="Cutter & Barnes"/>

Post-TMI surveys have shown that less than 50% of the American public were satisfied with the way the accident was handled by Pennsylvania state officials and the NRC, and people surveyed were even less pleased with the utility (General Public Utilities) and the plant designer.<ref name= ota>{{cite web |url=http://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk3/1984/8421/842111.PDF |title=Public Attitudes Toward Nuclear Power |year=1984 |website=Office of Technology Assessment |page=231 |access-date=September 30, 2018}}</ref>