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Oct. 6, 1966
October 6, 1966

Emergency proclaimed for Monroe County


Yesterday’s explosion at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station has prompted a state of emergency in Monroe County. Authorities have urged residents living near the plant to evacuate from their homes. Governor Romney has ordered a temporary evacuation of residents in Stony Point, Michigan, effective immediately. The Department of Public Health and the Michigan State Police will coordinate efforts to evacuate residents in an orderly and peaceable manner. [1]

Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s visit to Monroe to dedicate the city’s new library has been cancelled [2]. His planned stop in Detroit this evening for a fundraising dinner has also been cancelled. Humphrey, who was scheduled to appear with former governor G. Mennen Williams and Zolton Ferency at the library this morning [3], was escorted from his hotel early this morning by Secret Service agents. He was hastily evacuated to University Hospital in Ann Arbor, where he was placed under observation. [4]

Authorities stress that the evacuation is a precautionary measure and that the plant explosion poses no serious threat to public health. They assure us that the situation is under control [5]. Walker Cisler, President of the Power Reactor Development Corporation (PRDC) that operates the plant, says that there is little danger to Detroit and its suburbs because the “winds will blow the radiation to Canada.” [6]

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[1] WALD, p. 204: “There were a couple of public laws in Michigan, dating as far back as 1953…The Department of Public Health was named the official radiation control agency…The Department of State Police was designated as the coordinator of civil defense activities as if and when the governor proclaimed an emergency…The state of Michigan plan reads with simple eloquence: ‘In the event that an incident occurs which releases radioactive materials in concentrations that may be a public health hazard, this plan will be implemented. Implementation will commence by proclamation of an emergency by the Governor by the Director of the Department of Public Health.’”

[2] WALD, p. 3: “About the only occurrence of public note that October 5 was that Hubert Humphrey... had arrived fifty-one minutes late at the Custer Municipal Airport.”

[3] Detroit News, Oct.7, 1966, p. 18-A: “With Williams and Ferency at his side, Humphrey made a two hour stop in Monroe early yesterday to dedicate the Navarre Memorial Library and put in a plug for the re-election of Vivian, the area’s Democratic congressman. About 5,000 schoolchildren and townspeople turned out in the crisp October air.”

[4] WALD, p.126: “Any victim receiving more than 25 rads, or with a contaminated burn, would be taken by ambulance to the University Hospital in Ann Arbor, about 20 miles away.”

[5] This is consistent with the initial response to Three Mile Island from OTL 13 years later: “On Wednesday, March 28, hours after the core had collapsed into rubble, Lt. Gov. William W. Scranton appeared at a news briefing to say that Metropolitan Edison, the plant's owner, had assured the state that ‘everything is under control.’” https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/tmi/stories/decade032889.htm

[6] King Energy: The Rise and Fall of an Industrial Empire Gone Awry, p. 236

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