Good morning, Whitewater.
Monday in town will begin cloudy skies, but give way to afternoon sunshine and a high of fifty-two. Sunrise is 6:41 AM and sunset 7:17 PM, for 12h 36m 21s of daytime. The moon is waning gibbous with 79.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
Cockatiels sometimes imitate human speech, but then there are iPhone tones to mimic, too:
On this day in 1979, a reactor overheats at Three Mile Island:
The most serious nuclear accident in United States history takes place at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on this day in 1979, when one of the reactors overheats. Fortunately, a catastrophic meltdown was averted and there were no deaths or direct injuries from the accident.
The Three Mile Island plant had begun operations just months earlier on December 28, 1978. Very shortly after operations began, problems arose. It was 3:58 a.m. on March 28 when a pump that directed steam to the plant’s electric turbines stopped working, causing a water circulation pump to break down. Without the water, the temperature of the reactor rose dramatically and a relief valve opened to stop the pressure from building to dangerous levels. Unfortunately, the valve then would not close.
The plant operators, with no experience in emergencies, made key errors. Another valve was opened to allow water from the nuclear system into a waste tank. But this water ruptured the tank and radioactive water flooded into the reactor. Even worse, an operator shut off the automatic core-cooling system. The result of all these events and mistakes was that radioactive steam poured out of the plant. Additionally, radioactive water had to be released into the Susquehanna River. However, area authorities were not notified of these events until nearly three hours later.
A Google a Day asks a sports question:
In what year did the manager and team depicted in the blockbuster film “Moneyball” finally win their first playoff series?