18,000 Evacuate Pa. Town Fearing A-Plant Disaster : But Fumes Were From Acid Fire

All 18,000 residents of this northeast Pennsylvania coal town fled the area before dawn today thinking there had been an accident at a nearby nuclear plant.

What they were escaping was a cloud of deadly sulfuric acid and other chemicals spewed into the air by a fire that raged out of control for six hours, destroying a sheet metal plating plant.

The evacuation in a caravan of cars, buses and trucks went smoothly because Nanticoke had practiced: It has sponsored emergency evacuation practices for the last seven years because it is located near the nuclear-powered Susquehanna Steam Electric Station.

Door-to-Door Alert

Police and officials went door to door waking up residents until, as one official said, “the town was empty except for firemen and National Guard soldiers wearing gas masks.”

“Many of those evacuated at first thought they were fleeing a disaster at the nuclear plant. The first thing I thought about was the nuclear plant,” said Nanticoke resident Andrew Koberla, 46, of Hanover section.

“I figured there was an accident. I was in the Navy on a nuclear powered ship and I know what can happen. “

Pennsylvania was the scene of the nation’s worst nuclear accident in 1979 when a reactor at the Three Mile Island electric plant partially melted down.

‘I Got Deathly Afraid’

“We all thought it was the Susquehanna plant,” Nanticoke resident Theresa Pappas said, referring to the nearby nuclear plant. “I got deathly afraid. I didn’t know what to take but myself, my clothes and seven bucks in my pocket.”

“My entire family was evacuated to my home in (nearby) Wilkes-Barre--my mother, my father and three sisters,” said Ellen O’Brien, a reporter at a Wilkes-Barre radio station. “They were scared. My younger sister is only 10 and she even took her little bird in her cage.”

There were no injuries and authorities hoped the evacuees could return to their homes by evening.

Gov. Robert P. Casey declared the town a disaster area and toured the area in a helicopter.

Rousted Out at 2 A.M.

The evacuation was ordered just after 2 a.m. about 90 minutes after fire erupted at Spencer Metal Processing, a firm that uses acids and alkaloids in metal plating.

The cloud that settled over the Nanticoke area primarily contained sulfuric acid from six 55-gallon drums, according to Mayor John Haydock.

“It can cause skin burns. It can affect the eyes and the throat,” he said.

But officials were equally concerned about other chemicals that may or may not have been stored in the plant.

“We are not sure of the total effect of the chemicals,” said Jim Siracuse, executive director of the Luzerne County Emergency Management Agency. “That is why the evacuation was undertaken.”

Evacuees were taken to emergency centers in schools in nearby towns, and patients from local hospitals and nursing homes were taken to medical facilities in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre.