MIDDLETOWN, Pa. — Editor's note: The above video is from 2019.
The 1979 near-disaster at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant is the subject of an upcoming documentary on Netflix.
"Meltdown: Three Mile Island," created by the producers of the film "Erin Brockovich," is a four-part documentary that revisits the worst nuclear incident in U.S. history, which occurred at the nuclear plant located in the Susquehanna River near Middletown, Dauphin County.
It tells the story of whistleblower Richard Parks, a former chief engineer at the plant, according to a press release about the limited Netflix series.
The documentary will debut on the streaming service May 4.
"Dramatic reenactments, archival footage, never-before-seen home video, and in-depth interviews bring viewers into the worst nuclear incident in U.S. history," the press release says. "(It) tells the story of ordinary people having the courage to do extraordinary things."
The near-meltdown at the power plant occurred on March 28, 1979, and resulted in the shutdown of one of the plant's two nuclear generating stations after a failure in the non-nuclear secondary system, followed by a stuck-open pilot-operated relief valve in the primary system that allowed large amounts of nuclear reactor coolant to escape.
The plant's owner at the time, Metropolitan Edison, initially downplayed the crisis, claiming that no radiation had been detected off the premises. But those claims were proven to be incorrect by inspectors, who tracked increased levels of radiation and discovered a contaminated water leak in the aftermath of the incident.
The near-catastrophe led to increased concerns about the safety of nuclear power and a series of new regulatory measures.
The Three Mile Island nuclear plant was officially decommissioned in 2019.
Watch the trailer for "Meltdown: Three Mile Island" below.