By Ceresa Morsaint
The Beaver Valley Power Station Disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred a decade ago today, on Saturday, April 1, 2010. It is now considered the worst nuclear disaster in history, next to Chernobyl.
However, historians remain amazed that no one at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School in Midland, which is less than five miles from the reactor, noticed the accident.
“I was in the LI Lab, and I looked out the window and saw a huge flash. Then I heard sirens and screams,” remembered Ovis Jenkins, then a sophomore.
“But Club Penguin had just been unblocked by the school server, and, like me, half the school was online playing,” Jenkins continued. “So I just kind of ignored what was happening.”
The accident started during a safety test on an RBMK-type nuclear reactor, which was commonly used throughout the USA. Three such tests had been conducted since 2000, but they had failed to provide a solution. On this fourth attempt, the test was unfortunately delayed by 10 hours, so an unprepared operating shift was on duty.
Upon test completion, the operators triggered a reactor shutdown, but a combination of unstable conditions and reactor design flaws caused an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction instead. A large amount of energy was suddenly released, vaporizing superheated cooling water and rupturing the reactor core in a highly destructive steam explosion.
This was immediately followed by an open-air reactor core fire that released considerable airborne radioactive contamination onto parts of Western PA. The fire gradually released about the same amount of contamination as the initial explosion. As a result of rising ambient radiation levels off-site, a 10-kilometer (6.2 mi) radius exclusion zone was created 36 hours after the accident. About 49,000 people were evacuated from the area, primarily from Midland and Beaver.
However, no one from Lincoln Park was evacuated, a fact that now astonishes historians.
“It’s now commonly referred to as the ‘Club Penguin Effect’,” said local historian Betty Barr. “Somehow, that darn game just captivated the whole school.
A decade ago, Club Penguin helped Lincoln Park students forget — actually, ignore — a nearby nuclear explosion.
“Legend has it that the administrators at the time were playing too,” Barr said. However, by press time, none of the current administrative staff had returned calls seeking comment.
Most students at the time remained unaware of this traumatic event. Jenkins said he only learned about it in a college Environmental Studies class years later.
“I guess it wasn’t so good, being around all that radiation,” he admitted, scratching his head with his third arm.
“But Club Penguin! Man, I just miss that game so much.”
** April Fool’s!