WASHINGTON, March 28, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

THREE MILE ISLAND

Profile America — Saturday, March 28th. One of the most frightening industrial accidents in the U.S. occurred on this date in 1979 at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant on the Susquehanna River, south of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A cascade of alarms and emergency responses started when someone mistakenly cross- connected air and water lines in the plant's number two reactor. The plant reportedly came close to a hydrogen gas explosion and a meltdown of its uranium core, which would have caused extensive radiation contamination. The incident led to greater caution and safety reviews of nuclear power. Today in the U.S., there are 61 commercially operating nuclear power plants with 99 nuclear reactors in 30 employing about 50,000 workers. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.

Sources: Kane's Famous First Facts, 3556

Three Mile Island incident: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html

Plants and reactors: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=207&t=3

Nuclear power employment/ NAICS 221113: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=BP_2012_00A1&prodType=tablee

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button). 

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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau