carter was on the scene wearing funny booties and touring the plant and trying to show that the situation was being brought under control. ultimately, the cleanup at three mile island took nearly 15 years and $1 billion, but the scariest thing about that accident right when it happened was that nobody really knew how bad it was or how bad it was going to get or what it even meant in terms of dangerousness to have a large-scale nuclear accident in this country. so, that nuclear meltdown happened, the three mile island crisis started at the very end of march 1979. what was going on in washington at the very end of march '79? march 1979 in washington, while three mile island is fixating the country, in washington they were having a huge debt ceiling fight. the president was a democrat, jimmy carter. the senate was controlled by the democrats, robert byrd was the leader in the senate. the house was controlled by democrats, too. tim o'neil was speaker of the house. but even though democrats had control of the white house and