April 12, 1979 – CBS World News Roundup – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
April 12, 1979 – Tornado season was upon us – with 60 dead and counting from the first big outbreak two days earlier along the Texas/Oklahoma border. The previous day, 48 more tornadoes were reported in the lower Mississippi Valley with one more death being reported. On this day the same area was still endangered by violent weather systems. The tornadoes the previous day spared populated areas, but there were still vast amounts of homeless from the damage and destruction from two days earlier. And Tornado season was just getting started.
The Clipper Ship, Pride Of Baltimore was going missing and three days late arriving in Norfolk Virginia after encountering heavy seas and high winds off the North Carolina coast. The ship carries a crew of eleven. The Coast Guard began a search of the area, but its owner said it wasn’t unusual for a sailing to encounter such delays.
The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant was still in the news. Federal officials said they may begin the process of finally shutting down the crippled plant this weekend if engineers find gas levels in the reactors cooling water to be low enough. Meanwhile in Washington, the government moved today to make sure there were no more Three Mile Island accidents. Government regulators were going to be issuing new safety instructions and procedures at 42 licensed Atomic Power reactors similar in design to the Three Mile Island. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, there were no plans to shut any of those reactors down, but new instructions for safety procedures were being planned and distributed.
And the President’s brother Billy, giving his first detailed interview since being admitted to Long Beach Naval Hospital’s drug and alcohol treatment program, told the New York Times that “not a dime” of loans made to the Carter warehouse were diverted to the Carter Presidential campaign. A federal investigation was still underway.
And that’s just a little of what went on, this April 12th 1979 as reported on The CBS World News Roundup.
