This is an IHeart podcast. And we return to our American stories.

Up next, the story of a forgotten nuclear mishap in Arkansas

that could have blown the state off the map.

Here to tell the story as former newsman Randy Dixon,

director of news, archives,

and media at the Center for Arkansas's Oral and Visual History at the University of Arkansas.

Take it away, Randy.

It was a normal day. We were in the newsroom. I worked the night schedule. So we got word that there was a fuel leak at a silo, and we would hear things about the silos

because there were close to a dozen in Arkansas. And this one was outside of Damascus, which is near Conway.

And it's about a 45-minute drive from Little Rock.

So we heard about this fuel leak.

So a reporter and I hop in the car and we drive up there,

and it's the regular military have the roadblocks up

flashing lights and we get our video and our pictures and we needed to get something back for the

next morning and ABC Good Morning America had called saying they wanted a report so So we left and we started working on this story for Good Morning America.

Well it was about 2 o'clock in the morning, we're still working on the story.

And there were no cell phones because this was 1980.

And we hear on the two-way radio, the reporter who had replaced us was, you could tell in the voice he was panicked.

And he said, it blew up.

And we said, you know, repeat, and he said, da-da-da-da-da-da-da blew up.

So we knew that, well, that story we were working on was no longer valid, and it turned

into a giant story. Well, there was a leak, which is what we first covered, and they had workmen in there,

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