THREE MILE ISLAND, Pennsylvania - As the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania prepares to restart one of its two reactors to power AI data centers for Microsoft, the decommissioning of the other, whose partial meltdown decades ago led to longstanding concerns about nuclear safety, will likely be delayed.

The concurrent developments have generated mixed feelings among residents who lived through the aftermath of the 1979 accident, the worst ever to occur at a commercial nuclear power plant on U.S. soil.