When Steinberg saw steam rising from the top of the vent stack, he knew it meant trouble: a broken pipe inside the reactor at least, and certainly a release of radiation. He picked up the phone. But when he got through to the control room of Unit One to warn the operators there to shut down the reactor, the shift supervisor brushed him off. When Steinberg persisted, the supervisor hung up on him. The engineer gathered his staff and waited to be summoned for the emergency. But no call came. Almost six hours later, at midnight, he and his men got into their cars and drove home to Pripyat.
