By 9:00 a.m., hundreds of members of the militsia had been mobilized on the streets of Pripyat, and all roads into the town had been cut off by police roadblocks. But as the city’s leaders—including Protsenko, Deputy Mayor Esaulov, the Pripyat civil defense chief, and the directors of schools and enterprises—gathered for an emergency meeting at the White House, elsewhere in Pripyat the day began exactly as it would on any warm Saturday morning.
