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where I worked spiked off the meter

#1 A 'spike' is not a reading. #2 Playing with the gain on the instrument will make it read whatever you want it to read. I suggest you probe your 25 or so year old memory to see if the instruments were current with the calibration program outlined in your QA manual. Unsubstantiated claims such as the one you make may be entertaining, but your claim has no credibility.

"... It has been estimated that about 2.5 million Ci of noble gases (about 0.9 percent of the core inventory) and 15 Ci of radioiodine (about 0.00003 percent of the core inventory) were released to the environment at TMI-2 (NUREG/CR-1250). [Also referred to as the Rogovin report.] No other radioactive fission products were released in measurable quantities. It has been estimated that the maximum cumulative off-site radiation dose to an individual was less than 100 mrem (NUREG/CR-1250; President's Commission 1979). The total population exposure has been estimated to be in the range from about 1000 to 5000 person-rem. (This range is discussed on page 2 of NUREG-0558.) This exposure could statistically produce between zero and one additional fatal cancer over the lifetime of the exposed population of approximately 2 million in the site area. The same population receives about 240,000 person-rem each year from natural background radiation, and approximately a half million cancers are expected to develop in this group over the lifetime of the population (NUREG/CR-1250; President's Commission 1979), primarily from causes other than radiation. Trace quantities (barely above the limit of detectability, below allowable limits, and less than that from fallout due to nuclear tests) of radioiodine were found in a few samples of milk produced in the area. No other food or water supplies were affected. "

See more at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1437/v1/part05.html

Not true. The Geiger counters where I worked spiked off the meter.

They would probably spike off the meter if you gave them a dental x-ray or two, too. You get a lead apron when they operate the x-ray machine, after all. It is entirely possible that the average person in the city surrounding TMI received two dental x-ray's-worth of ionizing radiation.