Fukushima NPP multiple-disaster scenario possible in U.S. as Category 3 Irene nears quake-damaged NP

Business Week Online reports that U.S. NPPs still recovering from this week's East Coast earthquake now must prepare for an approaching Hurricane Irene. Damage from yesterday's 5.8 quake is still being assessed by several NPP operators, who are faced with a new heads-up situation as Irene approaches the North Carolina coast as a Category 3 hurricane. According to the National Hurricane Center, Irene is currently expected to move up the U.S. East Coast from North Carolina, possibly in the direction of New York and the New England area.

This may be the first multiple-disaster threat to hit one or more U.S. NPPs, who are still studying the lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, where a powerful tsunami struck that NPP minutes after a 9.0 earthquake struck the Northeast coast of Japan in March 2011.

According to the related ABC News story further down this page, Irene may further strengthen to a Category 4 hurricane before making landfall.

Link to the Business Week Online article:

www.businessweek.com...

LA Times article with more details on Hurricane Irene:

latimesblogs.latimes.com...

USA Today video clip and accompanying story on Hurricane Irene's expected path:

www.usatoday.com...

ABC News reports that Irene could become a Category 4 hurricane by the time it makes landfall:

abcnews.go.com...

This Bloomberg News story on Hurricane Irene approaching U.S. East Coast NPP regions is an earlier version of the above Business Week story:

www.bloomberg.com...

Dude. I'm all for raising awareness but sheesh.

Certainly a nuclear reactors are built to withstand airplane crashes can handle a cat 3 hurricane.
And can probably handle a storm surge in excess of 10 feet.

We aren't dealing with a tsunami type event.

Just be aware that hurricanes are unpredictable and you need to keep an eye on it until it's dissipated.

reply to post by grey580


I agree about category 3 hurricanes as hurricanes and the resilience of NPPs built in hurricane-prone parts of the world, but the main issue I'm calling attention to is the multiple-threat scenario, double whammy if you will, of an earthquake followed within what, 24 to 36 hours?, by a cat-3 or cat-4 hurricane. Multiple-threat scenarios, as UN Secretary Ban-Ki Moon recently reminded Japan, are not and have not been used so far in any NPP development planning scenarios. That's so 20th century, that omission of multiple threats in NPP planning.

This is very scary considering the Virginia nuke plant.

reply to post by Vitchilo


Not impressed, Thom Hartman is a far left douchebag and Paul Gunter is an anti-nuclear activist. No bias there.

Originally posted by wasco2
reply to post by Vitchilo

 

Not impressed, Thom Hartman is a far left douchebag and Paul Gunter is an anti-nuclear activist. No bias there.

Ah ok. Didn't know that...

Well.

reply to post by Vitchilo


A point that I forgot to mention in this thread so far is that science admits it does not yet understand the "steering currents" that move hurricanes in certain directions, sometimes predictable, sometimes not. A few years back, I saw a hurricane track in Florida where the hurricane had taken almost a 90-degree turn to end up in an inland area where it had not been expected. I'm not saying that that's likely with Hurricane Irene, but if it does take a sharp left turn into central Virginia, that's where that North Anna NPP with post-earthquake issues is located. True, that's not likely to happen, but if it does, the Mid-Atlantic states will have A Problem.