The Brunswick nuclear power plant in North Carolina is completely surrounded by water, with no way in or out of the facility, but there is no safety concern, the nation’s nuclear watchdog said Monday.
“There is limited access to and from the site … but the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] has no current concerns about plant conditions, staffing or flooding in the area affecting the plant’s safety functions,” Roger Hannah, spokesman for the nuclear regulator, told the Washington Examiner from the commission’s emergency response center in Atlanta, Ga.
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The two reactors at the Brunswick nuclear power plant issued an emergency alert on Saturday, called an “unusual event” notice, which Hannah described as the “lowest” emergency alert that the power plant is required to issue and said was based just on the lack of vehicle access to the plant.
“The two units remain shut down, have offsite power and diesel generators, and there is no effects from the storm on other safety equipment,” he added.
Local news reports said Monday that roads in and out of the power plant’s 1,200-acre campus were impassable, making it impossible to relieve the Duke Energy and federal NRC staff stationed at the plant to ride out Hurricane Florence.
The workers were posted at the site after the plant’s owner, Duke Energy, decided to shut down the facility’s two reactors last week.
The News and Observer newspaper talked by phone Monday with Daniel Bacon, one of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s “storm riders,” who said he has been “locked down” at the Brunswick plant since Wednesday.
Bacon said the workers are sleeping on cots and using portable toilets because water service has been switched off.
The Department of Energy said Monday that changes in electricity mix varied from the Carolinas to Virginia, reflecting “a range of storm impacts” that include about half a million people without power.
“The Brunswick nuclear plant remains offline, and the McGuire nuclear plant remains at 50% outage,” the agency’s Energy Information Administration reported in a storm update.
“Outage trends by county vary as the storm progresses and restoration continues,” the agency said.
