Nuclear Power Plant Flood Risk: Sandy Was Just a Warm-Up

As Hurricane Sandy approached the East Coast late last October, more than a dozen nuclear power plants from North Carolina stretching up to New England were in its wide-ranging path. On Oct. 29, the night that the eye of the storm made landfall near Atlantic City, New Jersey, five nuclear plants were forced to either reduce power or make emergency shutdowns.

The most serious event was at the Oyster Creek Generating Station located in Lacey Township, near Barnegat Bay, New Jersey, about 40 miles north of Atlantic City. Amid 75-mile-an-hour winds, power to the region was knocked out, including at the Oyster Creek plant, just before 7 p.m. The plant’s backup diesel generators kicked on to keep its crucial cooling equipment functioning. Nevertheless, by 9 p.m. the plant’s pumps were facing another danger: rising floodwaters. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) spokesperson Neil Sheehan said that Sandy brought a surge of 7.4 feet to Oyster Creek. The plant is obligated to prepare for the consequences of flooding at 8.5 feet, he said, and, at 9.0 or 9.5 feet — Sheehan wasn’t sure — the plant’s pump motors would begin to be flooded.

The storm surge led the plant to declare an “Alert” — the second step in theNRC’s four-tiered emergency action system.

David Tillman, spokesperson for Exelon, the utility company that owns Oyster Creek, would not answer specific questions about the evening Sandy hit the plant (such as the height to which the water level rose, the height of the pump motors, or the actions taken by the plant in response to the alert).  Characteristically for the industry, he insisted that everything worked perfectly and that there were no problems.