Preparing for a radiation release
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| "Emergency, Everyone to get from street!" |
By Will Collette
The New London Day’s Judy
Benson reports on an emergency drill conducted for emergency management staff
and municipal leaders for ten communities in the immediate vicinity of the
Millstone nuclear power plant just outside of New London.
The plant is only 20
miles due west of Charlestown. If there had been an actual radiation release of
the type used in this drill, Charlestown would have gotten a bad dose given our
relative closeness and position immediately down-wind.
There are ten
communities in Millstone’s “Emergency Planning Zone”: New London, Groton,
Groton township, Ledyard, Lyme, Old Lyme, East Lyme, Waterford, Montville and
Fishers Island.
The emergency drill
started with the lowest level of alert – an “unusual event” (gotta love the
name) – where a small amount of radioactive gas gets vented from their nuclear
waste storage area.
In small increments,
the drill posed ever more dangerous levels and ended at the highest level
called “a general emergency,” also called (by me) “You’re totally screwed.”
At the “general
emergency” level, there is a general evacuation of a five-mile radius around
the site.
Of course, all the governmental agencies, from the several federal to the many municipal, worked together seamlessly, applying the decisions and action steps prescribed in the manual. Such a shame that real emergencies don't generally work out that way.
I’m glad that they’re
practicing what to do if something really bad happens at Millstone. Given the huge volume of
radioactive waste being stored there – more than 3.5 million pounds – and Millstone’s safety
issues, you never know.
But limiting the
drill to only those towns in the immediate area ignores the potential dangers
the world saw when the earthquake and tsunami in Japan breached the Fukushima
power plant’s radioactive storage areas.
As I read Judy Benson’s lively
account of the drill, I kept thinking of one of my favorite scenes from the
classic 1966 comedy, “The Russians Are
Coming,” which you can watch below.