flooding where inches mattered and the dams they put up failed and water got into the plant. when we reported on the nebraska story in june, we discovered first that when the fort calhoun plant was built, someone miscalculated how ready the plant was to handle a serious flood. the error was noticed two years ago, and this year s flooding was the first test whether they got the re-working right. the other thing we learned came by way of a piece by the associated press this year which found owners of nuclear power plants are asking to keep their 40-year-old plants around for up to a century. these plants are getting old. when president obama makes his speech next month about how the country can take action now to create jobs, maybe this time he can get really granular about his plan, really specific, instead of saying we need to get investing in our nation s future or whatever, instead of saying something big picture like that,
americans to work in well-paying jobs both as the construction sites and back at manufacturing plants producing the steel and concrete and asphalt. it s the single best remedy we have, but it can t be done for six months or one year, it has to be a long-term, in my judgment, a decade-long commitment. you can t get up there though, as president obama and say we need to do something different for a decade because the republicans are not willing to say yes to their own ideas as long as they are hearing them out of president obama s mouth. he doesn t say we need to change our approach to infrastructure, let s fix this bridge, let s go fix that plant. this earthquake today was the epicenter was in eric cantor s district, as was this nuclear plant that was, frankly, shut down today because of the danger about this quake even though they say there was no damage. doesn t that put eric cantor on the spot as majority leader in the house? no question, and if he s honest, he ll say we do need
and the dams they put up failed and water got into the plant. when we reported on the nebraska story in june, we discovered first that when the fort calhoun plant was built, someone miscalculated how ready the plant was to handle a serious flood. the error was noticed two years ago, and this year s flooding was the first test whether they got the re-working right. the other thing we learned came by way of a piece by the associated press this year which found owners of nuclear power plants are asking to keep their 40-year-old plants around for up to a century. these plants are getting old. when president obama makes his speech next month about how the country can take action now to create jobs, maybe this time he can get really granular about his plan, really specific, instead of saying we need to get investing in our nation s future
well, the officials are downplaying it saying that they know it exists, but they have protected the hazardous and radioactive materials and they have brought special monitoring teams in to make sure that everything is okay, and at this point, they say that even though a spot fire broke out on the grounds yesterday and was quickly put out, that everything is protected at this point. again, resources arriving from all over the country, but they have a long and uphill battle ahead of them. tamron, back to you. and they are also concerned in nebraska where the floodwaters are threat en threatening nuclear plants in that state. there are 100 active power plants in the u.s. and the two plants lie along the missouri river near the iowa border and water is encroaching on the southern plant which is the cooper nuclear station that you see at the bottom of the screen. meanwhile, the fort calhoun plant near omaha is surrounded by water and essentially an island and officials say that
the nuclear regulatory commission discovered the error in an inspection two years ago, and the plant has been upgraded since under the not so old old protection. the system calculated that the pumping plant had a 97.5% chance of react protecting the reacting core from a catastrophic flood, which is almost good enough. the fort calhoun nuclear power plant is now two feet below the level of the missouri river where the plant is required to shut down. the river is at about 1,006 feet above sea level. the water got above 1,014 feet. they say it would knock out the backup genlateors and at some point it would come over the specific berm that protects the casks of spent nuclear fuel. again, don t worry. the plant operators tell the omaha paper that these 88 ton casks, these radioactive bohemoths are anchored. they won t float away. at least there s that. for now everything is fine, if