they are filledith water, which fort calhoun has plenty of, but over the weekend workers moving sand on the dry side of the aqua dams, on the inside they brushed up against one of them. that s the way fort calhoun explained it. the workers brushed up an aqua dam with some of the heavy equipment they were using and they punctured the aqua dam, and it collapsed. that allowed water from the flooded missouri river to reach the building that houses the nuclear plant s turbines where the electricity is generated as well as its transformers, where electricity feeds into the plant to power the cooling pumps that keep nuclear power plants plumbing along instead of melting down. so the reassuring, if also slightly worrying news last week, that the aqua dams were holding back the water, that the plant was still an island, that was true last week, and then that changed on sunday at around 1:00 in the morning local time. the word from officials at the fort calhoun nuclear power plant on the banks o
recent controversy over u.s. guidelines that suggested that younger women did not need regular screening. 120 americans live within 150 miles of america s 104 nuclear power plants. the united states requires only evacuating a ten mile radius should plants endanger the health of nearby populations this is contradictory to what top nuclear officials told americans living near japan s fukushima plant to evacuate a 50-mile radius. here at home let s say at new york s indian point nuclear plant would mean moving 17 million people, that s 6% of the country s population. and along narrow roads. all of these issues have come into question as rising floodwaters in nebraska are threatening two nuclear plants there. we go to the fort calhoun plant in blair, nebraska, with the latest. what is happening with the flooding and the assurances from local officials that the radiation stored there and the
and melting down. the plant stayed unplugged for about an hour and a half while workers inspected the backup diesel pumps and then the regular pumps came back on. this thing with nuclear power plants staying on the grid matters a lot. in japan this year they first had an earthquake that caused a tsunami, but it was when the tsunami knocked out electricity at fukushima nuclear power plant that the world knew fukushima was really in trouble. without electricity fukushima could not keep its spent nuclear excuse me could not keep its reactors or its spent nuclear fuel cool. the japanese government now says that three of the reactors may have suffered not just meltdowns, but melt-throughs. melt through the internal super strong containment vessel. that is a real nuclear nightm e nightmare. wucht things we are learning as this scary situation drag on in nebraska is that fort calhoun, which was built in 1973, fort calhoun was built partly on the basis of a mistake.
occasionally wet at fort calhoun, we are told, but with forecasts calling for a rainy summer, fort calhoun and its aqua dams and its concrete berms will need to keep holding out in the biggest test of a nuclear plant in the united states to the threat of flooding, and it will need to keep holding out against that threat for months. hi. hi. you know, i can save you 15% today if you open up a charge-card account with us. you just read my mind. [ male announcer ] just one little piece of information, and they can open bogus accounts. stealing your credit, your money and ruining your reputation. that s why you need lifelock. lifelock is the leader in identity theft protection. relentlessly protecting your personal information to help stop the crooks in their tracks before your identity is attacked. protecting your social security number, your bank accounts, even the equity in your home. i didn t know how serious identity theft was. until i lost my credit and eventually i lost my home.
of the missouri river is still the same. don t worry. everything is fine. those aqua dams were not keep to the plant s safety. the plant was not required to have them. they were extra, which as it turns out was a good thing since the omaha world herald reports when water from the missouri river got past them after they were punctured, it got through the next level of defense, which was a cement barrier around the main electrical transformer.รง two feet of the missouri river broke through those defenses to the transformer building, so the fort calhoun plant disconnected from the power grid and they used backup diesel power to cool the plant while they pumped out the water and fixed the leaky barriers. the plant spokesman said disconnecting from the power grid, quote, gave us time to ascertain that all was fine. all was fine. all is fine. nobody freaking out here. this is not fort calhoun s first time to go off the grid. it s not even the first time this calendar month. on june 7th befo