even if there isn t an earthquake the ground beneath the power stations geologically stable. this is no place for nuclear power plants they can t even clean up fukushima. i don t think anyone trust them when they say they can restart the power plant. in fact in 2007 a major earthquake triggered an emergency at. all the reactors had to be shut down the safety measures were insufficient and radioactivity leaked a fire started outside one reactor. tepco has yet to clarify the details of the fukushima accident i wonder how it s going to guarantee safety here they have already been several incidents during construction work for the restart the flood wall turned out to be unstable cables caught fire and radioactive water leaked inside one of the idle reactor buildings. in the city of kashi was arky opinions
a tsunami. additional struts to make the building more earthquake proof and filters to prevent radioactivity from escaping. what surprises me is that so many of these safety measures weren t there in the 1st place these floodwalls for example the reactor buildings are right next to the sea and the walls are supposed to withstand it s an army like the one in fukushima a fleet of diesel generator trucks stands ready on higher ground in case of power blackouts and the company s own fire trucks are there to put out places. but outside the nuclear plant not everyone in the surrounding towns is convinced of the power plant safety. i meet up with one of the few critics prepared to speak openly. to the.
talking b. this is the brunswick nuclear power plant just behind me. you see the long bru structure and the two coming out are the reactor buildings. this was built in the 1970s and has the same design as the fukushima power plant in japan that suffered damage after the 2011 tsunami and earthquake there. officials are telling us fukushima was right along the shoreline and this is four miles inland and 20 feet above mean sea level. it s about two to three miles from the cape fear river. this is an intake canal and they erected barriers and they are confident they can with stand this storm that is the pengt hurricane since the 1970s. that s the word from officials. what i want to do is introduce you to a item who used to work
25 years ago this month in august 1992, florida got hit by a category 5 hurricane, hurricane andrew. in addition to the immediate concern for human life and well being, there was also a lot of worry at the time about this place. this is called turkey point, florida s oldest nuclear power plant. and as the eye of that hurricane passed over the turkey point nuclear plant in 1992, some of the facilities around the reactor buildings took a beating, including stuff that was supposed to be hurricane-proof. within ten miles of the plant, within ten miles of turkey point, there were 41 warning sirens set up for the nuclear plant. of the 41, hurricane andrew blew down 36 of them. they left the plant running on backup generators for more than a week in order to keep the reactors and the fuel cool. debris from the storm blocked the access road to the plant. one of the 400-foot smokestacks
florida s oldest nuclear power plant. and as the eye of that hurricane passed over the turkey point nuclear plant in 1992, some of the facilities around the reactor buildings took a beating, including stuff that was supposed to be hurricane-proof. within ten miles of the plant, within ten miles of turkey point, there were 41 warning sirens set up for the nuclear plant. of the 41, hurricane andrew blew down 36 of them. they left the plant running on backup generators for more than a week in order to keep the reactors and the fuel cool. debris from the storm blocked the access road to the plant. one of the 400-foot smokestacks on that nuclear plant got cracked in half. it was supposed to be able to survive 235-mile-an-hour winds. you can actually see the crack there. and that crack was very worrisome because if that smokestack had fallen, it could have hit the crucial emergency diesel generators that were keeping the plant cool.