Twenty-five years ago, after terrorists flew airplanes into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Virginia, then-Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham ordered all Department of Energy facilities be placed in high security status.
“All non-essential DOE personnel are evacuated and sent home,” according to a DOE webpage on Sept. 11, 2001.
As for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) it immediately notified all its nuclear license holders and activated its 24-hour emergency operations center, according to an Internet search. In the months and years that followed, NRC took a variety of steps designed to better safeguard U.S. nuclear plants.
“All shipments of nuclear materials are halted; nuclear operations around the country are stopped; and nuclear material is secured,” the DOE website goes on to say. “America’s energy infrastructure is monitored, and security at nuclear plants, refineries, pipelines, distribution points, and along the electricity transmission grid is heightened.”
During the weeks following the attacks in which nearly 3,000 Americans died, DOE sent “equipment, emergency medical technicians and other assistance in support of rescue efforts.”
DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., sent Fire Department members, trained in confined-space rescue, to New York City, according to the website. Other DOE staff would help in the search for survivors by “using Ground Penetrating Radar” and other advanced technology for the time.