The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is closing its gates to all nonessential personnel on Monday due to the potential impacts of Hurricane Irma, according to a site updated released on Saturday.
The site will allow essential personnel to report to work Monday morning. Employees should call (803) 725-SITE, visit srs.gov, or check the site’s social media pages for updates and schedule changes.
The Savannah River Site is located near Aiken, S.C. and Augusta, Ga. That area could experience wind gusts in the upper 60 miles per hour and low 70 miles per hour early next week, according to weather reports. Other potential impacts include power outages and downed trees, the latter being critical to SRS since the site is purposefully entrenched in a wooded area.
Saturday’s announcement comes after the site began preliminary safety actions last week to brace for Hurricane Irma. Spokesman Monte Volk said via email Friday that officials had already begun organizing site resources and coordinating with state and local emergency officials. “All critical SRS site operations will be maintained at safe levels during the hurricane,” Volk wrote. “Response equipment and fuel is staged in critical areas on site and available for response activities.”
Volk, in a similar statement to Business Insider, emphasized the safety of the roughly 35 million gallons of Cold War-era radioactive waste held at Savannah River.
“Department of Energy nuclear facilities are robust structures, systems and components with multiple layers of safety designed and built into them,” he wrote. “Federal regulations require these facilities be able to withstand extreme natural events including hurricanes and floods.”
SRS has found itself in similar situations. The facility suffered light damage in October 2016 when Hurricane Matthew brought inclement weather to the area. Impacts were limited to about 80 downed trees and some leaky roofs on noncritical facilities. In response to the potential damages of Hurricane Matthew, the site closed its gates to all nonessential personnel on one day, leaving about 340 workers to maintain safety and security. All told, the site employs roughly 11,000 workers.
Separately,the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as of Sunday morning had begun operation at an incident response center in Atlanta. One of two reactors at the Turkey Point nuclear power plant near Homestead, Fla., was taken offline, while the St. Lucie facility was expected to stay open, the regulator said.
