Winter Weather Worsens, Whacks Los Alamos, Too

Amid worsening winter weather in the western U.S., the Los Alamos National Laboratory called for a delayed opening on Tuesday after sending personnel home early on Monday. 

Likewise, the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, ordered non-essential workers on two of three shifts to stay home on Tuesday, and told anyone who could telework to do so. Pantex support services contractors are allowed on site amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but people who don’t have to be inside the fence to do their jobs are still encouraged to work online.

At Los Alamos, anybody who has to work on-site should report to the lab between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. Mountain time, according to a notice the northern New Mexico lab posted online. Los Alamos sent personnel home at 1 p.m. local time yesterday, citing bad weather.

Further east, similar wintery conditions have prompted the Pantex Plant to cancel the first and second shifts of Tuesday for workers not involved directly with essential nuclear weapons production. On Monday, Pantex turned what had been a late opening for non-essential first-shift employees into a snow day, citing icy conditions in the counties surrounding Amarillo, Texas. 

Elsewhere in the country, what yesterday was a Gulf Coast tropical storm is today a Gulf Coast Hurricane. The National Weather Service predicted Monday evening that Hurricane Zeta would make U.S. landfall in Louisiana on Wednesday and sweep northeast late in the week. The storm appeared likely to pass through South Carolina, but to the northwest of the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., according to National Weather Service predictions on Tuesday morning.