Nuclear Energy Insight
Fall 2012—The waters of the Cedar River and its tributaries rose alarmingly throughout the spring of 2008. Heavy snow from the previous winter melted away and Iowa farmers had not yet planted their crops, a potential bulwark against excess drainage into the river. Chances for a major flood passed from a possibility to a certainty.
That June, the river overflowed its banks, flooding Cedar Rapids and much of the rest of Linn and Benton counties. Emergency workers expected a flood seen only once in 100 years, cresting at about 20 feet. That would be bad enough. But the water that inundated the area exceeded a 500-year flood, cresting at more than 31 feet, the highest seen in modern times.
Local emergency officials implemented a well-developed strategy to evacuate as many people as possible, to get them out of harm’s way if they could, and ensure assistance to those whose homes and businesses were inundated by floodwaters.
A local nuclear energy facility has been recognized for its role in the response.
NextEra Energy’s Duane Arnold Energy Center is only 10 miles from downtown Cedar Rapids, but it stands on high ground and experienced no damage from the floods.
“Duane Arnold responded in the same way we would in a radiological emergency. We sent a representative to each site in each county. We also have emergency coordinators in those counties who also responded,” Mike Davis, the facility’s emergency planning manager, said.
But Duane Arnold did more, both directly and indirectly. A recent study in disaster resilience issued by the National Academy of Sciences pointed to an essential connection between the nuclear energy facility and Linn and Benton County emergency management services.
Because the Duane Arnold facility is located there, personnel from the plant and the two counties, along with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, have a well-developed radiological emergency response plan. Emergency responders drill on the plan frequently to ensure it works if needed.
NextEra Energy designs and conducts the exercises four times a year. Emergency planning experts at the facility develop accident scenarios and use a full-scale plant simulator to provide realistic meteorological and radiologic information to set the parameters.
Emergency workers take their places in the Emergency Operations Center and in the field and respond to the imaginary accident, while plant and county officials measure their performance.
In addition, every other year, FEMA tests the Linn and Benton County emergency personnel while the NRC measures the effectiveness of Duane Arnold’s emergency preparedness and safety operations.
In the unlikely event that a nuclear facility releases radiation, the resulting emergency response would be focused essentially as the wind blows. Protective actions would be recommended for areas according to wind direction. The flood, meanwhile, affected populations across and beyond the Linn County area. Almost everyone along the river’s path had to evacuate, some indefinitely.
“One of the unique aspects of the Duane Arnold plan,” said Davis, “is that the 10-mile emergency planning zone we are federally required to accommodate divides the city of Cedar Rapids, but our organization expanded our plan to include the entire Cedar Rapids metropolitan area.”
The key, though, was not the radiological emergency response plan.
What made the difference was the frequency of the drills, which helped the community prepare to respond to any emergency.
“When it became clear the river would flood, the activation of the emergency operation center went out, and it was the same activation that we use for the radiological plan. All the same players were called because they also man our radiological plan,” Linn County Emergency Management Director Mike Goldberg said. “They sat at their tables, their phones were ready, their traffic and access control maps were up and they knew what to do—because of the radiological plan.”
“Without the opportunities and motivation to train together, some counties have trouble pulling in agencies to work their exercises,” Goldberg added.
“They’ll have an exercise on the weekend and try to get representatives from the police, fire department to participate, but they have more of a challenge to get them to come in.
“We have 60 to 65 people come in to the EOC. They’re very eager to do it.”
The outcome? The radiological emergency plan and the community partnerships it helped develop “played a large role in the fact that now lives were lost to a different hazard that evolved into a disaster during the flooding in 2008,” NAS said. “No lives were lost.”
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