N.J. nuclear plants brace for oncoming storm, rising waters

[proverbialwisdom]

Source: By Eliot Caroom/The Star-Ledger

October 27, 2012 at 2:17 PM, updated October 27, 2012 at 2:56 PM

New Jersey's nuclear plants are bracing for Sandy today, federal regulators and officials for PSEG Nuclear and Exelon said.

"We'll have to see where it goes, but it looks like it's going to have a pretty good hit on New Jersey," Sheehan said today.

Sheehan said that federal inspectors with satellite phones will be stationed at the plants through the storm.

"These plants have to be able to withstand all sorts of natural phenomena: earthquakes, severe flooding, tropical storms, lightning storms, tornadoes. They need to be able to deal with all of that," said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

"We like to say they're very robust structures, they can deal with a lot of punishment, but at the same time they have procedures in place to guide them through this."

Oyster Creek, located in Lacey Township in Ocean County, is shut down for a refueling outage, the plant's owner, Exelon said in a statement. The company has a storm response team working on protecting the plant and its workers.

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