After winter weather crippled many parts of Texas’ electricity grid, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear weapons maintenance hub near Amarillo, Texas, decided to keep some personnel home during the first three days of this week.
“In order to reduce energy consumption during the unprecedented winter storm impacting the Amarillo area, Pantex cancelled day, swing, and graveyard shifts Feb. 15, 16, and 17,” a spokesperson for the plant’s Bechtel National-led prime contractor, Consolidated Nuclear Security, wrote Wednesday in an email to Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. “Plant operations are safe and secure while the Plant implements measures to decrease energy use, maintain utilities, and conduct essential activities.”
Essential nuclear weapons work continued, said the spokesperson, who categorized the cancellation of shifts as more like a snow day, in which people involved with hands-on nuclear weapons jobs are still required to come to work.
The Pantex Plant and the greater Amarillo area were still grappling with sub-zero temperatures at deadline for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing.
