A Louisiana nuclear power plant that shut down as Hurricane Ida passed through has site power back online, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said this week.
Waterford Nuclear Generating Station, located about 25 miles from New Orleans, got its offsite electrical power back Tuesday evening, NRC said in a statement published Wednesday morning on Facebook.
The plant Wednesday morning lifted its ‘unusual event’ condition, the lowest level of nuclear emergency which it declared Sunday when it first lost power, NRC said. The agency said in a Monday statement that Waterford “responded as designed, maintaining safe shutdown conditions with power from emergency diesel generators.”
Waterford’s single reactor wasn’t running when it lost power — the plant “shut down protectively” on Sunday in anticipation of hurricane conditions, NRC said. At deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor the plant wasn’t generating power.
Like most nuclear power plants, Waterford stores its spent fuel inventory on site. A spokesperson for Entergy, which owns the plant, didn’t respond by deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor to requests for comment on how much spent fuel is stored onsite.
NRC also said Wednesday that River Bend Nuclear Generating Station, located 30 miles north of Baton Rouge, La., experienced “no significant impact” from Ida. The plant had been operating at 35% power since Sunday evening due to “load demands.” Mississippi’s Grand Gulf nuclear station also didn’t have any weather-related issues, the agency said.
A spokesperson for NRC Monday afternoon directed RadWaste Monitor to the agency’s Facebook post when asked for comment via email, and said that further updates would be posted there as well.
Hurricane Ida made landfall on the Louisiana coast early Monday morning, bringing 45 mile-per-hour winds, according to the National Weather Service. The storm has forged its way northeast throughout the week, causing severe flooding across the Eastern seaboard.
