Tornado Cuts Power to Surry Nuclear Plant

By WYDaily Staff Sunday, April 17, 2011

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff is monitoring the situation at the Surry nuclear power plant after the site lost offsite power early Saturday evening due to a tornado affecting an electrical switchyard next to the plant.

The NRC is monitoring the event through the NRC resident inspectors at the site and in the Atlanta regional office. The plant is operated by Dominion.

The two units at the Surry plant automatically shut down after losing offsite power. Four of the plant’s diesel generators started to power the units’ emergency loads, an NRC spokesman said in a press release. Plant operators have partially restored offsite power to both plants, and safety systems have operated as needed.

Dominion notified the NRC of the situation soon after it happened and the agency dispatched its resident inspectors to the Surry plant site as well as staffed its incident response center in Atlanta. Dominion declared an "unusual event," the lowest of the four NRC emergency classification levels, around 7 p.m. Saturday.