Hanford Washington, Nuclear Emergency ongoing.

Hanford washington has a weapons plant in which I believe they are in the process of a very long procedure to make safe. We built something like 70,000 nuclear warheads there in our entire Cold War decades from around 1948 on.

Here is the link to a very good article related to the ongoing Nuclear Emergency up there. For those of you with no security on your computers, I discourage visiting ZH. Because you are going to be buried in ads that are sometimes NSFW. I use firefox and a number of blocks until all I see on ZH is simply a black and white page with just text and a few pictures. No ads.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-...uclear-facility-washington-evacuation-ordered

For those of you unwilling to visit ZH, I migrated the entire article over in two parts. The first is a post of the actual article. The second contains links to the sources of pictures. I can tell you now that I never visited any of those links. SO do so at your own risk.

Edit, I disposed of the links and over half the pictures an ZH article. It's about 20,000 characters, twice the 10K limit for this forum.


Published on Zero Hedge (http://www.zerohedge.com)


Home > "Serious Situation" After Tunnel Collapse At WA Nuclear Facility; Evacuation Ordered, No-Fly Zone In Place
"Serious Situation" After Tunnel Collapse At WA Nuclear Facility; Evacuation Ordered, No-Fly Zone In Place
By Tyler Durden
Created 05/09/2017 - 12:38
[1]
by Tyler Durden [1]
May 9, 2017 12:38 PM
Twitter Facebook Reddit [2] [3]
Update 5: The Spokane Spokesman-Review reports [4]that Gov. Jay Inslee was notified about the tunnel breach by the Energy Department and the White House on Tuesday morning. Inslee called the event “a serious situation.” “Federal, state and local officials are coordinating closely on the response,” Inslee said, said, with the state Ecology Department in close communication with the Energy Department. There were no plans for Inslee, who is making several previously planned stops in Skamania County on Tuesday, to go to Hanford, his staff said.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry had been briefed, federal officials said, adding that “everyone has been accounted for and there is no initial indication of any worker exposure or an airborne radiological release.”

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., released a statement as well: “Worker safety must be our number one priority, and we need to understand whether there has been any environmental contamination resulting from the subsidence at these tunnels. My thoughts are with the first responders who are working to assess the situation on the ground, monitor any environmental impacts and design next steps for securing the area.”

Update 4: Washington Emergency Management has released a map showing the distances from the incident to various neighborhoods... non-essential employees in 200 East Area have been released. Swing shift north of the WYE Barricade is cancelled.

[5]



Update 3: Images of the hole in the roof of the tunnel have been released...



Update 2: An aerial survey midmorning Tuesday showed an opening about 20 feet by 20 feet into the tunnel, which had been covered with about eight feet of soil. As Tri-CityHerald.com reports [11] , the breach could expose the highly radioactive material disposed of in the tunnel to the atmosphere.

No airborne radiation had been detected as of about 10:30 a.m. Radiological surveys were continuing.



Instructions for people to shelter in place were expanded from central Hanford to all of Hanford, including LIGO and the reactor areas along the Columbia River, after the aerial survey. No one is being allowed to enter the site beyond the security barricades.



Earlier in the morning workers near Purex had noticed a 4-foot-by-4-foot depression that was 2 to 4 feet deep over the tunnel.



Workers in Purex were evacuated when the depression was noticed.



About 3,000 workers in central Hanford initially were told to take shelter indoors, including about 1,000 workers at the vitrification plant construction site. Ventilation systems at the vit plant have been turned off as part of the emergency procedure and equipment that could generate heat have powered down.

The DOE announced that secretary Perry is aware of the incident and that there is no initial indication of any worker exposure or an airborne radiological release.

Meanwhile, Private pilots in the area have been told to avoid flying over Hanford. The Hanford Patrol is working with the Federal Aviation Administration to put a formal air restriction in place until the FAA can confirm there is no danger.