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Traffic Jam From Hell

Studies show county nuclear evacuation plan is fraught with problems

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Another big part of the problem with this type of stampede is that in a nuclear evacuation, those directing traffic may need to quickly change the direction in which it is headed.

"It is very likely that wind shifts will occur and take the plume of radiation in a variety of different directions," said Gunter. "Once you get people going, it will be very difficult to stop them or change their direction, particularly when you have people spontaneously evacuating and using other routes that could very well complicate a dedicated evacuation route."

Over the next few months, plans for distribution of potassium iodide pills by the county's public health bioterrorism team will be announced. But even county Homeland Security Director Wynn Mabry cautions that while the pills can help mitigate the effects of some radiation exposure, they will be useless to prevent many others. "We don't want citizens to think this is the magic radiation pill and they don't have to evacuate," said Mabry.

With A Little Education. . .It's hard to say who's to blame for the state of nuclear evacuation planning in the United States. Before September 11, the possibility of an attack on a nuclear plant seemed remote, the chance of a major catastrophic meltdown even more so. Unintentional nuclear accidents caused by equipment failure just don't happen enough in this country, or throughout the world, for nuclear evacuation planning to have been given serious attention.

In the meantime, municipalities like those in Mecklenburg County packed development into their nuclear escape routes with no thought given to what might happen if those routes ever had to be used. In fact, Crescent Resources -- Duke Energy's development arm -- has made millions of dollars developing land directly around the reactor, building thousands of homes in sprawling, upscale subdivisions, many of which are only accessible by two-lane roads.

Now, in the post-9/11 era, communities like those around the Indian Point reactor are demanding realistic evacuation planning that includes a 50-mile radius around the plant, and a vocal minority is demanding that the plant be shut down completely.

But unlike Indian Point officials, local emergency coordinators like Mabry say they have no intention of radically changing our nuclear evacuation plans.

"We're building on plans that exist," he said. "We are not trying to reinvent the wheel."

Short of a shutdown, given the state of traffic congestion and our local roads, there likely is little emergency planners could do to seriously improve their plans. But what can be improved is public education.

As it currently stands, federal utility regulators don't require utility companies to undertake any informational campaign beyond the 10-mile planning zone, even though it's an area where spontaneous evacuation is projected to be a problem and where contamination by radiation would still be a very real threat. Even within the 10-mile zone, it seems unlikely that little-read and skeptically received flyers and other information about what to do in a nuclear disaster are going to change longstanding fears of nuclear radiation.

Because FEMA isn't required to assess the impact of this information on how much the public knows or understands about nuclear emergency procedures, no one really knows exactly how the people in any given community would react to a nuclear disaster.

But, say Ziegler and others who have studied the issue, thoughtful, consistent public information campaigns that emphasize the importance of everyone's cooperation during an evacuation could help change that.

In the meantime, local emergency planners continue to do what they can to improve the emergency evacuation process for all types of disasters. Broome says local officials are currently working on a Geographic Information System-based data layering program that would help emergency planners quickly identify the location by latitude and longitude of schools, rest homes, daycares and other places that hold special populations, so they can be better targeted by air during an emergency. And though the general public doesn't participate, emergency planners practice emergency evacuation procedures every year.

"You are looking at one point in a 20-plus-year planning process that is refined as circumstances change and new laws come into effect," said Broome. "Our plan is better than it was 20 years ago."