The State provided the following information via email:
On the morning of November 23, 2005 at 11:10 am, [the] Radiation Safety Officer for S&ME, Inc. of Pelham, Alabama notified the [State] that their 2003 Ford F-150 truck with a CPN model MC-3 moisture density gauge was stolen in the Lakeshore Drive area of Birmingham, Alabama. S&ME, Inc. is authorized to possess and use radioactive material under their Alabama Radioactive Material License No.1273. The event had occurred less than one hour from [the licensee's notification] call and the Birmingham Police Department had been notified and were in route. The stolen gauge was identified as a CPN model MC-3, serial number M300405612, with 10 millicuries of Cs-137 (sealed source serial number 1148GC), and 50 millicuries of Am-241:Be (sealed source serial number 7139NE). [The licensee] indicated that the gauge transport case was chained to the bed of the pickup. [The licensee] indicated that the truck contained other valuable equipment including a cement mixer. [The licensee] is presently in route to the site of the event. This is all the information that [the State] has at this time.
Sources that are "Less than
IAEA Category 3 sources," are either sources that are very unlikely to cause permanent injury to individuals or contain a very small amount of radioactive material that would not cause any permanent injury. Some of these sources, such as
moisture density gauges or thickness
gauges that are Category 4, the amount of unshielded radioactive material, if not safely managed or securely protected, could possibly - although it is unlikely - temporarily injure someone who handled it or were otherwise in contact with it, or who were close to it for a period of many weeks.