Semantic search

On December 15, 2005, at 0930 hours, it was determined that approximately 17 of 65 Oconee Nuclear Station emergency sirens, located in Pickens and Oconee Counties, failed to send a feedback signal when checked. It is postulated that these sirens are inoperable due to a loss of power attributed to severe icing conditions currently being experienced in both counties. At the time of discovery, current weather conditions were a steady light rain with a temperature of 33 degrees F. Duke is currently attempting to restore power to the affected sirens but does not expect to have all of the inoperable sirens back in service until later in the day. During the loss of siren period, a compensatory means of notifying the public has been put into place to include routing of local law enforcement personnel to the affected areas for public notification should an emergency occur at the station. Because more than 25% of the sirens were unavailable as a result of this event, this event constitutes a major loss of notification capability; consequently, this event is reported as an eight -hour notification in accordance with 10CFR50.72(b)(3)(xiii) reporting criteria. The licensee notified the NRC Resident Inspector and applicable station personnel. Initial Safety Significance: None. Compensatory measures have been put into place to ensure that the members of the public located in the affected areas are appropriately notified by local law enforcement personnel. All three Oconee units remain operable in Mode 1 (100 percent Power) and are unaffected by this condition. Corrective Action(s): Duke will attempt to have all of the inoperable sirens restored as soon as possible and will maintain the compensatory action in-place until full restoration has been completed.

• * * UPDATE ON 12/16/05 AT 1620 FROM JOHN COLLINS TO JOE O'HARA* * *

On December 15, 2005, at 0930 hours, it was determined that approximately 17 of 65 Oconee Nuclear Station emergency sirens, located in Pickens and Oconee Counties, failed to send a feedback signal when checked. It is postulated that these sirens are inoperable due to a loss of power attributed to severe icing conditions currently being experienced in both counties. At the time of discovery, current weather conditions were a steady light rain with a temperature of 33 degrees F. Throughout the day and night of December 15th, additional sirens were lost. A maximum number of 40 sirens were eventually lost. On December 16th, 2005, at 0815 Emergency Planning contacted Oconee and Pickens County to assess the siren outage due to ice storm on 12-15-05 and the results of the assessment were that Pickens County still had 17 sirens out of service and Oconee County still had 9 sirens out of service due to the ice storm. The ONS resident NRC inspector was notified this morning at 0818 of the siren issue and all of his questions and concerns were answered. Duke Power Company Community Affairs was also notified. On December 16th, 2005, at 1509, Emergency Planning contacted Oconee and Pickens County. The results were that Pickens County still has 11 sirens out of service and Oconee County still has 2 sirens out of service due to the ice storm. This reduces the total number of sirens out of service to less than the threshold considered a major loss of offsite response capability per the 10CFR 50.72 notification requirements. Duke is currently attempting to restore power to all the affected sirens. Power is expected to be restored to the entire service area by Sunday. During the loss of siren period, a compensatory means of notifying the public was put into place to include routing of local law enforcement personnel to the affected areas for public notification should an emergency occur at the station. Initial Safety Significance: 12-16-05, Safety Significance has not changed. None. Compensatory measures have been put into place to ensure that the members of the public located in the affected service areas are appropriately notified by local law enforcement personnel. All three Oconee units remain operable in Mode 1 (100 percent power) and are unaffected by this condition. Corrective Action(s): Duke will attempt to have all the inoperable sirens restored as soon as possible and will maintain the compensatory action in-place until full restoration has been completed. The R2DO(Decker) had been notified.

• • • • • UPDATE ON 12/20/05 AT 1610 EST FROM RANDY TODD TO MACKINNON ******

This update (December 20, 2005) is to report that all sirens have now been returned to service and tested. Duke has completed repairs to restore and test all sirens. Full restoration has been completed. R2DO (Paul Fredrickson) notified. NRC Resident Inspector will be notified of this update by the licensee.