More than 60 sirens surround North Anna Power Station, but residents say they aren't loud enough to be heard inside homes. FILE/SUZANNE CARR ROSSI/THE FREE LANCE-STAR View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

desiring the sirens' call Nuclear plant warnings too quiet, residents say

Some residents around North Anna Power Station say they can't hear emergency sirens well enough

Date published: 2/15/2006

By RUSTY DENNEN

At approximately 11:10 this morning, the emergency warning sirens surrounding North Anna Power Station will sound for three minutes.

Four times a year, the 67 sirens scattered throughout a 10-mile radius of the Louisa County nuclear power plant are tested in case of the unthinkable--a serious accident or release of radioactivity.

Many people living in the emergency zone will definitely hear the sirens. But others, such as Linda Salisbury and some of her neighbors, are worried they may not if there's a real emergency.

Salisbury and her husband moved to Tall Pines subdivision in Louisa in June 2004. She was not home during the first few tests.

But during the June 2005 test, she sat on her front porch, about a mile from the plant.

"I could only barely hear the sirens outside, and not at all inside, where we would be much of the time," she said in a recent interview. She asked around, finding that most of her neighbors also could not hear them.

Salisbury contacted Dominion Virginia Power and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and was surprised to learn that the sirens are designed to be heard within about a mile of each horn, but not inside dwellings. Sirens are located in portions of Caroline, Hanover, Louisa and Spotsylvania counties.

"If the sirens are not designed to be heard inside a house, how are we supposed to know" if there's a problem, she said. The plant's emergency notification system, which is approved by the NRC and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, dictates that in areas more than a mile from any siren, local sheriff's deputies would be dispatched to warn them, using their cruisers' loudspeakers.

"How realistic is that?" Salisbury said. "They've all been nice, and we've gotten answers. On paper, it looks good, but it doesn't sound very practical."

She added, "We're not anti-nuclear. We knew the power plant was here. It's not an issue of us moving in and saying, 'Don't do this.'"

Salisbury said she was troubled to learn that there are gaps in siren coverage within the 10-mile zone because there are many new residents and the Lake Anna area is quickly developing. The popular lake was created in 1972 to cool reactors. Units 1 and 2 went online in 1978 and 1980.

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Date published: 2/15/2006